Oral History Interview with José Cárdenas, 1998 Cárdenas, José Interview conducted by José Angel Gutiérrez, Ph.D., J.D. Interview transcribed by Karen McGee José Angel Gutiérrez Transcript converted to XML encoding by Julie Williams Center for Mexican American Studies, University of Texas at Arlington Texas State Library and Archives Commission 104 pages; KB.

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 2001

Source: MS-Word file transcript of video recording CMAS No. 69.

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 English Spanish Cárdenas, José Gutierrez, Jose Angel University of Texas at Arlington. Center for Mexican American Studies Mexican Americans--Texas--Interviews oral history interview Tejanos Chicanos

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Oral History Interview with José Cárdenas, 1998. Center for Mexican American Studies (CMAS) Interview Number 69Mexican American Public Figures of Texas Interviewee: José Cárdenas Interviewer: José Angel Gutiérrez, Ph.D., J.D. Transcribers: Karen McGee and José Angel Gutiérrez Date of Interview: December 10, 1997 Location of Interview: San Antonio, Texas Number of Transcript Pages: 104Cite this interview as Oral History Interview with José Cárdenas, 1998, by José Angel Gutiérrez. CMAS No. 69 José Cárdenas Dr. Gutiérrez: December 10, 1997. We are in San Antonio in the offices of the founder and former executive director of IDRA in San Antonio, Jose Angel Cardenas. Why don't we start off by you telling me what IDRA is, how you conceptualized it and why you did it? Dr. Cárdenas:IDRA is a non-profit organization dedicated to the improvement of education opportunities for, for children. It has been around since 1973 in its corporate form. It was a, a loosely formed organization even before that, but as, as a corporate institution, it has been in Texas since 1973. Twenty-five years this coming April. One of the reasons for the founding of IDRA was my involvement in the Rodriguez versus San Antonio Independent School District school finance case in federal court. We had had a lot of success in the court case. I was superintendent of schools, of the Edgewood Independent School District at the time and won that case in the lower district court and which found all of those, the systems of, of school finance in the United States, in the various states unconstitutional. Certainly in the state of Texas and by implication just about all but one or two of the other systems of school finance. The resources available for the education for children varied. There were great disparities and we were . . . I was superintendent of the poorest school district out of sixteen hundred in the state of Texas. And I just found it very difficult to offer a first rate educational program to the predominantly Mexican American population of the school district with the amount of resources available under the state system of school finance. We won the court case and, and then, and then, in 1971, December the 23rd and the state of Texas appealed it to the United States Supreme Court. And it, much to my regret, it was reversed on a five to four vote in March of 1973. During all of the period of litigation, I was continuously informed by the political leadership of the state of Texas and the educational leadership of the state that they were not opposed to school finance equity and, and equitable resources for all children. They objected to the federal government ramming it down their throats. And I had been given ample assurance that if the case was either dropped by us or it if was reversed by the Supreme Court that they would establish an equitable system of school finance for the state of Texas on, on their own volition. Well, in 1973 after the reversal of Rodriguez and the commitments that I had from the educational and political leadership, it, it, it looked like it was time to write a new system for the state of Texas that would provide equitable education. I resigned as superintendent of the Edgewood School District at the urging of some financial supporters from some of our biggest foundations: Ford Foundation, Carnegie Foundation, and the National Urban Coalition in order to establish a small organization which primary purpose would be to write a system of school finance for the state of Texas or at least provide the advocacy for an equitable system in, in Texas considering the commitments that had been made. It is ironic that twenty-eight years later we still don't have an equitable system in the state of Texas. It is much improved, but it is still not equitable. From the period of 1973 through the Edgewood litigation, which was litigation similar to Rodriguez, but in the state court, very little progress was made in the equalizing of educational dollars. Very little empathy. Yes, the Edgewood School District and the Lowell School Districts were given additional funds, but at the same time, the wealthier school district had access to even greater amount of funds so that the disparities were growing continuously. At that time, there was, and still is, at least a seven hundred to one relationship between market values or taxable values in the wealthier school districts and the, and the poorer school districts in the state of Texas, the biggest disparity of any of the fifty states. The organization was funded, founded in 1973 and I was employed as a, as the executive director of, of the organization through the incorporation and early stages of the organization. As more funds were being allocated for education, not necessarily more equitable, but more funds were allocated, we got concerned with what the school systems were, were doing with the additional funds. So, we got into the area of curriculum and instruction and expanded the basis of the organization. Originally it had been incorporated as Texans for Educational Excellence. We changed the name of the organization to Inter-cultural Development Research Association, IDRA, and expanded it's activities to include such things as advocacy for students in the instructional program as well as in the resources which were allocated in support of these programs. We got into the area of desegregation and established a desegregation assistance center for a, a number of states for their federal region. We, we did a lot in the development of early childhood education programs. We got very heavily into bi-lingual education, litigation, and legislation, and have continued to expand our base doing just about everything that can be done in order to improve educational opportunities for children. We are interested in all children. I have, we tend to concentrate most of our work on the children who have the least advocacy in schools which are the disadvantaged, the minorities, limited English proficient, immigrant, migrant. The, the school populations that have not received a lot of full support either inside or outside the educational community. At the present time the organization employs almost fifty people. We have a great track record of having participated in a lot of litigation, having participated in the formulation of policy, and the implantation of legislation and providing technical assistance, research, materials to school systems that enroll substantial numbers of the special populations that are enumerate, enumerated previously. Dr. Gutiérrez: What is the, the operating budget now of, of this organization and the staffing pattern? Dr. Cárdenas:We operate under an annual budget of about five, six million dollars a year and we have forty five to fifty professional employees. Not professional, but all types of employees. It has an executive director and then we have activities in four areas. One of them is research and evaluation, very strong component. Then, we have training and technical assistance. We have materials development. And we have the assimilation of information. There is a loose type of organizational structure because we also organize by programmatic activity, depending on the types of services that we have. The funding of the organization, we see, receive some funds from foundations. We receive federal grants and contracts. We have state contracts. And we, we also receive an extensive amount of corporate funding. And the remainder of the income comes from the, what we call, consumer services, and that is the sale of materials and, and training and technical assistance to school systems. Dr. Gutiérrez: You retired some year's back. Who was your successor? Or who is the current CEO? Dr. Cárdenas:In, in 1992, after twenty years, I, I retired as executive director of the organization and the board appointed Dr. Maria Del Refugio Robeldo Montecel, commonly known as Cuca Montecel, as executive director of the organization. She has a doctorate degree from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee and she has served as executive director these last five years. At that time, the board of directors appointed me director emeritus for life. And I have been working on a limited schedule, mostly with administrative matters and special projects in areas that I am most familiar with such as school finance equity, bi-lingual education, multicultural education. I have written four books during this period, which have been distributed rather extensively. We have four division directors that, that handle the operation of the affairs of the organization. Dr. Gutiérrez: Is one of those last books your, your autobiography, My Spanish Speaking Left Foot or something like that? Dr. Cárdenas:That's right. The last book that I wrote that was just published a few months ago is My Spanish Speaking Left Foot published by IDRA and they also publish all the materials. And it deals with the concept of multiculturalism and, and it is autobiographical in that I dictated how I grew up in the city of Laredo with completely bi-lingual, multicultural . . . And that title indicates that I had one foot in the United States and the other foot in, in Mexico and spoke both language, languages fluently. And the book kind of highlights the advantages of bi-lingualism and the advantages of multiculturalism. I also get into indigenous populations in Mexico. Some of the archeology of Mexico, the United States, and focus on, on the big Hispanic values and the advantages of some of these values. The close family unity, the, the supportive role of the family, things of this nature that are, are vastly different from what we find in this country. The other books that I have written, I wrote one on school finance reform in Texas and it depicts twenty eight years of ideate activity in the financing of the public schools of, of Texas. And I wrote a book on multicultural education, which is a compilation of, of articles that I wrote over almost a thirty year period, that deals with various topics such as early childhood education, bi-lingual education, multicultural education, testing, a whole variety of, of educational issues in, in tactic, impacted upon the special populations that we have advocated for. I had one other book, All Pianos Have Keys, and that is also semi-autobiographical, but it is a collection of anecdotes and stories dealing with personal life, dealing with education and my experiences in education. I have been an educator for forty-eight years and, and also some, very few articles dealing with management and educational practice. Dr. Gutiérrez: And you are threatening to retire again? Dr. Cárdenas:And I am threatening to retire. In fact, I, I should be retired by the end of this month and will be available as director of merits to the administrative staff of the organization for mostly administrative matters. Perhaps some special issues, concerns, very much like I have been doing during the last five years except that I will not be maintaining office hours and will be coming in just for specific purposes. Dr. Gutiérrez: What are you going to go do? Dr. Cárdenas:Well, I think I am going to try to enjoy life. I, I play golf and, and, and I play a lot of golf. I think eventually, I think my wife is going to drop me off at the golf club early in the morning. And I am going to play golf and, and swim in the swimming pool and get in the Jacuzzi and take a, a steam bath, eat several meals there, and then she picks me up in the evening and then tucks me in bed. I intend to do some more traveling. I have done a lot of traveling both in this country and in, in many other countries. I intend to do some more of that. Every time I visited somewhere, I ended up writing about the educational system and, and other social issues. Comparing the United States and, and the other countries in health and in, in, in education and economic systems and so forth. And I have published quite a few articles on the educational system in the Soviet Union, when it existed. On Guatemala, Ecuador, Spain and, and Peru and, and other countries that, that I have visited. But I will be, I may do a little bit of writing. I hope not too much because I enjoy writing, but publishing is very difficult and painful process. But I will also be spending more time with family and, and just taking it easy. Dr. Gutiérrez: Any prospects of you teaching university? Dr. Cárdenas:No, no, no. I have taught at many universities and I even did a one-year guest slot at the University of Texas at, at San Antonio. I have taught at the University of Texas at Austin. I have taught at Our Lady of the Lake and I have taught out of San Diego State University, Chicago, University of, Chicago State University, and, and others. And I don't think that I would care to, to work a full time at, at a university. I think that I have played advocacy role and have advocated and sometimes even confronted state officials and, and policy makers and I would think that I would function under the confines of a public institution, elbow a private institution for that matter. Dr. Gutiérrez: Returning to school finance. Why has that remained such an elusive goal? Dr. Cárdenas:It's, it's a very elusive goal because we have in the United State and have had since it's beginning an illegal system of education. We do pay lip service to the concept that all people are equal and all children are equal, but in practice some children are more equal than others. We have a, a system that, that assists the privileged people to have, for their children, a privileged education so that the distribution of resources is such that people of high wealth, of the rich and the famous get very good educational services for their children. Those that are not so rich or not so famous or important to the social system get a very inferior education. In fact, as superintendent of the poorest school district in the state of Texas, I saw and, and experienced that as a teacher, as a principal, as a superintendent educational conditions in, in low belt school districts like Edgewood and, and others like it. Deplorable educational systems just as bad as some of the poorer educational systems that I have visited in undeveloped countries. Dr. Gutiérrez: We will incorporate by reference the material especially if we can afford to buy them or, or you will donate them to your archive because this is your archive. So you can make reference to, to that and not be repetitive because I know that you have to leave. Dr. Cárdenas:OK. Dr. Gutiérrez: But tell us about that career track. When did you decide to be a teacher; who and what prompted you to go to college; your educational career? You were one of, perhaps five Chicano superintendents when I remember meeting you at the first time way back when. That, that's almost incredible to realize that there is some, what, eighteen hundred school districts perhaps in the state? Dr. Cárdenas:At that time, yes. Well, I have always liked teaching and in school I was a relatively good student. Perhaps not a superior student, but I was a good