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Personal Reflection/Anecdote

to answer but—unfamiliar with course-registration jargon—to which I provided lame answers at best. The
registration process was like a scene from the 1960 movie, H. G. Well’s The Time Machine, where the Eloi
are obediently walking up these large stairs answering the siren of the cannibalistic Morlocks. After hours
of detours, the attentive Jaime left me to a very tired, frustrated registrar who discerned very quickly
I did not have a clue about what I was doing. Through some miracle that I do not recall, I registered for
nine credit hours and declared my major to be mathematics. Why math? … The answer is quite simple and
logical. Mathematics, not so long ago, never involved reading of any significance. Mathematics was
one subject I did not completely fail, and so, it became my major.
I serendipitously met Jaime one afternoon when he was in one of his militant mindsets, spewing
a diatribe on a book he had been required to read. He was ranting and raving about how this book was
a travesty of Hispanic literature. I was casually listening, comfortable having no idea what he was talking
about but hoping to glean bits and pieces of knowledge in order to become a better student. Abruptly,
Jaime handed me the book and asked me to read it so we could discuss it when we would see each other
the following Monday. I was horrified. I knew I could not impress him with an insightful critique of the
book. My goal was to survive the looming conversation without coming across as a complete imbecile. I
was a wreck all weekend as I frantically tried to read and understand what the book was about. Jaime
had stated that it should take me about one hour to read because it was so small. During the weekend, I
spent hours attempting to read and comprehend the book, but I made no real progress. Come Monday, I
was ready to lie with great conviction. To my eternal relief, Jaime was like the dog in the movie UP who
got distracted by hearing, “Squirrel.” He was on to something entirely different! Thank you, Jaime, for
NEVER remembering to ask me about that book!
Many semesters later, I enrolled in the same course Jaime had taken. I read the same book as part of
the required reading for a class entitled “Mexican American Literature.” It took me about an hour
to read. How did I teach myself to read? It was a painfully difficult and extremely protracted ordeal. To
explain pragmatically with oversimplification, I developed three strategies. First, I wrote down countless
words I could not understand or pronounce. Second, I stumbled upon a secret to help comprehension:
I read aloud to myself in private. My brain understood when it heard my voice speaking words, then
sentences, and eventually paragraphs. As a third strategy, I
repeatedly reread the paragraphs aloud.
During this season in my life, I became interested in
my Hispanic culture and heritage. I became a regular
visitor to the tiny basement bookstore/publishing house
of Arte Publico. There, I randomly chose books that
changed my life. For the first time, I was reading about
characters in a book who could have been my aunts, uncles,
and cousins. I felt like I had been blind and suddenly
gained sight. I finally understood the drive, desire,
and passion to read. With a grateful and sincere heart,
I am thankful to Arte Publico for publishing books by
Hispanic authors, with Hispanic characters and storylines,
in the 1970s.
In the following years, I took as many courses as
possible based on Mexican American studies. These
courses made a connection for me to learn more about
myself and improve my reading skills. One such course
was a Mexican American sociology class that identified so
many unspoken truths about my native culture. It rattled

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