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Preparing an InterviewHow a Case Reaches the Supreme Court Thirty-five years after the Supreme Court decided on the case of Brown v. Board of Education, an educational radio station is preparing a documentry series on the history of desegregation. As a reporter whose job it is to cover the Brown case you would like to interview Linda Brown, now 47, to recall the different stages of the case, her personal experiences in the years 1950-54 and the effects the Court's final decision has had on her life. Prepare the questions for the interview.
part A Background Information
AGAINST MINORITIES THE BLACKS Americans cherish the picture of their country as a land of wealth and opportunity. Yet many groups wanting to share in the nation's overall prosperity have experienced how scarce opportunities can be in the competition for income and status. Discrimination because of color, culture, and age, for example, has kept many Americans from sharing equal protections and prospects in American society. The 1960s was a decade of turbulence and social change. Blacks and other minorities became politically active, bringing their protests to the streets and courts all over the country. In response to minority demands, many new laws were passed to outlaw and compensate for inequalities. However, laws alone cannot eliminate discrimination. Attitudes change slowly. For example, despite the existence of laws that prohibit housing discrimination, many people still refuse to rent to blacks and Hispanics. Minority demands are sure to continue, and new solutions will be essential as the composition of American society continues to change rapidly. Hispanics and the elderly will account for an increasingly larger share of the population, and society will have to make adjustments to these changing demographics. For America's blacks, the struggle for equal rights has been long and often bitterly opposed. When the Founding Fathers asserted in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal" and possess inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, women and blacks were excluded. Not until after the Civil War ended in 1865 did blacks begin to share in the most basic rights of citizenship. Three Constitutional amendments were passed and ratified between 1865 and 1870. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment gave blacks the rights of citizenship, and Founding Father: see page 25. Declaration of Independence: see page 31. Civil War: see page 44. Constitution of the United States: see page 97. Thirteenth Amendment: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Fourteenth Amendment: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." MINORITIES 113
CIVIL RIGHTS LEGISLATION AFFIRMATIVE ACTION the Fifteenth Amendment gave them the right to vote. Despite these Constitutional provisions, Southern whites found ways to circumvent the intention of the amendments. Racial prejudice was rationalized and institutionalized in the South. Until the modern civil rights movement, which began in the 1950s, blacks were denied access to public places such as restaurants, hotels, theaters, and schools. There were separate facilities marked "colored only" for blacks, and this practice of racial segregation was sanctioned by the courts. In 1896 the Supreme Court had ruled that racial segregation was legal as long as "separate but equal" facilities were provided. The landmark case Brown v. the Board of Education in 1954 was the first successful challenge to legalized segregation of blacks and whites. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that maintaining separate but equal schools for blacks and whites was unconstitutional because separate schools can never provide the same educational opportunities. With goals which included desegregation, fair housing, equal employment opportunities, and fair voting laws, the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s had the momentum of a social revolution. Until his assassination in 1968, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, provided leadership and strategy for the mass movement. He supported nonviolent tactics such as "sit-ins" at restaurants which segregated the races. Some radical black leaders later advocated violent revolution as the way blacks could finally take control of the economic and political aspects of their lives. The civil rights movement was a success in the areas of voting rights and public accommodations and facilities. In 1957 Congress passed the first civil rights legislation in eighty years. The legislation focused on protecting the voting rights of blacks, but additional legislation was found to be necessary. In 1963, Congress passed a constitutional amendment prohibiting the use of a poll tax in federal elections. Civil rights legislation was again passed in 1964, making it illegal to administer voting laws in a discriminatory manner. This act was significant in other ways. It prohibited discrimination in public accommodations such as restaurants and hotels and also outlawed job discrimination by employers and unions. The 1965 Voting Rights Act abolished literacy tests, which had been used to deny blacks the right to vote. In accordance with this legislation, federal examiners are still appointed in many communities to ensure that proper voter registration and election procedures are followed. As a result of these new laws, voter registration among blacks has increased, although the percentage is still well below the comparable figure for whites. Black political power has also grown: more and more blacks are being elected to public office. In areas such as housing and employment, new legislation was passed in the 1960s to prohibit discrimination. Many of these laws were controversial and have been difficult to enforce. Despite fair housing laws, blacks and other Fifteenth Amendment: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Supreme Court: see page 97. Brown v. the Board of Education decision: Supreme Court decision of 1954 ruling that public schools could not be separated by race. King, Martin Luther Jr.: (1929-68) American Baptist minister and civil rights leader, awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, assassinated. 114 AMERICA IN CLOSE-UP