student. And I liked my teachers. And growing up in a city like Laredo I counted many teachers that are exceptionally good with such strange names as Hernandez and Garcia and Uribe and, and Gonzales, De la Garza. And I, I thought they were the greatest people in, in the world. They taught me a lot. They taught me well. And I came out of the public schools of the city of Laredo with a fairly good education. I was very young at the time. I was only fifteen years old when I graduated from high school and . . . Dr. Gutiérrez: How did you do that? Dr. Cárdenas:well, I skipped a few grades. In those days they didn't have special education, so I guess they just pushed me up to a higher grade to get rid of me. But I, I only spent about six weeks in the first grade; they put me in the second grade because I had learned to read in Spanish before I started school. Dr. Gutiérrez: Did you go to a barrio school, what used to be those la escuelita del barrio (little neighborhood school) before? Dr. Cárdenas:No, no, there were no escuelita del barrio (neighborhood school) in the barrio . Dr. Gutiérrez: In Laredo? Dr. Cárdenas:Some of the nuns had little escuelita (school) but no, I'm a member of a fairly large Hispanic family and I am the fourth out of five, five children and my three older brothers and sisters always kind of took care of me and, and sat me down while they were doing their homework. And I was very interested in their books and they started reading to me. And I started following along. And, and we received in Laredo, several Spanish language newspapers and I liked to read the cartoons and the comics and the articles. And by the time that I started school, at the age of six, I could read fairly fluently in Spanish and this is the same rationale as bi-lingual education programs. All I had to do when I started the first grade was to apply the decoding skills, which is what reading is, to the, to the English language material as I learned English. And, and, and was way ahead of my peers. And they finally decided that I could do second grade work and the basil of readers in, in, in English were much easier than the material I was reading in the newspapers and, and books in Spanish, so they put me in the second grade. And then, I skipped the sixth grade. From fifth grade they promoted me to the seventh grade, and then, during the war years I skipped the eleventh grade and went from the fifth grade . . . Well, I finished high school in three years of taking a couple of courses in the summer and was able to graduate when I was only fifteen years old. I enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin. And I was a mediocre student there at the University of Texas at Austin mostly because of two factors. One of them, I was very, very much interested in, in the growing civil rights or, or just birthing civil rights movement. Very interested in social issues. Second, very limited financial resources. My daddy had a large family, very small income, and the amount that he could help me was very, very limited and I spent probably more hours a week working in order to be able to afford the school than I did at school or school activities per se. But I did graduate and the only thing I was reluctant to go into teaching. I wanted to go into teaching, part of my family wanted me to go into medicine, the other part of the family wanted me to go into journalism because of traditional family activities in history. I wanted to go into teaching and when they passed the 1949, the Gilbert-Aiken legislation that reformed education in Texas and increased teacher's salaries to the unbelievable amount of two thousand, four hundred dollars a year, I opted to go into teaching. And, and, and did teach starting in the year 1950 for the sum of two thousand, four hundred dollar, which was more than probably any teacher had ever made in the state of Texas before as, as, as a teacher. Dr. Gutiérrez: How old were you? Dr. Cárdenas:I was nineteen years old. Dr. Gutiérrez: What prompted you to go to UT Austin, and not, say the community college? Was it already in existence in Laredo? Dr. Cárdenas:No. Dr. Gutiérrez: No? A & I? That was certainly in existence. Dr. Cárdenas:It was in . . . Dr. Gutiérrez: St. Mary's, that many South Texas people do? Dr. Cárdenas:At St. Mary's, I couldn't afford those, a private institution. It had to be a state institution. It was hard enough to go to school in a public institution. I, I considered, at that time the three dominant; well actually, there are only two dominant universities. There was the University of Texas at Austin, the most prestigious university in Texas. The other one was Texas A & M and the other one was Texas A & I. I wasn't particularly interested in Texas A & I. I think the same disparities of funding that you find in the elementary and, and secondary schools in Texas, you find among the institutions of higher education. This is why LULAC filed suit in, in the Richards case and, and, and won the case where it was ascertained that there were great disparities in, in funding of higher education. Texas A & I was a pretty diverse, there wasn't even a community college in San Antonio, in, in Laredo, I mean. There was no community college in Laredo, let alone a four-year university and if you wanted to be educated you packed your bags and you went out of town. Dr. Gutiérrez: Where did you live in Austin and where did you work? Dr. Cárdenas:I, I lived at boarding houses mostly or rooming houses. There were some Mexican Americans and, and other Hispanics in, in Austin and there were very few of us and we kind of stuck together. Not necessarily that we were segregated, I think that we were just not very welcome in many areas of the university and activities and we kind of banded together in the house where I lived. I think every one of the students that lived there was Hispanic. Dr. Gutiérrez: Who were some of those? Dr. Cárdenas:Rafael Flores, Jesse Trevino, we had Carlos Bazan, Juan Lujan. Dr. Gutiérrez: Duheim or Lujan? Dr. Cárdenas:Lujan. Dr. Juan Lujan. People that are fairly prominent in their communities now. Lauro Garza, Dr., Arnulfo Oliviera from Brownsville, a, a whole bunch of, of students from South Texas, mostly South Texas, all Hispanic and mostly Mexican American. And we provided support for each other. We assisted each other with homework and assignments and course-work and so forth. The work was not very prestigious. I worked my freshman year, for a whole year, at Renfro Drugs on the Drag and Guadalupe Street as a soda jerk and, and, and but mostly as, as a soda jerk. And, and, and made about fifty cents an hour which went a long way to assist me in, in financing my college education. The second year I got a job as an apprentice carpenter and built a lot of housing in the, around the university area, worked with a contractor and did everything from tying steel for the foundation to finishing the roof in, in, in the houses. Then the third year, I got a, a very good job as a translator for the University of Texas radio station. They were doing a whole bunch of health programs. I remember the name of the program, Para Su Mejor Salud (For Your Better Health). And it dealt with getting kids vaccinated for small pox and, and other illnesses and encouraged them to see a doctor and so forth. They were health programs, short, short regular health programs and I would get English language scripts translated into Spanish and I even performed in quite a number of them. And they had so many of those scripts that I could just do as much work as I wanted to and receive really during my junior and senior year quite a bit of, of money for that. I did other jobs. I did a lot of tutoring, particularly in the areas of, of Spanish and math, science, and there were always a lot of fraternity boys that needed a lot of assistance. And I also did some translation of some of the required readings in Spanish and received small amounts. I also did quite a bit of baby-sitting in the Austin community when I was a student at the University of Texas and it provided a much better study environment after I put the kids to bed. And many of the people that I baby-sat for were college professors and they had very well stocked libraries and, and were very useful to me for studying purposes while I was earning money as a baby-sitter. I, I finally, when I graduated, I, I, I was still working for the radio station at the University of Texas, but then decided to go back home to Laredo. Dr. Gutiérrez: Was there a Laredo Club in existence when you went to college? Dr. Cárdenas:Yes, there was. Dr. Gutiérrez: Tell me about that. Did you join or you participate? Dr. Cárdenas:I not only participated, I was president at one time of the Laredo Club at the University of Texas. There were quite a few students from Laredo. As I said, Laredo had no college and, and a lot of us went there. We had considered and, and person that went to Texas A & M, I had been encouraged to go to Texas A & M until some of the graduated Aggies came by to recruit me and I decided to go to University of Texas at Austin. I thought there were a little gung-ho for my taste. And really it was about the only feasible choice, the most prestigious university in the state of Texas. I think it still is. And, and, and a very good university. And we did form the Laredo Club and must of had, oh, had at one point, fifty, sixty, seventy members. Dr. Gutiérrez: What did it do? Dr. Cárdenas:Well, we, we kind of addressed educational issues at the university. We addressed other social issues and believe it or not, we did a lot of fund raising and provided scholarships for other students from Laredo to attend the University of Texas. Judge Abram Rodriguez, for instance, he was the first recipient of a, of a one thousand dollar scholarship for the University of Texas at Austin. The money being supplied by the Laredo Club of the University of Texas. And, and a thousand dollars may not seem like a lot, but consider that in those days some of the scholarships that were awarded at graduation were five dollar scholarship. And a twenty five-dollar was considered a large scholarship. Certainly providing the students with a thousand dollars for a year of study was almost unheard of at the time. And the Laredo Club continued to provide assistance. We also became mentors for other people from Laredo wanting to go to college. They would come by and we would, before they even enrolled in a system, at finding housing, of assisting them in, in, in the articulation process, and then mentor them in course-work and provide a lot of assistance in determining majors and, and interpreting the requirements and so forth. Dr. Gutiérrez: Have you ever thought about why your home town and the students who you met from there had these clubs in almost every college and do they ever come together as a state night Laredo Club group or nationwide Laredo Club group? Dr. Cárdenas:I, I don't know. But they, you are right that it appears that there is a Laredo Club for Notre Dame and, and Laredo and certainly there is a Laredo Club for Texas A & M and the University of Texas. Dr. Gutiérrez: There was one at A & I when I went to school. Dr. Cárdenas:The population was very cohesive. You come from a small town and you know everybody. Incidentally, when I went to the University of Texas and being fifteen years old, my mother was adamant that I, that I could not go because she would not allow me to, to travel to Austin and stay in Austin by myself. On the other hand, as I said, there was no college in Laredo. So I faced the prospect of not being able to enroll until my mother deemed that I was old enough to be able to take care of myself. A member of the Laredo Club at the University of Texas at Austin, Rafael Flores, very respected, very brilliant student who, who had been one of the outstanding graduates of, of the year before, was at the University of Texas and he went to talk to my mother. And believe it or not, my mother gave me permission to go the University of Texas provided that I stayed at the same house where Rafael was staying. And Rafael promised my mother that, that, that he would see to it that I took a bath and brushed my teeth and changed clothes and, and did all those things that mothers supervise their children on. And, and believe it or not, Rafael took it very seriously. Not very long ago Rafael and I were over in New York City and I was having, we were having dinner and I ordered a second scotch and soda and Rafael says "You know, that's, you had one before, and now you, this is your second one here. That's three scotch and sodas. You are drinking too much. " And he says "And I noticed that you were smoking a while ago. " He says, "And you use a lot of cuss words. " And I said, "Rafael, get off my back. What's the matter with you? " He says, "Well, I promised your mother I was going to take care of you. " I said, "Rafael, that was sixty years, fifty five years ago. You know, that was fifty years ago. " Dr. Gutiérrez: Enough is enough. Dr. Cárdenas:Enough is enough. And Rafael says, "A promise is a promise and I told your mother I would look after you. " Dr. Gutiérrez: To the grave. Dr. Cárdenas:Yeah. Here I was sixty years old and, and Rafael was still chewing me out for drinking too much, for smoking, for using cuss words, and so forth. Thank goodness he doesn't have to chew me out for not taking a bath or something like that. That would have been just too embarrassing. What, what the point that I am making is that we took those tasks very seriously. And as president of the Laredo Club for instance at the University of Texas, it must have been around 1949, 1950, I made a point to find out which students were, were attending the University of Texas. And when we had our meetings we assigned persons that knew them or knew the families. And, and in Laredo everybody knew everybody and, and, and provided or assigned a mentor or mentors to these students and assist them in the transition from a small town with no college to the huge University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Gutiérrez: Could non-Laredo ones join the Laredo Club? And did they? Dr. Cárdenas:Uh, the, there weren't any that I could remember. I don't think the bylaws precluded anybody not from Laredo from joining, but I don't remember there being any. We had, at that time, 1946 when I went to University of Texas, we had a lot of veterans coming out of services and under the G. I. Bill attending the University of Texas and other colleges throughout the country really. And really, you had, at that time, kids like me who were fifteen years old, others that were sixteen, seventeen years old, then you had people like Ed Idar, that, that was a veteran. And, and some even much older than that that were students over there. We also had another organization at the University of Texas that was all Hispanic and that was the Alba Club. Dr. Gutiérrez: A-L-B-A? Dr. Cárdenas:Yes. Dr. Gutiérrez: What did that stand for? Dr. Cárdenas:For the Spanish word Alba ,(dawn) and, and we chose that name because it was the dawning of a new period. It was incorporated in 1946 as an official University of Texas organization, student organization and it was made up of Hispanics mostly from South Texas. And most, most of the students from South Texas that were Hispanic or Mexican American enrolled in the Alba Club and performed very much the same type of, of tasks that the Laredo Club performed. Although perhaps we were more vocal on, on the social issues. We even worked very extensively with a physician from Corpus Christi, Dr. Hector Garcia, in, in the organization of communities as students from the University of Texas and this is why I say sometimes I spent more time on other activities than I did on course-work. We visited small towns throughout South Texas and organized the