Teaching the Teacher

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It all started one morning in the backstretch kitchen. Chaplain Les Riggs sat down and had breakfast with me. He wanted to start an English class for the Hispanic workers. He was frustrated. Nobody was willing to help. Fools rush in--I volunteered on the spot. Riggs almost choked on his bacon.

My ability to speak or write Spanish was limited. Thirty summers had passed since I had picked peaches with the migrant workers in the hot, dusty fields of central California. Thirty long years had gone by since I attended the required high school Spanish classes. Pretty thin credentials, but it was too late to change my mind.

Nothing fails but a try. A schedule was set and posted around the barns, announcing English classes were to be held in the Chaplain's trailer from 7-8 p.m. on Wednesdays.

It was raining the first night--cold and dark. I got there early, unlocked the trailer, and made a pot of fresh coffee. I was nervous. Would anybody show up? At exactly seven o'clock there was a knock on the door. It was Hector Tovar. My first student.

Hector came in, carrying a yellow legal pad and a smile that was brighter than the moon. No one else came that first night. Just Hector the Bashful, chewing slowly on simple nouns like they were beef jerky. As the weeks went on, the word spread. The white guy in the trailer on Wednesday night was probably not an INS agent. More grooms began to come.

My confidence and excitement grew. I started sociological-political conversations, implicating the United States' involvement in the oppression of the peasants on the coffee and banana plantations of Central America. Reynaldo just stared at me. One night, I brought to class a personal treasure: the collected poems of Garcia Lorca. Javier held it in his hands like a roll of toilet paper. The message was clear. These men wanted to learn how to ask for directions to the post office to get a money order.

Like a maiden-claimer flattening out at the head of the stretch, I was pulled up. Gringo Gary returned to basics. We began learning the names of tools and equipment. "Wheelbarrow" was a big hit. "Rake" hit the top of the charts. Words concerning the anatomy of a horse were always popular. "Where are the bandages?" was a much more important expression than an analysis of Diego Rivera murals.

Each week I prepared a list of 20-30 English words and their Spanish equivalents. We practiced pronunciation. We drilled each word into a sentence until it was memorized. We had an English/Spanish dictionary in case we got stuck. We got stuck a lot.

The idea of homework was a foreign concept. Grooms begin work at 4:30 each morning. Waking up at 3 a.m. and going to a community toilet to shave and shower leaves little time to review Cliffs notes.

I noticed there was a subtle pecking order to the class. The groom of a grade I winner never had to sit on the floor. He had the big horse. They were all middle-aged men. English was their round-trip ticket to job security or, better yet, advancement. These were family men, who brought photographs of their wives and children to class. They made $400 a week. After laundry and food expenses, they sent their money home. South. One night I attempted to teach phrases related to gambling. They were very patient with me that night.

Their English improved. They gained confidence. You could see it. One night Javier came into the trailer. He was an older man and his glasses were held together with Scotch tape. He had an announcement to make. Javier (on his own, mind you) had gotten his driver's license. He showed everybody. Like it was a trophy.

I taught the class for two years. On the last night, Hector invited me back to the barn where he worked. His friends were there. They had a little barbecue grill outside on the ground and they were roasting some kind of meat. There was a basket of flour tortillas and a large bottle of Bacardi rum. Plastic cups with no ice. It was my going away party.

"No se puede vivir sin compadres," I thought to myself in Spanish. The distinctions disappeared that night back by Barn 49. There was no teacher, no student. No beginning and no end.

GARY McMILLEN, assistant human resources director at the LSU Health Science Center, covers Fair Grounds for The Blood-Horse.

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