HISPANICS THE NATIVE AMERICANS minorities are often refused leases and contracts. In the area of employment, one way the government has tried to correct job discrimination is through affirmative action laws that require most employers to take positive steps to remedy the effect of past discrimination against minorities. The goal of affirmative action is to match the racial and sexual composition of the working place with the composition of society. Employers are encouraged to hire and promote blacks, women, and others who had been denied opportunities. Supporters of the policy insist that some form of preferential treatment must be used to break down the long-standing patterns of discrimination against minorities and women in the job market. Critics charge that it results in reverse discrimination against qualified white males. The inequality gap between blacks and whites has been closing, but 1985 Census Bureau statistics show that wide disparities remain in income and employment. The poverty rate for blacks is alarmingly high —31 percent compared with 11 percent for whites. The unemployment rate for black teens is more than 40 percent. Related to the problem of poverty is the breakdown of the urban black family. According to Census Bureau statistics, two-thirds of all black children are born to unmarried mothers. Violence is another part of the poverty cycle. A 1980 Public Health Reports study reveals that the leading cause of death among young black men is murder. While black men make up only 6 percent of the population, they account for half of the male prison population. The poverty and unemployment among America's urban blacks are reminders that inequalities have not been eliminated. While black Americans, numbering about 28 million, make up the largest ethnic minority, the estimated 14 to 20 million Hispanics represent not only the second largest but also the fastest growing ethnic minority in the nation. Among the legal Hispanic residents, 60 percent are of Mexican origin, and most of the rest are from Cuba or Puerto Rico. Mexican Americans now make up one-fifth of California's population and the same proportion of the population of Texas. In 25 major cities, Hispanics number more than 50,000. The increase of Hispanic immigration has had a dramatic impact on American society, particularly in the South and Southwest where the greatest settlement has occurred. Spanish has become a major language in many areas, and some cities are officially bilingual. Because many Hispanics hold onto their language and customs, questions are raised about how successfully they will assimilate into American culture. The cultural infusion is resented by some Americans who fear that the country's ethnic identity is at stake. Many people wish to restrict immigration quotas in order to preserve the cultural dominance of non-Hispanic whites, but the stream of illegal immigration across the Mexican border continues. Hispanics have faced a tradition of job discrimination and poverty in the United States. In the 1960s, Hispanic groups, inspired by the black civil rights movement, organized themselves to improve wages and working conditions, to institute bilingual education in schools, and to improve public services in Hispanic neighborhoods. Changes have occurred, but much remains to be done. The issues are of increasing importance as the Hispanic population may soon become the nation's largest ethnic minority if present birth rates continue. Toward the end of the 1960s, Native Americans also adopted the techniques of protest. Besides the problems of discrimination which they have shared with other minorities, the Native Americans were embittered by the United States government's long history of confusing policies. After the Native MINORITIES 115
THE DISABLED HOMOSEXUALS Americans were subdued by the U.S. army, the government policy toward them wavered inconsistently between encouraging assimilation and promoting tribal autonomy. In the 1960s the federal government encouraged the retention of tribal governments and cultural identity. By this time the Native American population was becoming increasingly urban. City life weakened tribal customs and bonds. Many urban Native Americans reacted against these conditions and began to take pride in their heritage, making Native American rights their prime political focus. The American Indian Movement (AIM) demanded reforms that would give political autonomy to Native American groups and recognize their special cultural needs. These efforts have brought a greater degree of sovereignty and increasingly favorable interpretation of Native American rights by the federal courts. Besides ethnic minorities, other fringe groups have voiced demands for recognition and equal rights. The elderly, the handicapped, and homosexuals are minorities that suffer from discrimination. Between 1960 and 1982, the number of people over age 65 grew twice as fast as the rest of the population. With the number of older Americans on the rise, the demands of the elderly are becoming harder to ignore. Activists have addressed the issues of job discrimination, retirement, and health care, and have sought to dispel distorted perceptions of the elderly as weak, senile, and helpless. In 1967, the Age Discrimination Act was passed to prohibit discrimination against people between the ages of 40 and 65. America's disabled are determined to cast off their image as second-class citizens. For years, disabled people were institutionalized or segregated and considered incapable of working and living as productive members of society. The courts and legislators responded to their demands by outlawing barriers to equal education and employment. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 required employers who receive federal aid or work on government contracts to hire qualified disabled persons. In addition, the act required that public schools admit disabled children and that colleges make their buildings accessible to the blind and those confined to wheelchairs. Equal rights for homosexuals has been a more controversial issue. Although many states have passed laws banning discrimination against homosexuals, 24 states have laws prohibiting certain kinds of sexual activity. Conservatives, fearing thaft, tolerance of homosexuality undermines the nation's morality, applauded the 1986 Supreme Court decision that upheld the states' authority to make laws against homosexual acts. The political setting for the civil rights movements of minorities was one of liberalism. During the 1960s and early 1970s, the Supreme Court frequently made decisions which favored minorities. Many of the Court's decisions were considered controversial because they disrupted traditional social patterns. The Court, liberal reformers, and student activists became targets of many middle-class Americans who resented what they regarded as the federal government's excessive protection of the "undeserving." This so-called "Silent Majority" of the middle class demonstrated its presence at the polls, voting against homosexual rights and many federal programs that benefited minorities. Conservatives have been gaining influence in the 1980s. President Reagan was elected to two terms by a conservative majority. The various groups which make up the conservative movement are united in their desire to conserve traditional values and social patterns. Consequently, minorities are experiencing a less favorable political climate. part â Texts I Am The Redman
Son of the forest, mountain and 1àêå What use have I of the asphalt What use have I of the brick and concrete What use have I of the automobile Think you these gifts divine That I should be humbly grateful. I am the Redman Son of the tree, hill and stream What use have I of china and crystal What use have I of diamonds and gold What use have I of money Think you these from heaven sent That I should be eager to accept. I am the Redman Son of the earth, water and sky What use have I of silk and velvet What use have I of nylon and plastic What use have I of your religion Think you these be holy and sacred That I should kneel in awe. I am the Redman I look at you White Brother And I ask you Save not me from sin and evil Save yourself. Duke Redbird Hopi elder at work in his fields My Lodge
Duke Redbird.
MINORITIES 117 SPECIAL REPORT
hey say you can't go home again. So when I returned to the Chicago housing projects where I grew up, it was with ambivalence. I was journeying back to my past, and I didn't know what I would find. It wasn't that I was afraid. I'd been back to the Robert Taylor Homes and Prairie Courts many times in the 20 years since I left in 1966. But this time I was returning as a reporter, to retrace my life and those of my friends. What had happened to us, to Half Man and Honk, Pee Wee and Billy, and what did it say about growing up black? Black men are six times as likely as white men to be murder victims. We are two and a half times as likely to be unemployed. We finish last in practically every socioeconomic measure from infant mortality to life expectancy. Through portraits of our lives together and apart, I thought, we might find some answers as to why black men in America seem almost an endangered species. No middle name:When I left Chicago for St. George's School in the fall of 1966, through an outreach program called A Better Chance, all 11 of us were still in school. And at the wide-eyed age of 14 and 15, we still had dreams. I wanted to be a writer. I read F. Scott Fitzgerald and dreamed of authoring my own novel. I even started signing my name S. Vest Monroe, a bit miffed that my mother had not given me a middle name. The dream gave me hope. And my mother convinced me that without an education the dream was impossible. Having to leave the safety and familiarity of home to get it was as difficult a decision as I've ever made. If it had been entirely up to me, I might never have gone to St. George's at all. I was happy at Wendell Phillips High, making straight A's, running on the track team, hanging out with a gang called Satan's Saints and discovering the wonders of women. Now I was being told that I could do better, much better, but it meant leaving home to attend an all-boys boarding school in Newport, R.I. It might as well have been the other side of the universe. Not only would I be away from my family and friends, there wouldn't be any girls and barely any other blacks. In fact, when I arrived at the front steps of St. George's on a damp September night in 1966, I was one of only five blacks enrolled at the 200-student Episcopal school. It 118 AMERICA IN CLOSE-UP