Mexican American population into what were subsequently known as G. I. American, American G. I. Forum chapters as in, in, in this large civil rights organization that Dr. Hector Garcia Dr. Gutiérrez: How did you find out about him? How did he recruit you to do this? Dr. Cárdenas:One of the students that, that, that stayed in the house where I was living was Xico Garcia. Dr. Gutiérrez: Xico? Dr. Cárdenas:Xico. X-I-C-O. Who was, who was Dr. Hector Garcia's brother. Xico is now a physician in Corpus Christi and Xico Garcia, I believe at that time, was a, was a veteran. But anyway, Xico started doing a lot of work with his brother, with Hector Garcia. We all got to meet Hector Garcia when we were very, very young. We were heavily influenced by him and another person that I will tell you about. And then Hector Garcia would say well, there has been a lot of reports of discrimination in Cuero, Texas, you know, and there are a lot of Hispanics over there, but they are not organized or anything. Why don't you go this weekend to Cuero, Texas? And we would go over there. And, and one technique was Alba Club members formed a, a baseball team and we would go to Cuero, Texas and challenge a, a group from Cuero, almost every South Texas had a, a whole bunch of amateur teams, baseball teams, and we'd play baseball. We had some very good players on, in, in our club and gave them a fairly good game. Dr. Gutiérrez: Softball or hard ball? Dr. Cárdenas:Hardball. Dr. Gutiérrez: Uh hmm. Dr. Cárdenas:Sometimes softball, but mostly hard ball. And, and after the game, we scheduled a meeting. and we were all at the ball park and the wives and children and mothers and fathers and, so forth. And all of them, all of the members of the teams were, were Mexican American, and then, we would start talking and, and do the dog and pony show for Hector Garcia about the need for organization, the discriminatory treatment they were receiving. In some of those towns they even had the Mexican school where all of the children attended that were Mexican Americans were completely segre, segregated and, and were attending segregated schools. And most of them that I saw were vastly inferior to the schools that white Anglos attended. And, and then, we would have the little rally and, so forth. On a couple of occasions the police got wind of the, the authorities got wind of such organization was taking place. And they set the police on us. And they broke up those little rallies and dog and pony shows we were putting on about the rights of men and, and freedom of, of association. And, and were chased out of the parks, which were mostly public parks or the sandlots where we were, where we were playing. So, so . . . Dr. Gutiérrez: What were some of these communities you went to other than Cuero? Dr. Cárdenas:They were, they were a whole bunch of them. I would rather not get into the individual names. Some of them are, are, have changed considerably, but, of course I would say Bastrop, Cuero, New Braunfels, San Marcos, and then others, Luling, we used to call it el hule (the rubber) and, and Seguin. I, I really, you know, you are talking about something almost, that has been more than fifty years ago. I don't remember all of the communities we went to. And I don't even remember which ones I went to and which ones other members went to, but we couldn't go every weekend. That was almost a full time job. Dr. Gutiérrez: How did Hector Garcia provide you with the contacts? I, I mean, in that period . . . Dr. Cárdenas:Yes. Dr. Gutiérrez: . . .of time there were no faxes and you probably didn't have phones, so and correspondence takes too long, I mean. Dr. Cárdenas:Well, Xico was in continuous communication with his brother and Xico would go home on the weekend. In fact, sometimes some of us would go home with, with Xico over the weekend. And I never did, but some of my friends stayed over at Dr. Hector Garcia's house. Dr. Gutiérrez: So, some of you had cars? Dr. Cárdenas:Xico had a car. And the only other one that had a car was Jesse Trevino from, he was from Alice, not Alice, McAllen, very successful insurance agent and has an agency in, in McAllen. But he hadn't the car very long. He loaned it to me one Saturday night and girl and I were parked at Mt. Venel. And somehow the car went out of gear and we went over the cliff embankment there. Demolished. Demolished the car. But yeah, some of the veterans, many of the veterans had cars. I remember, I think, Jesse had a, before that, had a bicycle and most of us just walked and rode the bus and, so forth. Dr. Gutiérrez: You alluded to the relationship with Dr. Garcia. Were you involved in that infamous Three Rivers case with Felix Longoria? Dr. Cárdenas:No. No. At least I wasn't. I don't know if any of the other members of the, of the . . .. I was very familiar with the case, but I don't know if any of the other members of the Alba Club at the University of Texas participated in that, but I, I think Dr. Garcia probably handled that on his own. Dr. Garcia ran a tight ship. And the American G. I. Forum and a lot of the activity he undertook himself and he performed himself. In fact, throughout existence of the American G. I. Forum until Dr. Garcia's illness and passing away, a lot of the activity was very, very tightly controlled by Dr. Hector Garcia. He was the founder and he was the leader. If he got quite a bit on his own. Dr. Gutiérrez: Any clue as to why it was named American G. I. Forum? You, you said that you organized, but, but under . . . Dr. Cárdenas:Yeah, because the . . . Dr. Gutiérrez: No name apparently, and then, that led to some organization. Dr. Cárdenas:Well, Hector organized us as, as an organization of Mexican American veterans of World War II. And, and this is the reason for, for the G. I. Forum. Because there were G. Is. that had, that were getting out of the Army in 1945, 1946. They had several things in common. Most of them had, had very poor educations. A lot of them were going back to college. Educational opportunity for Mexican Americans, as you well know, in 1946 were not, not the best. If I remember correctly, Crystal City, not a single Mexican American had ever attended high school up to 1946. Well, anyway, they were veterans and therefore the G. I. name. I think he used American to emphasize the fact that we were Americans and, and, or they were because I wasn't a veteran then. I am a veteran now. But, but the funny thing is that I was not eligible though I did a lot of organizational work for the G. I. Forum. I was not eligible for membership. And I was never a member because I was not a veteran of, of, of any sort, any branch of the, of the military. Dr. Gutiérrez: Do you know if Dr. Garcia followed the same mode of recruiting young men out of A & M or A & I to work with some of these other communities like Dr. Cárdenas:I have no idea. At, at, among my close friends, Bob Sanchez from Laredo, we grew up next door to each other in Laredo; we both attended the University of Texas in those years. Bob Sanchez was one of, of Xico's very good friends and, and, and he was very close to Dr. Hector Garcia. And here we are talking about fifty some odd years later; Bob Sanchez is still very active as, as a member of the board of the American G. I. Forum. But I really don't know. As you said, there were, the cost of telephones was prohibitive and there was no, not much communication in any relationship with Texas A & M, for instance. It was rather hostile around Thanksgiving Day when we had the football game. So, really there, I don't know to what extent Hector Garcia took this at any other colleges. Dr. Gutiérrez: OK. You mentioned and promised that you were going to talk about the second influential person in your life. Dr. Cárdenas:Well, that was . . . Dr. Gutiérrez: Who was that? Dr. Cárdenas:The great George Sanchez at the University of Texas in, in Austin. And I get chills just thinking about the man. A very modest man, small, thin, sickly, but he had a very small body with a huge head and in that huge head he had a, a magnificent brain. He had taught in New Mexico and at the, at the university and he was recruited and acquired in the Philosophy Division of their Department in the College of Education at the University of Texas. There were very few Hispanic faculty members at the University of Texas at Austin in 1946. There were a few. But certainly he was the most prominent one and he liked students. He, he, he spent a lot of time with us. He was the one that sponsored us, a faculty member, the organization of the Alba Club. And, and, and he used to invite us over to his house on, on Sundays after church and had ice tea or coffee or whatever. And we used to sit on the lawn or sit on the porch and talk about social issues, educational issues, whatever. I took a course under him in 1949 on multi-cultural education. The only course I ever took that related to the type of work that I am doing now at, at during my undergraduate years. And then, Dr. George Sanchez served on my doctoral committee at the University of Texas. And by the time that I graduated and I graduated in 19, got my doctorate in '66, he was already very, very ill and, in fact, didn't even attend my dissertation defense. But for many years, George Sanchez was the academic voice of the Mexican American in Texas and he was very respected. He was very astute. He described bi-lingual education programs. I have seen early writings of him where he talks about the concept of bi-lingualism and bi-lingual education many, many years before it became a, a, a feasible response or, or an alternative in, in any other part of the country. In fact, he wrote about bi-lingual education or conceptualized it when he was still with the University of New Mexico. He was a very, very brilliant person. When I was working for the Southwest Lab, I had some misunderstandings with him. At that time I was director of Migrant Education for the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory. We were implementing a pilot program in what was known as the extended school amendment, school day for migrants. And one of the conditions for doing so was to put all the migrants in one building in, in the school district. McAllen was an example. They used the old high school, the old administrative offices central school and made it a migrant center. All of the children who were migrant, they didn't start classes until, until October, middle of October, which was good because many of the migrants, most of the migrants were not back until then. They closed in, in April, which is good because most of the migrant children were leaving. And, and I developed a lot of programs to offset what I called the program discontinuity available to migrant children. And that is that the instructional program it seems that the kid that, that is in class today was in class the day before and is going to be in class the following day. It has sequence. It has continuity. And the migrant children, moving as often as they do, are, are, cannot participate in this continuity and, and I was advocating. I am talking about the middle Sixties for more, much more individualized instructional programs which where the instruction was, was geared to the experiences of the kids rather than a predetermined sequence which was aimed at students at large and students that geographically were much more stable than the migrant population. George Sanchez, I thought he would support this very strongly and he did. He, he just had a very strong reservation about the placement of the migrant children in a segregated setting. And he warned me. And, of course, we had learned the lessons of Brown versus Board of Education. And he warned me that, that the segregation of the migrant children was detrimental enough to probably offset all of the gains that I was proposing in the programs and services and organization in calendar for the special school. I, I, I had a lot of respect for him and I told him so. And, and I said that I still wanted to try it and he just shook his head and says, "Well, do so, " he says, "but I am warning you. Beware of the effects of the segregation of the migrant children. " In retrospect, I think he was right. I was wrong. And that the placement of the migrant students in isolated campuses with nothing but migrants and as George Sanchez said, no models for lifestyles outside of the migrant model, I thought was detrimental for them, for the children. But I, you know, I'm, I had a lot of remorse over it. I tried something. Some of the concept worked very well. In many ways the education of migrant children was enhanced and improved. I, I still think that George Sanchez was right in that the segregation was legally, morally, hegemonicaly wrong. And, and I, I lost advocacy for, for met for the migrant education and the tailoring of a structural program to meet the lifestyles of the migrants, but the physical segregation of the children. And I am adamantly opposed to it now like George Sanchez was then. Dr. Gutiérrez: You mentioned earlier the higher education comparison to the local schools funding issue. You said it was basically the same thing. Why do you think the Supreme Court of Texas rejected, unanimously, the, that there was no discrimination in the higher education of Mexican Americans in Texas? Dr. Cárdenas:Yeah. Tocayo , (Namesake) if, if anybody could figure out why the Supreme Court of Texas does things, I think that they would be the most successful people in, in the, in, in the world. I think it is the same base, basic issue. If you have an elite system of education both at the elementary and secondary levels and in the institutions of higher education and that they still want to preserve a, a, an educational system that, that, that offers an elitist education to some of their students. I understand the arguments. I, I am a supporter of the University of Texas at Austin and graduated. And I understand the arguments about having a, a flagship university, a university that really can accomplish something in, in research. The only problem is, of course, that lack of quality institutions in certain parts of the state certainly before the LULAC litigation never, there were very few universities in the border area. There still are very few universities in the border areas. Those are the universities that exist have limited, very limited resources and, and you have some, a very rich university at, two very rich universities, University of Texas at Austin and the one in, Texas A & M. University of Texas Austin being one of the wealthiest universities in the world, and then, you have universities elsewhere that don't have those kinds of resources. Let me give you an example of the impact of this. I have taught courses on a part time basis on school finance and other subjects at the University of Texas at San Antonio. I have taught the identical course at the University of Texas at Austin. I got paid twice as much for teaching the course at the University of Texas at Austin than I got paid for teaching the course at the University of Texas at San Antonio. And they even gave me a gasoline allowance to offset the distance that I had to travel to teach the course at the University of Texas at Austin. You look at faculty salaries at some of those universities, and they have tremendous administrators, Julietta Garcia at the University Texas at Brownsville, the international university at Edinburg, they, they just don't have the type of resources that are available to the flagship university and, and . . . Dr. Gutiérrez: Nor the degree program. Dr. Cárdenas:Yes. The information that was presented by, by the lawyers in, MALDEF [Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund] lawyers in the LULAC [League of United Latin American Citizens] court case shortly showed that there was a, a shortage of, of programs in, in some of the