Finding Fertile Ground: Stories of Grit, Resilience, and Fertile Ground
Society & Culture
Ruben Garcia, Becoming the Father He Never Had
Ruben was born in Texas into a dysfunctional family with ten children. When he was nine, his family moved to a migrant labor camp in Oregon, where he had to work hard picking produce.
As a young brown person, he felt great shame. He dropped out of school at 16. But he turned his shame into persistence, fathering four and eventually earning a master’s degree.
Here is a glimpse of his story:
“The year was 1967. I was six years old...I woke up a few times a week in the middle of the night to the sounds of a screaming mother being thrown up against the wall by a drunk father...my oldest brother would say ‘Hurry, get your shoes on so when Dad passes out we will just have a few seconds to run to the car before he wakes up.’ We parked in old, dirt driveways and waited out Dad’s drunken, violent episodes...
As a 9-year-old living in a migrant camp, I had to watch my back...I knew the kids on the bus were going to ask if we lived in the dirty, run-down camp. ‘Lazy Mexicans that pick berries live at that camp,’ I heard one kid say as we boarded the bus. I turned around and yelled, ‘I work every day from six in the morning until five in the evening...You have no right to call us lazy.’
The school secretary said, ‘The deadline for signing up for free lunch is over so you will have to work the food line to get a free lunch.’ I was starting school late that year, because I had to work until we finished picking the season’s berries. She told me I’d need to bring coffee containers for collecting leftover food. The kids pointed and whispered. ‘Look, he’s taking our leftovers home to feed his beaner siblings." I began to realize that I had two strikes against me: one was being poor. The second was having brown skin.
When I was 16, my hope for a future was fading. I realized school was not for me. I felt alone, desperate, and misrepresented as a young Mexican teen with no family support. I understood that between shame, white hatred, and being poor, I had nothing to win if I stayed in school. I developed anxiety and shame.
As I grew older, I realized I could help others through my work. I was a Latino advocate and a grief counselor, working with communities of color and advocating for kids who grew up like me. I managed to eliminate the first strike against me--growing up poor. But in spite of my accomplishments, people still judge me by my skin color."
You can reach Ruben at Man With a Heart on Facebook.
On the next “Three Men of Color, Redefining Fatherhood” episode I interview Charles Jackson II, a Black man who had a conflicted relationship with his father. We talk about racism and #BlackLivesMatter, his career, marriage, and fathering two young Black sons.
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