2. continued was culture shock on a mammoth scale. The first person I met was Gil Burnett, my first faculty adviser. He was nice enough, but something seemed to bother him. "Do you have other clothes?" he asked, scanning my wide-brimmed Dun-lop hat, dark glasses, Italian knit shirt, reversible-pleated baggy pants and brown and white Stacy-Adams wing tips. "Yeah," I said. "Just like this." The next day he took me in his Land-Rover to the Anderson-Little knitting mills in Fall River, Mass., bought me a blue blazer, two pairs of gray flannel slacks and a plain pair of black tie shoes. I was thankful for the new duds. They gave me the look of a preppy. But I still found myself wondering why I agreed to leave 39 th Street. The main reason I was there, I reminded myself, was to please my mother and Leroy Lovelace, the schoolteacher largely responsible for getting me the scholarship. And my mother had given me an out, or so I thought. She said to me at the outset that I would never forgive myself if I didn't at least go and see what it was like; I could always come home. Secretly, I resolved to stay at St. George's exactly two weeks, long enough to make a show of it, then head for Chicago. Sick call:After roughly two weeks, I had what I thought was a stroke of luck: I got sick — so sick, in fact, that I was admitted to the school infirmary. It was perfect. I'd call my mother, tell her what a godawful place boarding school was, and catch the first ride home. To make my pitch even stronger, I decided to find out exactly what was wrong with me. "Hey, Doc, what've I got, anyway?" I asked. "Oh, I think you're suffering from a really bad case of nostalgia," she said. I hadn't the foggiest notion what that meant, but it sounded pretty serious to me. Wonderful, I thought. There's no way Mom won't let me come home now. I went to the phone, already planning my return. "Hey, Ma," I began. "Hey, how you doin'?" "Not so good. I'm sick as a dog, Ma. This place is always cold, the food is terrible, and now I'm in the infirmary." "What's the matter with you?" "I can't keep anything down," I said. "The doctor says I've got a bad case of nostalgia. I think I ought to come home, OK?" "Sure, you can come home -but under one condition," she said. MINORITIES 119
"The only way you're coming home before you're supposed to is in a box." It was one of the hardest things she'd ever done, she confided years later. But she also knew she had to. It was three months before I got home again, for Christmas vacation, and somehow I managed to survive. I even found myself actually beginning to like the place and its teachers, who tempered no-nonsense classes with a touch of compassion. My own capacity for learning hadn't been stunted by life in the Taylor Homes. In some ways, in fact, I was on an equal footing with my wealthier classmates. I had that love and support, that sense of self-worth, that can only come from the family. And as my mother proved, it could happen whether there was one parent or two, a few kids or a houseful. Faint disquiet:Looking back on it, I was pleased to show what black boys were capable of. Yet, there was a faint disquiet. What bothered me was thatseai£_p£cjple ÃïïïÍ jf pasier tn prefenr] J ö/ÿ^ something_else. "We're colorblind here,"~~a well-meaning faculty member once told me. "We don't see black students or white students, we just see students." But black was what I was; I wasn't sure he saw me at all. Another St. George's teacher was surprised at my reaction when he implied that I should be grateful for the opportunity to attend St. George's, far away from a place like the Robert Taylors. How could I be, I snapped back, when my friends, my family, everyone that I cared most about, were still there? But you're different, he continued. That's why you got out. I'm not different, I insisted. I'm just lucky enough to have been in the right place at the right time. What the teacher failed to understand was that my background was not something to be ashamed of. As in the old James Brown song of the '60s, I wanted to "say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud!" One of the greatest frustrations of my three years at St. George's , was that people were always trying I to separate me from other black [people in a manner strangely reminiscent of a time when slave owners divided blacks into "good Negroes" and "bad Negroes." Somehow, attending St. George's made me a good Negro, in their eyes, while those left in Robert Taylor were bad Negroes or, at the very least, inferior ones. Ever since — through Harvard, through my 14-year career as a journalist — I have found myself looking over my shoulder on occasion. My mother had been right: having worked hard, I'd caught the break I needed to get out of the ghetto. But the men of my family were right, too: race is an inescapable burden for every black man. Though economic-class divi- sions are rapidly producing a nation of haves and have-nots, for blacks, race still tends to overshadow all else. It doesn't matter whether you are rich man, poor man, beggar or thief, if you are black, there's an artificial ceiling on your ambition. Many people still perceive blacks, especially black men, as less intelligent, less productive and generally more violent than the rest of society. I didn't have to go back to the Robert Taylor Homes to understand that. Recently, I waited 45 minutes one evening on Sixth Avenue in midtown Manhattan before a cab finally stopped for me. More than a dozen cabbies had passed me by for a "safer" white fare. It's the same in other cities, and it's not just cabdrivers. More than a few times, I've stepped into an elevator and noticed a woman clutch her purse a little tighter under her arm, or I've been walking on a deserted sidewalk with a black, male companion, when a white couple spots us and suddenly decides to cross the street. To be sized up, categorized and dismissed all within the space of a nervous glance solely on the basis of race is more than annoying; it's demeaning and damaging to the psyche of an entire people. Even among people of good will, race relations is old news, it seems — unless somebody gets killed. Sometimes I get the feeling people are thinking, "Why are there still Negroes?" . . .