areas of the state where your, where you have your biggest concentration of Mexican Americans. It is still true. If a kid from Brownsville or McAllen wants to go to medical school, the closest one would be the one here in San Antonio. He could go here, he could go to Galveston or maybe Texas Tech or wherever, but it, he has to leave the valley in order to go to medical school. Same thing is true of, of law schools. In fact, even San Antonio doesn't have a state supported law school and, and a, a person from Central and South Texas who wants to go to law school, public law school at public expense, would have to travel to, to, the nearest one would be the University of Texas at Austin to attend. In other words, the disburse, on the other hand, areas of the state that have less minorities in it, Mexican Americans, are very, very quick to get new programs. A relatively new university like the University of Texas at, at Arlington that you are familiar with, got a plethora of, of new programs almost immediately, programs that the University of Texas at Brownsville or, or in Edinburgh still don't have. Or, or Laredo, even though it is a much newer university. Permian Basin, I don't know why you need a . . . University of Texas would feel they need a university at Permian Basin only a few miles from Texas Tech another state university. And from whom it drew most of its clientele, but yet that is a magnificent little university. It's a, the only thing they don't have is students. But they have a beautiful campus and they have a lot of resources. It is well funded. I, I, I think they have more facilities and better facilities than University of Texas at, at Brownsville where they still use old cavalry stables for, for their educational activities. So it seems that the northern part of the state got a lot of new programs and, and resources and that the southern part of the state did not, which is the essence of the LULAC arguments in, in, in the higher education court case. Dr. Gutiérrez: Moving off from some very important roots about your life, you, you had graduated. I want to take you back to the original question of the career track. You graduated, became a teacher at nineteen, took a job, apparently, somewhere. Could you, could you follow up and tell us how you went from teacher to superintendent and the battles that you incurred? Dr. Cárdenas:Well, I was a, a teacher in, in 1950 and having come from Laredo went to Laredo back to teach and, and I taught in Laredo at Christian Junior High School, 1950-1951. I taught science and, and L. J. Christian Middle, now they call them middle schools, but it was junior high then, and in 1951 something very interesting happened. I got drafted and I got eventually sent to Korea. Dr. Gutiérrez: Even though you were a teacher? Dr. Cárdenas:Yes. Dr. Gutiérrez: And you did not get a deferment? Dr. Cárdenas:No, they did not give teacher deferments. And, and I got drafted and I got, I was in the Army for a two year period. Dr. Gutiérrez: Where did you go? Dr. Cárdenas:Well, they sent me to Camp Roberts, California where I took basic infantry training, and then, when, when I got out of basic training I had three options. They have these counseling sessions where they give you the options. And I had the option, remember I had been a teacher, and I had several majors. I could teach teaching fields, Spanish, English, Science as teaching fields and I had taught Science in the Laredo Public Schools. Well, I got the offer being a paratrooper, a baker, or a radio operator. I chose radio operation. I think baker would have been easier, but I, I didn't relish the thought of getting up at four o'clock in the morning or three o'clock in the morning for baking the, the bread. So, I took radio operator. I did very well in radio operator school and they kept me there at, in Camp Roberts as a, as a radio operator instructor for almost a year after I graduated from, from the radio operator's training program. And then, towards the end of my tenure in the Army, I think there were just desperate for manpower or something because I only had seven months to serve and, and they sent me to Korea. And, and I was sent to . . . and off the West Coast of Korea. A combat zone. And most of what I did was radio operation and also training South Koreans in radio operation. 1953, my two years of compulsory military service were terminated. I had no intention of staying in the United States Army, as hospitable as they were, and when I got out in 1953, I faced the same educational issue I had faced in 1946. I had a teacher certificate and I had one years, three years actually, because the Army years counted as a, officially, as teaching experience. And I wanted to work on a Master's Degree. Again, by this time they had a community college in Laredo. They did not have a four year university and certainly there was not any graduate school anywhere in South Texas that, that I could attend and get a Master's degree. The closest was Our Lady of the Lake College here in, in San Antonio, Texas and there was no state university in, in San Antonio. And Our Lady of the Lake was just the most feasible one, so when I got out of the Army in 1953, I stayed in San Antonio in order to be able to work, teach, and work on my Master's Degree. I, I went to work for the Edgewood School District in 1953. I had applied at another school district and they were very interested because there was no shortage of teachers at that time. The baby boomers were just starting to hit the schools, but they informed me that they had no vacancies in the predominantly or almost exclusively Mexican schools. And, and, and I says, "Well, what about some of the non-Mexican schools? I could teach science there. " And the superintendent informed that they did not send Mexican teachers to those schools. I was, I was very, very surprised and very hurt over, over this. And my wife had been teaching in the Edgewood School District when I was overseas and, and she suggested that I go talk to the superintendent over there. And I went to talk to Ely Arnold and Ely Arnold, we, we didn't bother him, the ethnicity didn't bother him. And he did not have a vacancy that year in high school but he told me that if I taught at, in the Edgewood District, I'd have high priority for the first vacancy that turned up in Edgewood High School. So, I taught at Coronado Elementary School in 1953 and 1954. Taught, started at third grade, and then, they reorganized and I taught fifth grade and I, I taught the fifth grade at, at Coronado School. All the population was Hispanic, Mexican American. In fact, you could spend weeks out there on the streets and in grocery stores without ever hearing anything but Spanish spoken. It was referred to as the Mexican part of town. And it was the far west side because you also had the Mexican part of town that was closer to town on the east side of 24th Street, Culebra, which was the dividing line between Edgewood and, and the San Antonio School District. I taught their fifth grade and at the end of the year I was informed that there was a science and biology teaching vacancy at Edgewood High School. So, in 1954 I moved to Edgewood High School and I taught their science and biology. I taught there one year. And the, the school was really growing and, and it had a principal as the only administrative officer. And the principal, Jimmy Forreston, that I was teaching under called me into his office one day and said that he had been authorized to hire a vice principal and wanted to know if I would accept the position? This was in 1955. I was twenty-four years old. So I became vice principal of Edgewood High School. The first vice principal of Edgewood High School. Incidentally, at that time Edgewood was at least ninety percent Hispanic, Mexican American. When I became vice principal in 1955 I was the first Mexican American administrator in the Edgewood School District. Dr. Gutiérrez: We are recording again. You were just telling me that you became the first vice principal. Dr. Cárdenas:I became the first vice principal of Edgewood High School in 1955. At the same time I became the first Mexican American in an administrative position in, in 1955. At that time the district had about twenty-four, twenty-three, twenty-four, maybe twenty-five, about twenty-two schools, I think. And, and each one had a principal and, and, and there was some staff at the central office and supervisors and curriculum coordinators and counselors and, so forth. And I was the first Hispanic to work, first Mexican American to work in an administrative position. Dr. Gutiérrez: Can you tell me briefly if you know, when the proliferation of school districts occurred and why? Was, was this just Edgewood and San Antonio Independent and that was the segregation or there were more? Dr. Cárdenas:No, no. Originally, of course, there was a, a coterminous school district that was part of the city of San Antonio and that is the San Antonio Independent School District. Which down the line, I don't exactly remember what year, but way back there, the, the school district became independent of, of the city. As the city of San Antonio grew the school district did not grow with, with the city. There was another school district that was very, very prominent in another city and that was Alamo Heights. And Alamo Heights incorporated as an independent school district and San Antonio incorporated as an independent school district. The city of San Antonio started growing, and then, the annexation of the San Antonio Independent School District became very population and wealth conscious. So that the growth of the San Antonio Independent School District was independent of the growth of the city. For the most part, the school district wanted to keep all of the big wealth, which was the downtown area of San Antonio. I am talking many years before expressways and, and loops and, so forth. And I, I am not going to say that the, the San Antonio School District didn't grow, but the growth was very selective. So that predominantly Anglo neighborhoods and, and wealthy neighborhoods were annexed to the San Antonio Independent School District, but some of the lower wealth areas or minority areas were not accepted for annexation. At that time there was Alamo Heights School District, San Antonio School District, and most of the rest was the county system of schools. Many of the school districts have tried to get out of the county system because being a, a part of the county meant that you competed with, with the sheriff's office and other county services for the tax dollar. And the option was available to incorporate as independent school districts. I think Edgewood remained as such because it was an area that nobody particularly wanted. It was almost all Hispanic and had very low wealth, housing and, and very small housing and with very little tax value. And as other school districts incorporated, Edgewood was just kind of left as part of the, of the county system, and then, I think it was around 1950 Edgewood finally had no choice but to incorporate as a school district on it's own. Dr. Gutiérrez: Then the net result being the segregation of Mexican Americans, no? Dr. Cárdenas:That's right. That's right. In fact, Bob Brischetto, who used to work as a research director for IDRA, on a part time basis, is a very well known professor at Trinity University, Our Lady of the Lake, and then, with the Southwest Voter Registration Project has proposed the theory . . . And we considered it for the court suit against the state of Texas on school finance that, that Edgewood had been created . . . And there was sufficient evidence to, to prove the case. I don't think possibly to win it, that the creation of the Edgewood School District was illegal because the, the, it, it was done so in order, for segregation purposes. This is similar to the argument that Del Rio advanced in U. S. v. Texas in the San Felipe, Del Rio intervention suit in which Del Rio argued that San Felipe or Del Rio could not be continuous as independent school districts because they were created as two different entities for segregation purposes. And Judge William Wayne Justice accepted this argument and ruled the consolidation and ruled the enforcement into consolidation of San Felipe and Del Rio into the San Felipe Del Rio Independent School District because it had been created illegally for segregation purposes. The only thing is that by this time, in response to Bob Brischetto's argument, I would think that I, as superintendent of Edgewood or the superintendent that followed me was particularly interested in joining the San Antonio Independent School District. Although I must mention that during the 1950s, when I was working for Ely Arnold, Dr. Ely Arnold, Dr. Arnold made a request to the San Antonio School District for incorporation and he was rejected by the, by, by the San Antonio School District. The reason that was stated and that's all, I heard this from Arnold himself, as well as, saw it in the newspapers, was that they both had bond debited indebtedness and that complicated the issue. The, the irony is that all areas that are incorporated and all school districts that merge have bonded indebtedness and has not been a major problem for incorporation. It was with Edgewood. In other words, Edgewood was turned down. Something funny happened on, on the way to history. And that is that a lot of the wealth moved out of the San Antonio Independent School District and schools like Jefferson High School that were predominantly white Anglo and Edison and others suddenly found themselves as, as minority schools. And a lot of the wealth moved out of the San Antonio School District. And, right now, the San Antonio School District is really a low wealth school district in Texas. A lot of the wealth now being incorporated by the northeast school district, some of it on the north side school district, which is not a wealthy school district either. But San Antonio School District lost it's wealth and, and there was an influx of minority populations into what became the inner city of San Antonio. And, and, and this is ironic because they didn't want Edgewood because it had too many Mexicans and yet, San Antonio School District now has more Mexicans than there are in the Edgewood School District. And what they proposed or Brischetto said that we could probably go to federal court and force the merger and the San Antonio School District and Edgewood. My basic concern is that the merger of a poor school district with another poor school district will produce a larger poor school district. And, therefore I did not see this as a feasible solution for the wealth disparity problems of the Edgewood School District, and other low level school districts in Edgewood, in, in San Antonio. Dr. Gutiérrez: What prompted the formation of Harlandale on the south side? Dr. Cárdenas:The same thing. Exactly the same thing. They didn't want to stay as part of the county system because they were not getting adequate resources and when you became an independent school district, you had taxing power, all of which you kept. And it was better for the school district to collect and, and utilize it's own taxes than to be part of the county and have to go to commissioner's court to ask for money for the operation of the school. Dr. Gutiérrez: Was that the same scenario as the San Antonio Independent that was set up as a white school district and then before they knew it, it became minority and Mexican American? Dr. Cárdenas:Uh, yes. Dr. Gutiérrez: Certainly Harlandale, that was a pocket of whites locked in the Southside. Dr. Cárdenas:Yes. Dr. Gutiérrez: Southside, southside . . .. Dr. Cárdenas:But, but with no wealth, see. You remember that I said the SAD was interested in, in the acquisition of white populations. It was interested in the