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4ac" :>.x 3 rQj.i'roxe<X by Gar C, Garcia before
the >'•; 1 >i c,rjo .. 'v.cv-ci of thu Third
.flat ioi.a . Cor.fo* e'K-e of ohcj United States
Naii C"'B tl_.£rs uOn for UNESCO it, New York,
Jarr.ry 29, '1?32 >
501 • CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN'
It would be sheer hipocrisy for us to deny that oach of us has his own axe to
grind• Ey that i do not mean that we seek any personal financial gain or special
gN.ory. I mean that ea^h of us has his or her point of view to express and that we
all feel that our respective problems represent the most vital issues confronting
education in the Twentieth Century, I am no different from the rest of you. I be-
lieve that what I am about to discuss represents one of the greatest challenges ever
faced by our schools#
In the past, educationally speaking, the Southwest was looked upon as a malodo-
rous newcomer to the ranks of public educational systems, I regret to say that, at
that time, we deserved little more recognition than that,
I am happy9 therefore, to report t,j you that the situation has changed for the
better though I must admit that, according to modern standards, we are still in our
infancy.
I come from the great Southwest, Like all other peoples in all other sections
we have a history and a heritage all our own. We are proud of some of it; we hush-
hust the rest except when we have visitors at conventions, and they are told about
it in the same fashion as a chauvinistic joke is cracked at the United Nations, If
I seem to make light of some of these matters, particularly those affecting the Lone
Star State, please remember that under the once revered and ancient Anglo-Saxon law
of primogeniture, I am entitled to do so. The only people preceding mine in the
Southwest were the natives whom Columbus misnamed "Indians". In my state they were
called "Tejas"—as you undoubtedly know. Next came my folk—by the grace of God and
in all likelihood the necessity of escaping well-deserved punishment at the hands of
the authorities. My particular clan arrived a couple of hundred years ago, and I
have neither compliments nor condemnation for them. Chances are that they belonged
to that wonderful tribe of rugged individualists and Bohemian-like free thinkers that
we would classify today as "characters". These migrations into the Southwest were
taking place not only in Texas but in California, just as they had begun tiro centuries
before in New Mexico. As a result of the heavy influx of immigrants from south of the
Rio Grande fleeing internal convulsions and seeking the pseudo-prosperity of World
lar I, plus an added assist from our natural prolificness, we have spread to Arizona
and Colorado and, recently, even to the Midwest, There is no immediate danger, how-
ever, that we might take over Manhattan as retribution for the dirty trick that was
played upon the unsuspecting Indians long, long ago.
I do not want to leave the impression that the Southwest is entirely Spanish-