outreach program "A Better Chance": a program providing disadvantaged students with better educational chances. Fitzgerald, F. Scott (1896-1940): American author of novels (e.g. The Great Gatsby, Tender Is the Night, This Side of Paradise) and short stories. to make straight A's: always get the best marks (A's) at school. Episcopal school: school run by the Protestant Episcopal Church, an American church, which before 1789 was associated with the Church of England. Stacy-Adams wing tips: shoes with perforated parts covering the toes and sides. Harvard: prestigious private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, founded in 1636 by John Harvard (1607-38), an English Puritan clergyman in America.
Ë one-family dwelling in Fresno. A small, well-kept garden is out front. "When I was a child growing up as a migrant worker, we would move from place to place. In between, I'd see homes with beautiful gardens, flowers. I always looked at those flowers and said: 'If I could only have my own house and have a garden.' We couldn't as migrant workers. Now, as you walk onto my porch, everything you see is green. (Laughs) I have a garden now." She has six grown children; the youngest is twenty-one. She is active in National Land for People. .. . She is fifty-nine. I and my mother, we were living with my grandparents. My father went back to Mexico. . . . My happiest memories was when my grandfather had Sunday off. He would pick us up, wrap us in blankets, and put us around this big wood-burning stove, while he went out to the store. He'd come up with oranges and apples and good things to cat, something we did not very often have. All the teachers were Anglos. They would have us say our name and where we lived, who we were. I-said: 'Jessie Lopez, American." She said: "No, you're Mexican." Throughout the years, teachers told me the same thing. Now all of a sudden they want me to say I'm an American. (Laughs.) I learned how to speak English and how to fight back. I think the longest time I went to school was two months in one place. I attended, I think, about forty-five schools. When my parents or my brothers didn't find any work, we wouldn't attend school because we weren't sure of staying there. So I missed a lot of school. . . . My children were picking crops, but we saw to it that they went to school. Maybe one or two of the oldest would stay away from school during cotton-picking time around December, so we could earn a little more money to buy food or buy them a pair of shoes or a coat that they needed. But we always wanted them to get an education. I musta been almost eight when I started following the crops. Every winter, up north. I was on the end of the row of prunes, taking care of my younger brother and sister. They would help me fill up the cans and put 'em in a box while the rest of the family was picking the whole row. In labor camps, the houses were just clapboard. There were just nails with two-by-fours around it. The houses had two little windows and a front door. One room, about twelve by fifteen, was a living room, dining room, everything. That was home to us. Eight or nine of us. We had blankets that we rolled up during the day to give us a little place to walk around doing the housework. There was only one bed, which was my grandmother's. A cot. The rest of us slept on the floor. Before that, we used to live in tents, patched tents. Before we had a tent, we used to live under a tree. That was very hard. This is one thing I
My husband was born in Mexico. He came with his parents when he was two and a half years old. He was irrigating when he was twelve years old, doing a man's work. Twelve hours for a dollar twenty. Ten cents an hour. 1 met him in 1933. Our first year we stayed in the labor camps. All farm workers I know, they're always talking: "If I had my own place, I'd know how to run it. I'd be there all the time. My kids would help me." This is one thing that all Chicano families talked about. We worked the land all our lives, so if we ever owned a piece of land, we knew that we could make it. Mexicans have this thing about a close family, so they wanted to buy some land where they could raise a family. That's what my grandfather kept talkin' about, but his dream was never realized. We followed the crops till around 1966. We went up north around the Sacramento area to pick prunes. We had a big truck, and we were able to take our refrigerator and my washing machine and beds and kitchen pots and pans and our clothing. It wasn't a hardship any more. We wanted our children to pick in the shade, under a tree, instead of picking out in the vines, where it's very hot. When I picked grapes, I could hardly stand it. I felt sorry for twelve-, thirteen-year-old kids. My husband said: "Let's go up north and pick prunes." We stopped migrating when Cesar Chavez formed a union. We became members, and I was the first woman organizer. I organized people everywhere I went. When my husband and I started working under a signed contract, there was no need to migrate after that. .. . We're in very marginal land. We survive by hard work and sacrifices. We're out of the Wcstland district, where the government supplies the water. There's acres and acres of land that if you go out there you can see green from one end to the other, like a green ocean. No houses, nothing. Trees or just cotton and alfalfa. It's land that is irrigated