acquisition of taxable wealth. Some of them incorporated before Edgewood. South San [Antonio Independent School District], for instance, when they incorporated, it, it is ironic, but they, the district line is, follows the railroad track. And they incorporated and took the, the track, which is taxable property out and, and, of course, Edgewood has nothing similar to it. In fact, analysis of the Edgewood School District, the biggest taxpayer was the telephone company. And there is very little, there were very few business properties that, that produced taxable wealth. I think about the only exception was the Las Palmas . . . Dr. Gutiérrez: Shopping center? Dr. Cárdenas: . . ..shopping center Dr. Gutiérrez: That was recent, no? Dr. Cárdenas: . . ..which is relatively recent. I think it opened in the, in the, in the . . . Dr. Gutiérrez: Late Fifties, no? Dr. Cárdenas: . . ..late, late Fifties when I was a school principal at Stafford Elementary School. Well, let me get back to the, my career. I worked for three years as vice principal of Edgewood High School, then I was offered the position of school principal in Stafford Elementary School. This was in 1958. I was twenty-seven years old. I accepted the position and, and worked as principal of Stafford for three years. At the same time, I started; I started working on my Doctorate Degree. I got my Master's, my Master's in 1955, the same year that I started as vice principal at, at Edgewood High School, which I guess, it was a pre-requisite. I just about had to have a Master's Degree to take the position. I did have my Master's Degree, and then, I, I started working on my Doctorate Degree at the University of Texas in Austin. I am talking about 1959, 1960 and '61 and after three years at, at, at Stafford Elementary School, I was offered a position at St. Mary's University in the Department of Education. I took the position and I stayed there for, for three years as a professor and three more years as professor in, and director of the, of the Department of Education. And I was in charge of all teacher education at the St. Mary's University until 1967. I did get my Doctorate Degree in '66 and, and then, I left St. Mary's University in '67, went with the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory in Austin for two years, and then . . . Dr. Gutiérrez: Is that a private entity or a quasi-public organization? Dr. Cárdenas:It's a private entity, but an entity is for the regional laboratories established by the federal government, but it was established as a private non-profit corporation. And with contracts and receives money from the federal government. Dr. Gutiérrez: Is this different that the regional service centers? Dr. Cárdenas:Yes. This is a, a regional lab whereas the regional service centers service a region of Texas. And there are twenty regions in Texas. The Southwest Lab serviced about originally I would say about ten states and now it is probably limited to about five states in Texas, which includes, in, in the Southwest which includes probably Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, possibly Oklahoma, and, and possible New Mexico. But . . . Dr. Gutiérrez: So, one is a federal interstate activity and the other is an intrastate? Dr. Cárdenas:One is a federal region, regional laboratory and, and whose, whose main job is research and development and, and the other, the regional centers are state entities whose main job is probably quasi-service, servicing of does not have much regulatory authority and do very little in the area of research and development per se, but are like agents of the Texas Education Agency. Although it is hard to define because they are neither fish nor fowl. In fact, that is one of the problems with the Texas regional centers and that their role has not been adequately defined since their creation many, many years ago. Dr. Gutiérrez: OK. Well, how did you become a superintendent? Dr. Cárdenas:I was with Southwest Labs, then the chairman of the board of Edgewood, and I was working with Edgewood at the time setting up an early childhood education program and he asked me if I would accept the position. It would interesting, the position of superintendent and I said, "No, I was not. " And then, he says, "Well, what would it take for, for you to accept the position? " And Edgewood, at that time, was a very, very divided school district. The board members were at odds with each other. Dr. Gutiérrez: Along class lines, along ethnic lines? Were Mexican Americans already on the board? Dr. Cárdenas:Probably philosophical lines. Philosophical lines as to which way Edgewood was going and what kind of a district it was supposed to be and Dr. Gutiérrez: Were there any Mexican Americans on the board? Dr. Cárdenas:Yeah. By that time, most of the board members were Mexican American. I am talking about 1967, '69, I am sorry. And, and then, kind of as a joke I said, "Well, what it would take for me to become superintendent of Edgewood would be for all seven, seven members of the board to ask me. " And, and there was so much divisiveness within the district that I thought there was no chance that that would ever happen, you know. It is like saying if it starts snowing in San Antonio I will take the job. Well, sure enough, a few days later I get a request signed by all seven members of the board offering me the position of the Edgewood School District. Dr. Gutiérrez: Did school walkouts have anything to do with wanting a personnel change? Dr. Cárdenas:Yes. In fact, at the time Edgewood did not have a, a school district. It was not only the walkout, but . . . Dr. Gutiérrez: Did not have a superintendent you mean? Dr. Cárdenas: . . .did not have a superintendent. I am sorry. Dr. Gutiérrez: What happened to Bennie Steinhauser? Dr. Cárdenas:He resigned. And there were some questions, some controversies, and, and he finally submitted his resignation from the Edgewood School District. I have heard many different stories as to why, but anyway he left the Edgewood School District and went to Southwest Independent School District. And they appointed Joe Lava as acting superintendent. He was never, never hired as the superintendent. The school district was in big problems because it was being run by committees. And just a thought of a school district, at that time they had twenty thousand kids, grew to almost twenty five thousand while I was there, was being run by committees of the board in a, a not very efficient manner. Well, reluctantly met with the Edgewood board and was amazed at the amount of support that I received and the amount of encouragement that was given to me. And I finally accepted the position. And, and, and became superintendent in, in, I think it was probably July 1, 1969. Dr. Gutiérrez: Did you contact other Mexican American superintendents to kind of find out what to do next? Dr. Cárdenas:What other Mexican American superintendents? Dr. Gutiérrez: There weren't any of them? Surely there was in Laredo, they had one in Brownsville. Dr. Cárdenas:There was one over in Rio Grande City, there may have been one in the Corpus Christi area and I think that, that was it. I, I was probably, not Crystal City . . . I was superintendent way before Angel Noe Gonzalez. He contacted me when he became superintendent of Crystal City. I think there were only two Mexican American superintendents. Dr. Gutiérrez: None in Laredo? Dr. Cárdenas:No. Dr. Gutiérrez: None in Brownsville? Dr. Cárdenas:No. Dr. Gutiérrez: Wow. OK. Dr. Cárdenas:Ogg was superintendent of Laredo. Dr. Gutiérrez: So, who did you turn to for advice and, and mentoring and counseling and guidance? Dr. Cárdenas:Myself. Myself. It was something I had to consider myself. It was not a bad idea. I was particularly interested in research and development. The only problem is educators are funny people and they feel that people who have not had the experience cannot provide leadership to that group. In other words, here at IDRA, all of our training specialists have teaching experience. It is helpful. I am not sure that it is absolutely necessary except that it is very hard for somebody that has not taught to be accepted as an expert by a teacher and be able to relate to teachers and to provide leadership to teachers. Same thing is true about super, superintendents. And I knew that in research and development, not having superintendent's experience, that it would be very difficult to work with superintendents as I was doing with the lab because I would always be classified inferior to every super, to the worst superintendent in the state of Texas. And like you said, at that time there were eighteen hundred school districts in 1969 in Texas and, and, and, and when I became superintendent I was probably the third Mexican American superintendent out of eighteen hundred districts in, in the state. Some of which were ironically almost a hundred percent Mexican American. Anyway, I took the position with Edgewood for a three-year period. That was my understanding from the board that I, I didn't want a five-year contract. All I wanted was three years. In fact, I don't know that they ever gave me a three-year contract. I think I would have preferred to do it on an annual basis, making it very clear to the board that I would be the educational leader of the school district. And I expected support from the, from the board and if the support was not good coming from the board I would be very happy to step down and go back to doing something else. Keep in mind that by that time the United States was finding out that there were Mexican Americans and, and becoming acquainted with the Chicanos of this world. And here you had a Chicano who had many years of teaching experience and had a Doctorate Degree and had served as superintendent of schools, so I, I felt that I was very marketable. Anyway, the board, I stayed for four years in, in Edgewood and the board gave me unlimited support. During the four years that I was with the Edgewood School District, I don't remember, we had discussions, sometimes even arguments and so forth. I listened to them, they listened to me, but in the final analysis I, I can't remember a single recommendation that I made to the board that was not enacted into a resolution unanimously. Dr. Gutiérrez: What battles did you have with TEA or with other school districts in even setting up just football games? Dr. Cárdenas:Well, I had a big problem with the, at that time University of Inter-Scholastic League. And they had what we used to refer to as the Tortilla Curtain. And, and they would assign districts like Edgewood to play with only minority school districts and considering the size of the school, the closest one would be Del Rio or Eagle Pass and, so forth. And whereas some of the predominantly Anglo schools played among each other here in San Antonio, Edgewood would have to go to Del Rio or Del Rio would have to come to Edgewood for a football game. I, I had all kinds of problems with the Edgewood School, with the Texas Educational Agency. In fact, I was harassed. I got very early, met with the school district's lawyer, man by the name of Greg Luna who subsequently served as a state representative and a state senator and he informed me about the court case against the school district which was the Rodriguez court case. And together we got it turned around and, and Edgewood was dropped as a defendant and the main defendant became the state of Texas and that was the Rodriguez school finance case that I mentioned previously. I was an early innovator and I, I advocated for such things as bi-lingual education, Texas Education Agency was very reluctant allow me to implement the bi-lingual program because it was illegal in the state of Texas. I finally got a waiver from the commissioner of education, J. W. Edgar. I was very interested in early childhood education and set up probably the first preschool program in, in, in a Texas school district, not Head Start. Head Start at the early childhood that's housed now in the Jose Cardenas Early Childhood Center. I was harassed by that, too. In fact, funds were, were stopped to it because it was called the Jose Cardenas Early Childhood Center and because the title did not include the word elementary school, they froze funds, state funds for the operation of, of the school. So, they had to change the name to Jose Cardenas Elementary School, even though it was a preschool designed as such and built as such, previously funded by my own city's money. I started programs in multicultural education. I started programs in dropout prevention, a youth tutoring needs, parental involvement, urban rural, which was empowerment to the community. Actually many, many career opportunities, there are many, many programs considering that I had worked with Washington and, and at that time the Office of Education. Subsequently, the Office of Education very, very closely and was perhaps the most used minority consultant and participated in the development of those federal programs. I was very fortunate in getting a lot of programs funded for the school district in, in, in, of Edgewood. And state education agency was not very supportive and sometimes it was hostile, sometimes extensive about the harassment. I, I had a dropout prevention program in which we took the worst performing kids in the school and put them in the program and none of them dropped out of school under this program. But I provided stipends for them to teach other kids in, in their schools, which is now Coca Cola Value Youth Program that is all over the country and we also had in Brazil that we are going to start as a result. A very successful program. Texas Education Agency stipulated that I was using entitlement funds for paying, for the stipends for the students and that this was not allowed under Title 1. Well, there was no prohibition under Title 1, but they would not allow it and they virtually killed most of the program. I still had some funds coming from New York City and continued the program, but the biggest part of the program was wiped out because of the ruling by the Texas Education Agency. They were very much opposed to, well at one point; they were very supportive when I started a bi-lingual education that was a turnaround. And suddenly the Texas Education Agency became the biggest impediment to bi-lingual education in the state of Texas. And, and they were very unhappy about my activities and advocacy for bi-lingual education. Texas Education Agency was astounded and horrified at, at, at my proposal that all kids in all school districts have access to equal funding in the state system. And there were two entities that fought me for twenty-eight years. They are still fighting me on the question of school finance equity. One is the Texas Education Agency which is fuddy duddy. They are being responsible for children and children's education in Texas that they take such a strong stand and opposition to children receiving equitable funding. The other agency, of course, is the Attorney General's office in the state of Texas who claimed that they oppose equity because it is against the law in Texas and they are sworn to uphold the law. I have mentioned to all the attorney generals, including Dan Morales, that there is such a thing as an equal protection law in Texas and that perhaps they should enforce that law rather than the inequitable funding of schools. The fact that I was right and that they were wrong is proved by the Supreme Court decision in Edgewood versus Kirby in which they ruled the whole system of school finance in the state of Texas unconstitutional and this is in the Texas Supreme, in the Texas Supreme Court. There, I, I went to court on behalf of, of the children of the San Felipe Independent School District, and then, had an education plan and imposed upon the San Felipe Del Rio Consolidated District by Judge Justice that was very much based on my recommendations to the court. This nobody took kindly to. And, and then, I did a lot on behalf of immigrant children in Doe versus Plylar, Texas Education Agency. Dr. Gutiérrez: Didn't, didn't a lot of this work also to get institutionalized in the Lau decision? Dr. Cárdenas:Well, later in the, yeah, in the Lau decision, but Lau was, was really a very weak decision that just said that, that, if the kids did not speak English and the, and the teachers did not speak Chinese that there was a problem. Something in San Francisco was, was . . .. Dr. Gutiérrez: But they adopted a series of guidelines. I thought they were partly fashioned by your early work. Dr. Cárdenas:Well, I was a member of the Low team at the U. S. Office of Education that developed the Lau guidelines. I think the two of us that did the most in developing of the guidelines were myself and my good friend from California, De Avila. Dr. Gutiérrez: Joaquin? Dr. Cárdenas:No. Dr. Gutiérrez: Not the lawyer? Dr. Cárdenas:De Avila, oh god. Dr. Gutiérrez: Well, it will come to you. Dr. Cárdenas:Ed, Ed De Avila, the linguist. The one that developed the Lass Test and, so forth. Anyway, we drew up most of that and in fact the model that was used was my model on language relationships and was used for Low compliance and so forth. Well, Texas Education Agency was appalled and, and everything. And let me say that, that Low was, was based on language. The Doe versus Plylar was based on citizenship. And that was the undocumented children's case where I felt that children ought to be in school. And let the adults figure out who stays and who goes and who is legal and who is not legal. But in the meantime that children should stay in school. And no less a person that the head of the commissioner of the Immigration Naturalization Service supported me in, in Doe versus Plylar and the subsequent multiple district litigation saying that most of the kids were going to become citizens anyway and that Texas was proposing that they be kept out of school until they became citizens at the age of eighteen. And as I said then, and I say now, "What do you do with an individual at the age of eighteen that becomes a citizen that has never attended school? You are inheriting a tremendous liability. " But the state of Texas didn't see it as such and said that, that they imposed a, a financial burden to the state of Texas. Which was funny because in the, in the Rodriguez case, they had said that there was no financial burden and even though the poorest of the school districts had an abundance of money to put on the adequate instructional program. There were other things that I pointed out to the court in Doe versus Plylar. Mainly that they said that the immigrant kids would lower the quality of education and I not felt that they were wrong because most of the immigrant children outperformed native born minority children in this country. If anything, they would, they would lift the quality of education in, in Texas. Anyway, the question was how did TEA react to all of this? Well, I would, I would say that for many, many years I was the most unpopular person in, in, in the state of Texas. One of the reasons for leaving Edgewood and, and forming this organization to continue the advocacy for bi-lingual education, for school finance equity, for multicultural education, for immigrant children, for migrant children was that I was very vulnerable as a superintendent of a school district controlled and regulated by the Texas Education Agency. Mexicans have a saying, you know, once I get out from the Edgewood School District and start my own organization, as Mexican Americans say, "They peel it to me. " And, and I guess I have been in that privileged position for the last twenty-five years. Dr. Gutiérrez: You seem to be saying that you found solutions to the incredibly high dropout rate or pushout rate of the Mexican American children, and yet, the state doesn't support those solutions. What, what are some of the solutions to stopping or diminishing the dropout rate? Dr. Cárdenas:Well, there are a lot of, there are a lot of problems that, that create the dropouts. I think that the solutions are as bad as the problems. But I think that you can get down to basics and not say that poor performances in school is probably the biggest cause of dropouts. However schools did not agree with this and the schools say that it is the lack of, of, of an appreciation of education, which I think is, is, is a bunch of baloney. Mexican Americans appreciate education. It may be that, you know, like a 747 jet. I don't have one not because I don't appreciate it, but because I can't afford to buy one, see. And Mexican Americans don't stay in school, not because they don't appreciate it, but because they, they can't buy it; they can't, they can't succeed in school. Their performance is real bad. The, the and incidentally the dropout rate in the state of Texas is, is still a massive problem and growing. And, and I think almost forty percent of the children in Texas are dropping out of schools. The Texas Education Agency, which was very concerned, has finally sided with the superintendents that don't admit to the existence of the problem. And they do depress the number of students that reported as dropped out by such things as saying that a lot of the students transferred out although nobody knows where they went. And, and why if so many students transfer out, the number of students in Texas keeps increasing. Obviously there must be somebody transferring in, yet the number of kids lost in the longitudinal road continues to increase. The school districts say that a, a girl, for instance, that is pregnant and leaves school is not a dropout because once she has her child she will probably come back to school. I don't see where they get these figures. I, I think the number of girls that have, teenage girls, school age girls that have children return to school in very, very small numbers and this has been adequately documented, so why assume that, that they are going to return and, and not count them as dropouts. Those statistics just don't support their, their argument. I think the worst thing now is they don't drop, kids don't drop out of school anymore if you can get the kid to say that he is going to enroll in a GED program. Then, he quits going to school, but he is not a dropout because he, he, he is participating or he is going into a GED program. The funny thing is that whether they go to the GED program or whether even enroll in one, is material. The kid said he was leaving the school to go to GED, therefore it is not considered a school dropout. So, according to the school district, they are only losing two percent of the kids a year, maybe eight percent over the four years of high school. We are finding four, forty percent of the students in Texas, over fifty percent of all Hispanics in Texas, children disappearing from the schools and, and I think that the bubble is getting bigger and bigger. It, it has got a, it has got to burst sooner or later because of the implications. Now we find politicians coming up with these dysfunctional responses. John Sharp says that he; he endorses the concept of school vouchers. I think school vouchers would help, would be disastrous to the minority population that cannot afford additional tuition or the transportation costs or the time to be able to take kids to schools of their choice. Besides what makes them think that the other rich school districts or the better school districts are going to accept the low performance students from the minority schools? And then, the other candidate for governor comes up with, with a recommendation that all kids in the third grade, finishing the third grade be tested and pass a reading test before going to the fourth grade. And then, that all kids from finishing junior high at the eighth grade have to pass, pass all tests of the TASS before they go to high school. My gosh, with one chance to take the test, I think that the, the number of dropouts in Texas which is already close to forty percent will probably double to eighty percent with such fine recommendations proposed by our governor candidates from both political parties, major parties in the state of Texas. The situation is bad and I think it, it is going to get worse. Why Texas Education Agency chooses to bury it's head in the sand and say that there are no dropouts in the state of Texas or less than ten percent, I, I don't know other than to accommodate the superintendents that don't want the accountability for the large number of kids that have disappeared and are disappearing in our, in, in our, disappearing in increasing numbers in, of the public schools in the state of Texas. I think the situation was, is, is atrocious. I think educational leaders and the political leaders take the same position that Dolph Briscoe took when he was addressing the joint session of the Texas Association of School Administrators and the Texas Association of School Board Members. And made the statement that Texas had the finest system of schools of any of the fifty states. I was shocked that the participants stood up and gave him a five-minute standing ovation. I couldn't believe it. Briscoe must be real poorly informed or he has never been outside the state of Texas to assume that Texas, which has ranked from thirty four to fortieth in per pupil expenditures has the best educational system of the fifty states. Dr. Gutiérrez: Actually the applause was for hearing what they wanted to hear. Dr. Cárdenas:I think the applause was for hearing what they wanted to hear, that they had no problems, therefore everybody is happy. Although you do notice that administrators play musical chairs and the tenure for a school administrator or school superintendent gets shorter and shorter with most of your superintendents having served less than two years in their current position, subsequent districts are now having three and four superintendents a year. Some of them are paying two and three superintendents at the same time, replacing them. The situation is getting worse. Every time I talk to a new superintendent he always says don't hold me accountable. That was before I came here. Two years later he leaves and the situation is as bad or worse than it was before. Of course, my making these kinds of statements doesn't make me the most popular educator in the state of Texas, but then, I never conceived that my career goal was entering the popularity or winning a popularity contest. Dr. Gutiérrez: How did the walkouts led by Chicano students in the late Sixties into the Seventies help or hinder the education of Mexican Americans? Dr. Cárdenas:I, I think that it was helpful. They called attention to the problems of the students and in themselves, I would think the walkouts did accomplish a lot. Other than perhaps the recognition of student rights that could have been achieved in, in the courts by the Gossen and other court cases that said the students did have, they were human beings and did have rights. But you have the offshoot. For instance, the whole Rodriguez court case was offshoot of the student walkouts at Edgewood High School of the 1960s before I became superintendent over there. Incidentally, sometimes the school authorities are unbelievably naive in facing these student walkouts. When I was superintendent of school, a, a, one of the few Mexican American superintendents, I was informed there was going to be a walkout at Memorial High School, one of the high schools in Edgewood that I was responsible for. And I go over there and I meet with the principal and I says . . . And he tells me how they are all prepared and that they are going to lock the doors. And then, they had faculty stationed all over the place to identify the leaders and how they are going to suspend the leaders and it is going to be automatic. And I thought he was very efficient. And the police had been contacted and, and security guards had been hired to handle the students and, so forth. And then, I asked what he thought was a grand, stupid question. "Why are they walking out? " And they says, "Well, they say the food in the cafeteria is terrible. " And I says, "Well, how is the food in the cafeteria? " He says, "Well, I wouldn't eat there. It is horrible. " Well, jeepers. Instead of all this reaction, he did everything but bring in SWAT teams and, and trained dogs, you know, to deal with the student walkout. And, and he didn't pay any bit of attention to the fact that they are serving inedible food in the cafeteria. And, sure enough, I go down to the cafeteria and, and, and conditions were terrible. And I called in the cafeteria manager and he says, "Well, under the budget we are operating on . . ..." and, so forth. And I says, "Well, " I said, "let's change the budget. " And some of the things the students wanted to have some chili sauce in there to dress up the food. I am a great eater of chili and I love chili sauce. And I think the students were right. And many times I've eaten in many places where I wish I had a little piquin (wild chili pepper) or jalapeno or something to go along with the food. And, and I asked him how much would it cost to, to, to provide a bucket of jalapenos there during the lunch hour? Less than a tenth of a penny per student. It would be nothing whatsoever. It is ridiculously low priced. I just don't know why they would have to have a confrontation with the students when the demands of the students are fairly reasonable. And I think that the demands of the students in Edgewood, if there was one mistake with the community . . . And I use as an example, Harlandale, that there threatening walkouts and, and, and having a confrontation in Harlandale over the quality of the teachers and the pay of the teachers and COPS [Communities Organized for Public Service] was very active in that. And I pointed out to the COPS . . .. And I pointed out to the community of Harlandale that they were picking up the wrong person or Harlandale couldn't get a teacher a pay raise if they wanted to because the state system of school finance did not provide sufficient funds for Harlandale to give teachers a pay raise. And COPS are sharp people. And, sure enough Ernie Cortes turned his focus and kind of let loose of Harlandale and, and, and put the bite on, on the state of Texas and the legislature in order to get equitable funding for, for Harlandale. They didn't succeed but, but they certainly raised it to a level of, of a public issue and gave it a lot of publicity which they attempted to address the issue, they just got a very poor solution in their dealings with Governor White. Dr. Gutiérrez: What's the role of Chicano Studies in public education? Dr. Cárdenas:Well, I don't know. I really don't know. I think that it is desirable for, for populations to know their own history. Certainly white Anglo students that come from European, northern European stock hear all about the pilgrims and the Mayflower and, and what their ancestors contributed to, to, to the formation of this country. I think it is equally desirable for Hispanics, Mexican Americans, Blacks, Native-Americans to also learn about the contributions of their ethnic groups to the formation of this country and the customs of this country. I have a lot of people that say that, that some very prominent people have told me that, that Mexican Americans should accept the American culture. And, of course, my response has always been, "Well I will consider it if you will tell me what the American culture is. " And, and then, they start giving examples. Well, a very well established institution from, like Taco Bell, you know, I don't think they started with turkeys that the pilgrims killed, you know, in, in the food that they serve. And, of course, here in the Southwest we have even social, a lot of Spanish. In fact, the Spanish-Arabian dry land farming heritage which permeates the whole Southwest. There were a lot of contributions. I think that you understand yourself. The, I also think that the, that individual to be free must have choice. And I think that in order to have choice there have to be feasible alternatives to choose from. So, I think that one of the principals of education and of this country is to make available and keep available options to choose from. And I had had an argument with Richard Rodriguez in California who says that to survive Hispanics must assimilate and, and get rid of their ethnic characteristics. And I argued with Richard Rodriguez that that is a, that . . . "I, I still speak Spanish fluently, I still act as a lot of the Hispanic Mexican cultural values, orientations, traditions. And I have had a lot of success, sir. " Well, the schools here mildly support it and say this is so. But that the kid must make a choice for himself. Well, this is fine. I will go along with that. But in order for the kid to make a choice, whether he speaks English or doesn't speak Spanish and, and I think that everybody should be required to speak English. On the other hand, should everybody that is Hispanic be required to speak Spanish? No, I think everybody ought to make a choice. But if in the education process he loses his Spanish language facility, by the time he is old enough to make a choice, let's say at the age of eighteen or twenty one, whatever you want to call it, he no longer has a choice if he has lost it. The same thing is, is true of cultural values. A person may select elements of a culture, such as the family relationships, which I think are the strongest part of Mexican culture. But he really doesn't have a choice if such an orientation has been eliminated by assimilation by the time that he is old enough to make that choice. So, I see schools then in the area of language and the area of culture of maintaining viable options so that the kid or the grownup individual may eventually make their own choice. Dr. Gutiérrez: What was the National Education Task Force of La Raza all about and what role did you play in that? Dr. Cárdenas: Ya me tengo que ir . . ..