with taxpayers' money. These growers that have been using this water signed a contract that they would sell, within ten years, in small parcels. It's not happening. If the law had been enforced, we could be out there right now. It's the very, very best land. I worked it there. You could grow anything: tomatoes, corn, cantaloupes, vegetables, bell peppers. . .. I'm making it. It's hard work. But I'm not satisfied, not until I see a lot of farm workers settle on their own farms. Then I'll say it's happening. Is America progressing toward the better? No, the country will never do anything for us. We're the ones that are gonna do it. We have to keep on struggling. I feel there's going to be a change. With us, there's a saying: La esperanza muere al ultimo. Hope dies last. You can't lose hope. If you lose hope, that's losing everything. ... Anglo: Anglo-American descended from an English family. Chavez, Cesar, born 1927, prominent Mexican-American, who organized the migrant farm workers in California into a union and led them- in a long, successful strike against vineyard owners. 122 AMERICA IN CLOSE-UP
ONE of the irritating things about growing old is that numerous pleasant physical activities, such as sunbathing, wearing bright clothes and sexual collisions, are deemed unsuitable, even for the vigorous. It is felt that the old cut unseemly figures at such pastimes. But this is only when the young are around, doing the same things and showing up the old by looking beautiful. There is something to be said for being able to take off your clothes on the beach without being obliged to make painful comparisons between yourself and the brown-skinned, flat-stomached young insolently kicking beach balls about with their hard bare feet. Thinking less crudely along these lines, the ingenious hotel tycoon Del Webb created the first retirement resort town in the world out of 9,000 acres of cotton land 12 miles outside Phoenix, Arizona. ... From a helicopter one would look down on a vast expanse of streets and houses forming concentric circles, crescents, whorls, as regular as thumbprints, interspersed by big splashes of green (golf courses) and little ones of turquoise (pools). Cars move along the streets, overtaking what look like covered wagons without horses. At ground level the streets run between bungalows of varying size, and grandeur, and the covered wagons become golf buggies, luxurious toy versions of the hard necessity of less than a century ago. These things make up a lot of the traffic. One of them could contain a posse of the volunteer sheriff force — on routine patrol, unarmed but uniformed, reporting to the county sheriff's office any unusual sight such as a loose dog, a gorilla on a bicycle, a children's nurse wheeling a pram, an alien from space, or a group of young people. Any of those would be equally improbable in this place. They would not fit Del Webb's central idea, that retired folk who wished to enjoy themselves actively would be more contented especially as they grew older, if competitive and potentially irritating age groups were kept way from them. Hence the rules against the young. One spouse in each couple must be at least 50. Residents undertake not to have children of school age living at home. These two regulations are enough to produce the uniformity of age. I asked my guide, tanned and bust- ling Mildred Toldrin: 'Suppose a 50-year-old man brought a 20-year-old wife here?' 'He wouldn't. She'd feel too much out of it.' 'What if she came anyway, and had a baby?' 'She'd think twice about that too, because they'd have to leave. If she wanted a family, she wouldn't want to live in Sun City. It isn't a suitable place for children to live in. They should be with their own age groups, it's not good for them to be always with older people. We've had five births in 18 years, all to visitors passing through.' As a clincher, she added that there were no schools in the city and no maternity wards in the Walter O. Boswell Memorial Hospital. (The Boswell family owned the land.) Mrs Toldrin was an old hand, a resident since 1960, widowed five years ago and energetically involved in promoting the place. She drove me round in one of those comfortable American cars, ... to the Bell Recreation Centre, where you begin to see the point of Sun City. Ten buildings covered 27 acres. Inside them, well-matured men and women were at play on 19 pool tables, 16 lanes of ten-pin bowling, eight shuffleboards; or exchanging books (40,000 on the shelves) in the library; or up to their armpits in the therapeutic pool; or painting still life, carving wood, firing pottery, turning metal, weaving rugs and baskets, fashioning silver ornaments and sculptures. Outside, the sun beat down on the sun court, with its huge swimming pool, tennis courts and bowling greens. ... When phase one of the even larger Sun City West is complete, some 80,000 elderly people will have chosen this way of life. Similar devel-. opments exist, are being built or planned right across the winter sunshine belt of the US, all of them confidently predicted to earn high profits for their developers. We must assume that either many comfortably off Americans over 50 go barmy, or that these cities offer something older people need and enjoy. MINORITIES 123
If it seemed sad and bizarre to me at first, and I think these must be part of the first impressions of every visiting European, as though they were being conducted round a kind of Forest Lawn cemetery for the living, it was because the realism of the policy of separation contradicts so bluntly the sentimental picture of ideal old age most of us carry about. In this the old live as part of the family unit, respected for their wisdom and experience, fussed and petted by their grandchildren in whom they see reminders of their own golden time, their presence among the family emphasising how life is a continuing procession. But of course this is all rot, belonging to TV serials like 'The Waltons.' In the real world the old folks who live with their children's families get on everybody's nerves because they keep falling about, stepping on their teeth and glasses, handing out opinions nobody wants to hear; there is argument about which TV channel to watch, who gets the newspaper first, why don't they go for a walk, and must the children play that infernal gramophone. The only way to avoid this fate is to be rich enough to live in a huge house where there is one lavatory for every two residents. Even then the old will irritate the young. 'We enjoy having them as visitors,' said Mrs Toldrin. 'My grandchildren come to see me four times a year. I'm delighted when they come, and I'm delighted when they go. Anyway, there's nothing to stop me going to stay with them if I want to. They don't lock us in here, you know.' . .. There must be a lot to be said for a community where people are sympathetic because they face the same problems of coping with the separations and ailments of age and have a good many interests and challenges in common. It must be a bit like living on campus, except that a then uncertain future has been accomplished. And nobody laughs at anybody. It is one of the pleasant American virtues to admire anyone who has a go. ... A loner would have a bad time, but a loner wouldn't consider going there. Some over-50s who go to look the place over recoil from the tightly structured life. (The metal-working shop, filled with burly old fellows in blue overalls, reminded me so much of a prison movie that I had to concentrate on asking: 'How long have you been here?' and not: 'How long are you in for?') There is no corner shop or local bar. A keen gardener who wants to raise vegetables rents a plot in the agricultural section. It is slightly against the social ethos of the place to have a private swimming pool. Deed restrictions bar putting up tacky outbuildings. The objective is to keep out untidiness and the unexpected, to combat at all times those lurking enemies of age, boredom and solitude. . .. Yet, as Americans joke about New York, Sun City is a great place to visit but I'd sure hate to live there. . .. 124 AMERICA IN CLOSE-UP United States
AT THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, which has a keen sense of law-and-order. smokers now retreat to the photocopy ing rooms in order to relax with a soothing cigarette. And how does that affect working conditions? "We don't do any work here anyway," cracks one bureaucrat. At the Department of Transportation, where things are supposed to move, smokers can puff away in half the rest rooms and corridors, but at the State Department, which has never been known for -hasty decision making, nobody is quite sure where you can do it. "The air hasn't circulated in here in 20 years," sighs an inhabitant of Foggy Bottom who has not stopped lighting up. And at the Internal Revenue Service they are still trying to figure out what to do about both W-4 forms and cigarettes. Says an IRS watcher: "They always smoked compulsively over there." Thus the entire U.S. Government last week lurched into the era of the no-smoking sign. Although each agency head is authorized to designate certain areas for smoking — hence the confusion — new rules from the General Services Administration now restrict all smoking by the 890,000 federal employees in 6,800 federal buildings. The GSA joined what has become a nationwide crusade against smoking, particularly smoking in public. Indeed, not since Prohibition has the U.S. seen such a widespread attempt to change people's personal habits by regulation. .. . What accounts for such a fast-rising crusade against an activity that was once considered sophisticated and until recently had at least been politely tolerated? One thing that happened was that Betty Carnes, an ornithologist, returned home from a 1969 expedition and found that her best friend, a 29-year-old mother of two, was dying of lung cancer. Her last request to Carnes was to "try to make people aware of the dangers of smoking." Carnes helped persuade the commercial air carriers to begin segregating smokers in the early '70s. In 1973 she spear-headed a movement that prodded the Arizona legislature to pass the first state law limiting smoking in public places. "The time was right," she says now. "People w.ere becoming health conscious. Only thing was the majority of the nonsmokers were afraid to speak out: they thought they were in the minority." Today the leading antismoking crusader is Dr. C. Everett Koop, the bearded U.S. Surgeon General, who in 1984 called for a smoke-free society. Last December he proclaimed that smokers were hurting not just themselves but their nonsmoking neighbors, and cited studies indicating that "sidestream" smoke can be harmful to others. The evidence "clearly documents that