(I have to go . . ..) Oh, boy. OK. Incidentally I have all the files of the National Education Task Force of La Raza and all the files from every . . .. Dr. Gutiérrez: Well, thank you for the time . . .. Dr. Cárdenas: Ya se me esta acabando la voz, tocayo . (My voice is going out on me, namesake.) Second Interview - Jose Angel Cardenas Dr. Gutiérrez: We are recording. Today is January 15, 1998. We are doing a continuation of the interview with Jose Angel Cardenas. And we had basically covered all of the topics I was interested in except there are some loose ends here. What role did you play in the formation or the creation or the involvement of the National Education Task Force de La Raza? What was that story? Dr. Cárdenas:This was an organization that was formed rather impromptu as a result of a commitment made by Chuck Smith in, in the Department of Education where he provided some funds for training and, and development advocacy, and, and other activities for a national group in, in, in the United States. There was no such national group so we formed one which was called the National Education Task Force de La Raza and we received a very substantial grant from the Department of Education. It was divided into regions and the various regions conducted advocacy activities and training activities under the auspices of the federal grant. Dr. Gutiérrez: Whose idea was it? Dr. Cárdenas:I really don't know. I think Chuck Leyva and, and Steven Arvizu, myself, Simon Gonzalez all got together and, in El Paso, all got together and, and obtained the grant from, from Chuck Smith. I think, just talking to him, he, he made the commitment to provide these funds. Dr. Gutiérrez: How long did this last and what do you think the impact was? Dr. Cárdenas:I think it lasted many years and I think it had a very, very strong impact. There was a lot of activity in providing training in the empowerment of communities, empowerment of professional groups. It stems from the National Task Force de La Raza where you used to set up the National Association for Bi-lingual Education which is a very large and influential group in the United States today. We provided the funds also for the establishment of the Texas Association for Bi-lingual Education. We, we set up an, an Association of Mexican American School Board Members when, at a time when, when Mexican Americans first started serving on school boards. The number was very small and we provided not only an association, but we provided extensive training for both local school district board members and state board members in order to familiarize them with the concepts of the policies, the jargon that is used in many cases. Many of them felt they didn't understand the references to Title 1 and Title 7 and, and, so forth. And we gave them the short courses, indoctrination courses, which I think expanded their capability to deal with these policy issues of their new respected positions. This led to the formation of the Mexican American School Board Members Association, also to the Black School Board Members Association, a Coalition of Black Educators, and the Texas Association of Chicanos in Higher Education, TACHE, and other organizations that were spin-offs from training activities provided by the National Education Task Force de La Raza. Dr. Gutiérrez: Did it have a staff? Was there an executive director? Dr. Cárdenas:I would say an, an executive director of, usually the chairman of the, of the group acted as executive director. Finally we did hire Henry Casso as a full time executive director for the organization. Subsequently, he was replaced by Tomas Villarreal in, in New Mexico. Headquarters for the organization was usually the place where the chairman resided so that when Simon Gonzalez was the chairperson it was in UCLA. The Texas center never had any, any extensive staff. I had one assistant that worked with me, chairman and didn't receive no remuneration. At the time that I was working for the Edgewood School District, the funds were given to the Edgewood School District and administered by the Edgewood School District. When I resigned from the Edgewood School District and formed Texans for Educational Excellence, and subsequently IDRA, the funds were, were transferred and, and the sub contract on the National Education Task Force was given to these organizations which were under, very much under my control. Dr. Gutiérrez: Did the chairmanship rotate? Was this a rotating leadership or how did, what was the process? Dr. Cárdenas:Informally, informally. The chairmanship did rotate. And I, I think another influential person who was from New Mexico and with the Department of Education at the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque . . . Dr. Gutiérrez: Dr. Ulibarri? Dr. Cárdenas:No, no . . .. Dr. Gutiérrez: Atencio? Dr. Cárdenas:No. It was John Aragon. Well, John . . . And haven't got the name yet. I am trying to remember the name. Dr. Gutiérrez: I am trying to help. Dr. Cárdenas:Yeah. Anyway, when he became chairperson the, the center of activity went to Albuquerque, and it was in Albuquerque where Henry Casso retired as executive director and therefore the central office was located in Albuquerque. Dr. Gutiérrez: Were there any women involved at that level? Dr. Cárdenas:Yes, there were some women involved. Few, but there were some women involved. Dr. Gutiérrez: Do you recall any names? Dr. Cárdenas:I remember Bambi Cardenas who was working with us. There was some people from El Paso, but, but, but the number was small and the activity was rather limited. Dr. Gutiérrez: What was the decision making process like when you decided to go here as opposed to there. To do that training at this place as opposed to helping them write up a proposal so they can get their own training money? Dr. Cárdenas:Well, there was very little activity at the national level. Mostly, mostly it was policy setting and review. Most of the activity was at the local level and, and, and there I guess the, the local chairperson used his discretion and subject to the wide guidelines provided by the national task force operated the various programs, as need dictated. Dr. Gutiérrez: Can you list, if you can remember, some of the places you all went to do actually training or work or support or analysis or research, investigation, or evaluation? Dr. Cárdenas:I guess I, I could from, from memory. In fact, I have a detailed documentation of all the activities of the National Education Task Force which is, will be available from the University of Texas and Benson Hispanic Latin-American collection. But we, we worked with school districts in San Antonio, worked with the school districts in, in the Valley, we worked with school, worked extensively with Crystal City School District, and we had meetings in, in Austin, we had meetings throughout the state of Texas. We did a lot of, what I refer to now as dog and pony shows where we would talk about the inequities in education. And, and usually have cooperation from the, the city of Dallas in the, well, not the city itself, but like civil rights organizations in Dallas, in Houston, and in El Paso, McAllen, Lubbock. And they would co-sponsor the activity, so then, we would go in there and talk about the, the inadequacies. I guess the local population gave us a lot of information on what these semantic issues were, and then, we would sit down and brainstorm decisions and, on, on what the school district should do for the improvement of educational opportunities for minority children. Such things as bi-lingual education programs, multi-cultural education, parental involvement, parental empowerment. These things, school finance equity were common items in the agenda of all of these activities that were, were, that were conducted throughout the state. Dr. Gutiérrez: Why do you think the, the, the elected school board members, particularly Mexican Americans among others, have such a low level of efficacy in school issues as well as some superintendents who have no concept of national issues, national organizations, or participate in those kind of things? Dr. Cárdenas:Let me start by not restricting this to Mexican Americans. I think other ethnic groups have suffered from the same lack of efficacy and, and I think that one of the reasons is that very few people have even attempted to come up with some types of solutions, the clear cut solutions that really address the nature of the problem. And I think that there is a tendency for a new Mexican American administrator . . .. Let's say a superintendent of schools, to continue the white Anglo, English speaking middle class oriented policies of the school district in, in just as a dysfunctional manner as existed before he, he was placed in that position. In other words, the influx of Mexican Americans in key positions has not always been accompanied by change of policy or a change in the operation or, or let alone the pedagogical basis for, for meeting the needs of those kids. The same thing is true of the school board members, as I have just mentioned the, the administrators. So that it is a business as usual type of thing with a person of a different ethnic background still operating the program which responds mostly to the needs of the white Anglo-Saxon, English speaking middle class geographically stable population. The same type of a program that existed before. In contrast to this, I think what, what, what a few have done and that is to come up with a new concept in education, new programs in education, new approaches to education which really responds to the needs of the particular type of, of child that, that is found in the educational program. In other words, there has to be adaptability to the task because the number of most of them have not thought about this adaptation. Dr. Gutiérrez: Do you know the history of when the corporate-type of board of directors is hiring the superintendent that sets then management administrative guidelines for the board's set policy? This CEO kind of business model? Do you know when that got started? Dr. Cárdenas:It, it has always been with us in, in the state of Texas. I think that it was formalized in 1949 with the enactment of the new system of education in the state of Texas that went through a period of educational reform and established a foundation school program in Texas in 1949, operated in 1950. I think that, at that time, the, the structure was formalized, the state of Texas went from a, an elected superintendent of schools to an appointed superintendent of schools. And from an appointed board to an elected board. And I think that much of the management relation policy making management relationship was formalized in 1949 under the new concept of the minimum foundation program. Dr. Gutiérrez: Do you think that structural situation is, is, causes the problem of, of lack of efficacy because it is run as a business-like corporation? There is very little accountability to the community, as well as, within themselves. And they don't deviate from that business kind of culture. Dr. Cárdenas:No, I, I, I don't see the basic problems in education attributed to the formal organization here in the state of Texas. For instance, during the Perot, right after the Perot committee made it's recommendations, they, they changed in their under House Bill 72, I think this was around 1986, changed the, the board from an elected to an appointed board and, and actually and then, changed back again to an elected board. I saw no change in the methodology of the or, or the efficacy of the state board of education when it changed from elected to appointed and back to elected again. I think that there is some problems that are much more basic than the fact of organization in which they work. As a professional educator, I still advocate a professional educator in the administration of the schools. I, I have to admit that some of the administrators have not been very effective. I think that the problem is, as you have mentioned, lack of accountability rather than a, a, a poor organizational arrangement of, I, I think the, the basic problem is that there is no accountability. Has never been and, and I hope that one day there will be. Now people are saying yes, we have accountability. The kids must perform on the TAAS test or whatever test the state is administering. This is poor accountability. The accountability is directed towards the kids. The kids are the ones that pay the penalty. They cannot get a, a diploma. Under Governor Bush's recommendation they won't even be able to be promoted to the fourth grade or go into junior high, but it is a kid that is being punished for, for, for poor performance. You say well, schools are found, are found not in compliance or, or deficient. Well, that's true, but, you know, a school is just a pile of bricks. That there is no penalty for the chief executive officer or the superintendent of schools. There is no penalty for the school boards. There is no penalty for the teachers or any other employee of the schools. So, that the blame has, is, is shifted through the school out to the students. And then, we have the unique situation in which the person that was victimized, the student, is held responsible for being victimized by the school district. Dr. Gutiérrez: What are your views about that rash of reprimands and investigations by TEA during the mid Sixties and also to the decade of the Seventies and into the early Eighties when Chicano superintendents started emerging, Chicano school boards took up, they were always under sanctions or under investigation either by TEA or prompted by the Texas