nonsmokers are placed at increased risk for developing disease as the result of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke," he said. "The Koop report added enormous impact because it establishes the rationale for corporate liability,' says John Pinney, director of the Institute for the Study of Smoking Behavior and Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "Tobacco is a dangerous substance, and an employer who doesn't do anything is likely to be sued." Says Koop: "We're sort of on a roll. When we first started talking about a smoke-free society, half the country smoked. Today only 29.9% smoke, and of those, 87% want to quit." Leaders of the crusade argue that government involvement is legitimate because the health of nonsmokers is at stake. "It's misguided to think that this is about rights at all," says Mark Pertschuk, the legislative director of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, and adds, "I even regret the name of my own organization." Still, smokers are beginning to feel that they are a persecuted minority. . . . Courtesy of the American Lung Association
Chicano: used of a Mexican American person. L25 PART C Exercises
"I Am The Redman"/"My Lodge" 1. Whom does the Indian poet address in his 2. How does the structure of the poem "I Am 3. Which characteristics of Indian culture can be 4. What tense is the poem "My Lodge" written 5. What do you think the American Indian can Previewing Brothers 1. According to the introduction to the "Special 2. What do you think is the difference between 3. Why did Sylvester Monroe return to the 4. What is the exact socioeconomic data which 5. What other problems do you know that black Text Analysis 1. Characterize this sort of text. How do the last 2. Subdivide the text into different sections and
3. Sylvester Monroe is one of the relatively few 4. Why do you think he recalls the fact that he 5. Can you account for Mrs Monroe's reaction 6. What did he find disquieting and frustrating 7. What kind of racial discrimination does 8. Have you heard of any examples of racial Comprehension Jessie de la Cruz 1. It is one of the characteristics of oral history that events are not always reported in chronological order. Scan through the text to find the basic autobiographical data concerning Jessie's family name, maiden name present place of residence age education period of time spent as a migrant worker year of marriage children affiliation to a union. Jessie de la Cruz describes different stages in the living conditions of migrant workers. What stages does she mention and how does she characterize each of them? Describe Jessie de la Cruz's attitude towards America and the American government. 126 AMERICA IN CLOSE-UP
Lucky 01' Sundowners 1. Which arguments for and against separate 2. Point out where Peter Black leaves the 3. What do you think about the concept of Dialogue Practice Mildred Toldrin, who works for Sun City Information Agency, frequently has to answer phone calls from people who have heard of Sun City and are looking for a place to settle down when they have retired. Simulate such a phone call in which Brian Johnson, a Chicago businessman, aged 60, and his wife Jill, aged 55, are asking for information. They have made some notes beforehand in order not to forget the following important points: • climate • houses for sale • sites available for a fairly luxurious bungalow • medical and therapeutical care • opportunities to take part in social life • Brian's hobbies: golf, woodwork and • Jill's hobbies: swimming, tennis, pottery • school for granddaughter Julia (her parents Comprehension Where There's Smoke Which of the following statements are true and which are false? Correct the false ones. 1. Employees at the Department of Justice 2. Fifty percent of all restrooms and corridors 3. Employees at the State Department are not
4. New restrictive regulations by the General 5. Not even during prohibition did regulations 6. The campaign against smoking was started 7. Betty Carnes was one of the first to 8. The present crusade, led by the U.S. 9. According to the Koop report, employees 10. Only 13 percent of all Americans who smoke do not think of giving it up. Discussion • The American campaign against smoking • Do you think smoking should be restricted in Date: 2015-12-18; view: 615
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7 Minorities
DISCRIMINATION
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
PROBLEMS OF URBAN BLACKS
THE ELDERLY
/ am The Redman
Simple was my lodge of birch Pure was the water that I drank Swift was the canoe that carried me Straight was the arrow that protected me. Wild was the meat that fed me Sweet was the sugar maple. Strong were the herbs that sustained me Great was my mother, the Earth.
Redbird, Duke: American Indian poet.
By Sylvester Monroe
Sylvester Monroe
Robert Taylor Homes, Prairie Courts: public housing projects in Chicago.
120 AMERICA IN CLOSE-UP
Jessie de la Cruz
MINORITIES 121
hope nobody has to live through. During the winter, the water was just seeping under the ground. Your clothes were never dry.
Sun City, Arizona
Where There's Smoke
There's fire these days, as the crusade against public puffing heats up
Prohibition: the period (1920-33) during which a law was enforced in the U.S., which forbade the manufacture, transportation, sale, and possession of alcoholic beverages.
1. Interpreting Poems