Classroom Teachers Association or Texas State Teachers Association? What was all of that politics about other than the continuation of discrimination? Dr. Cárdenas:Well, historically the Texas Education Agency has been very tongue-tied in respect of high minorities. And I think that at the time when, when the school systems were governed and administered by non-Hispanic personnel there wasn't very much of, of an attempt for any kind, any kind of accountability. Even the school districts themselves were, were, did not have a, a, a, a systematic, let's say review. When you consider that Crystal City School District or the Edgewood School District in the 1960s, early 1960s, were fully accredited school districts, and in spite of the many shortcomings . . . And I know them because I taught there in, in Edgewood and I worked with Crystal City. In, in spite of the fact that I was teaching science without any science equipment whatsoever, it was just a reading type of activity. And, in spite of the fact that some school districts had anywhere from eighty to a hundred percent dropouts prior to graduation, nobody was really concerned. When you start talking minority school board members and minority administrators, suddenly Texas Education Agency, who was very lax in the hiring of minorities themselves . . .. Remember that it wasn't until the 1960s that Severo Gomez was hired as the first Mexican American ever to work in the Texas Education Agency. And then, we, we find that suddenly they are very concerned about accountability and, and student performance and, and things of that nature. And I think it is just a question of as long as the school systems were run, government administered by the dominant culture, there was an attitude of the school knows best. But then, the regulation level of accountability and as minorities started taking control of the schools, a classic example is Crystal City, in which then everybody then gets real concerned as to what's going on in the school district without consideration of what had been going on before. There was this uprising and, and, and involving the minority personnel when the government sent in the administration of the school district. Dr. Gutiérrez: Which came first? IDRA, TACHE, or NABE [National Association of Bilingual Educators]? Dr. Cárdenas:IDRA came first, actually. And it was not that year, at the time it was the Texans for Educational Excellence. And it was incorporated as such, and then, it, it actually changed it's name. And, and we filed for incorporation as IDRA. This was in; we were incorporated originally in 1973. IDRA provided under probably Texans for Educational Excellence when we were still in that category. But funds for the, guaranteed the funds for the annual conferences and the meetings that led to the form, formation of NABE. In other words, one of the big problems in forming an organization is bringing people together and being able to provide the funds for guaranteeing the hotel rooms, for paying for the meeting rooms, for paying for guest speakers, and meetings and things like that, all of the expenses that you have for the convention for a conference. And although we had been meeting informally, when they decided to meet formally it was necessary for somebody to finance the activity and funds from the National Education Task Force de La Raza and funds from IDRA were used for funding these conferences. National Education Task Force funds were probably paid back to the National Education Task Force. IDRA never received payment for the expenditures that they made in guaranteeing the, the, the conferences although really there was no profit in these conferences until many years later when the organizations became self supporting and, and, and there was a lot of interest and you had exhibit space and, and, and registration fees and so forth that paid for the expenses of, of the conference. And, maybe even in some cases, make a profit for their organization. But we, we financed both the National Association for Bi-Lingual Education, we financed the Texas Association for Bi-Lingual Education and founded groups which I mentioned such as TACHE and, and, and the School Board Members Association, and, so forth. Dr. Gutiérrez: With all the array of problems in education of Mexican American children, why would you and others create an organization based on a single issue, bi-lingual education? Dr. Cárdenas:It wasn't. IDRA was not an organization created for bi-lingual education. IDRA was originally founded on a single issue, but it wasn't bi-lingual education. It was school finance equity and the reason is that the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation, and some others put up some money. They had, they were conducting some activity on school finance equity. And following the reversal of the Rodriguez versus San Antonio School District in 1973, pledged a, a sum of money if somebody would form an organization that would follow through on the promise of Rodriguez. And the promise of Rodriguez was that during the trial everybody claimed that nobody was, was opposed to complete school finance equity. They just didn't want the federal government imposing it upon, upon the state of Texas. And that if Rodriguez' suit was discontinued, dropped, or if, if the school district lost the suit, then the state of Texas would come up with an equitable system of school finance. There was a question of who is going to hold their nose to the grindstone. And Ford Foundation made an offer of funding for a year or two for an organization that would, that would address school finance as, as, as an equity issue. And, and TEE [Texans for Educational Excellence] was funded and it's sole agenda, at the time, was school finance equity. We did bring with us; I did when I moved from Edgewood to IDRA, the National Education Task Force funding that broadened the scope of the organization. But it wasn't until 1975 when we were given a, a grant by the federal government for the creation of a desegregation system center in that ethnic minorities, language minorities that we first started addressing the questions of, seriously, of bi-lingual education in a programmatic way. Dr. Gutiérrez: That's what I was referring to, not IDRA. That, that you would create NABE, National Association of Bi-Lingual Education. Dr. Cárdenas:Well, I, I, I think that during the 1960s the education of Mexican Americans was perceived as a, a tremendous problem and I am sure that there were problems. I think that the numbers of students that didn't finish school, the performance of the kids that did stay in school indicated that there was a problem and here were a lot of people that were interested in, in a solution to the problem in terms of bi-lingual education. And in 1966, which I think is, is really a landmark year, we met in Tucson, Arizona, people from throughout the United States, mostly where the states that had a highly percentages of Hispanics. California, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Florida and, and proposed bi-lingual education as a methodology and then there were people working as bi-lingual programs were being implemented that were working in the area and had this common interest and, and they started meeting. We did meet periodically after that and it was just a question of time before it was formed as a, as a, as an organization. Dr. Gutiérrez: NABE has gone from being predominately Mexican American to now including not only other Spanish speaking groups and individuals, but other language groups. Is, is that a good evolution or is that a dilution of the focus for what your original intent was? Dr. Cárdenas:I think that both. I think that there are advantages to looking at other language groups because they have a similar problem. I think that Spanish does not have unique problems in the United States, Spanish speaking people. I think that they share these problems with other language minorities. In fact, in, in, in the enactment, for instance, of the Title 7 Bi-Lingual Education Act, which incidentally Ralph Yarborough formulated during this Tucson conference for a fee. He met with us in Tucson in 1966 and, and produced the bill in 1968. Originally, most of the people were Mexican Americans. In the enactment of the bill, the political clout was not from the Mexican Americans. The enactment led, what came from the Cuban community in Florida and those were and are mostly along the Eastern seaboard who, at that time, became very interested in bi-lingual education, not necessarily as a response to educational problems of Hispanic children or Spanish speaking children, but they had a, a different interest. Their, their interest was to maintain Spanish language competency among their children for the eventual return to Cuba. Well, at that time in 1968, most Cubans felt that there would be another Bay of Pigs or whatever it took and that Castro was going to be out of there in a very short period of time. And were concerned that their children would return to Cuba where the official language would be Spanish and, and be a limited Spanish speaking proficient. That is, they had lost the Spanish while they were in the United States. Therefore, it was the Cuban-Americans that provided the clout for bi-lingual education. In litigation a lot of the clout that was provided was the Lau litigation in California with, with the San Francisco Independent School District, pardon me. And here you have a group of Chinese kids and the litigation by Steinman, Ed Steinman, against the San Francisco Independent School District that provided a lot of support for Spanish bi-lingual, Spanish English bi-lingual educational programs throughout the country. The Lau initiatives were really triggered by the education of the Chinese children in San Francisco rather than Hispanic populations in this country. Dr. Gutiérrez: Your reference to this Ed Steinman, who and what was he? Dr. Cárdenas:Steinman was a lawyer in California that represented Chinese children in Lau versus Nichols, a, a court case against San Francisco Unified School District that, that it was the first time, that, that bi-lingual education had come under, under litigation. Actually it was not a bi-lingual education case. It was just, a, a, a, an argument by Ed Steinman representing the Chinese children that knew no English saying that if the Chinese kids did not speak English and the teachers did not speak Chinese, that you had an educational problem. San Francisco Unified School District denied this and said that there was no problem. The court held that there was. San Francisco School District said that if the problem was existent, then it was the, the, the cause of the problem were the, the, the failure of the parents to teach their kids English. To which the "Respondent" that, that, that's why the parents were sending their kids to school because they themselves did not know any English, most of them, and were sending the kids in, in order, to school, to acquire English. And it was a landmark decision, Lau versus Nichols, but as I said in, in, in, it centered around Steinman's representation, legal representation of Chinese kids and, and not Mexican American kids. The, I believe, Mexican American Legal Defense Educational Fund probably was involved because relationship in the court case that it really the decision was based on Chinese children and not Hispanic children. Dr. Gutiérrez: Are you still an active member of NABE? Dr. Cárdenas:Yes. Yes. Dr. Gutiérrez: What kind of messages does NABE send by having the executive director being an Anglo for all these years? Dr. Cárdenas:Well, I don't know. I, I really don't know what kind of a message NABE sends. I have worked with Jim Lyons very extensively for many, many years. And he is competent. And he is good at what he does. And I really haven't considered his ethnicity as being any detriments, you know. Or you could ask the same question; I founded IDRA with money given to me by Jim Kelly and Fritz Mosher. What kind of a message did that bring? But I think the message is that Jim Kelly and Fritz Mosher really were very concerned with the educational equity being given to Mexican Americans at, at that time. Dr. Gutiérrez: Let me ask you about your involvement with the court cases, not in the school finance, but in San Felipe and Del Rio Independent School Districts and that consolidation issue. Can you tell me that story? Dr. Cárdenas:Yeah. The two school districts in, in Del Rio, one was the predominantly Anglo, Del Rio Independent School District and the predominantly Hispanic, San Felipe Del Rio School District. There is an Air Force base over there and many of the . . . Which was located in the San Felipe School District, which is predominantly Hispanic, and it was traditional practice to just transfer the kids routinely and send them to the San Felipe, to the Del Rio School District where there were many more Anglos than there were in the San Felipe School District. Some people took issue with this, San Felipe did, and, and said that the kids really belonged in the, in the San Felipe School District. It was made a part of US vs. Texas in the court of William Wayne Justice in the eastern district of Texas at Tyler. And the, the school district, and this is very, very unusual, Del Rio School District pled in court that they were guilty of, of segregation. Now, remember that US vs. Texas was a segregation court case. And they say that the reason they formed these, the Del Rio Independent School District separate from San Felipe was to segregate, to keep the Mexicans, Mexican Americans in the San Felipe School District and not the Del Rio School District. Judge Wayne Justice, on the basis of that argument, ruled that if the school district was created for segregation purposes, then the creation of the school district was illegal and ordered the consolidation of the San Felipe and Del Rio School Districts. There were a lot of people in, in, in, in, in Del Rio, San Felipe who were real concerned about the Del Rio School District just swallowing San Felipe and in spite of it's poverty San Felipe had a lot of ex-students that had done very, very well. It had been a well mannered school district and wanted to, to make sure that the students wouldn't be lost under prejudicial and, and, and other forms of behavior by the Del Rio School District. And asked William Wayne Justice, Judge Justice to set a court order that would specify certain benefits that would be mandated for the kids in the, in the San Felipe School District. Department of Justice was interested in this and was very receptive and there was a hearing set and said before Judge Justice to present a rationale and recommendations for how the educational opportunity of Mexican Americans in the consolidated school district would be enhanced. And the, the, the Department of Justice obtained my services as the principal witness, probably the only witness, to formulate a plan and present it to Judge Justice. Judge Justice reacted very favorably to the plan and ordered that the Del Rio School District or the consolidated school district do certain things that would safeguard the educational opportunity of Hispanic children in the consolidated district. Dr. Gutiérrez: Can I ask you what that meant? More Chicano personnel, bi-lingual education, or cultural enrichment, the name San Felipe is first, not Del Rio. And that is the original name of that community, San Felipe Del Rio. Dr. Cárdenas:That's right. Dr. Gutiérrez: Is that what was in the plan? Dr. Cárdenas:Well, actually the, the naming and all that was done way before I submitted any plan. In most of those court cases, my involvement has been on the educational issues per se. They had already had a lot of arguments about the school colors and what would happen to the cheerleaders from San Felipe and, and, and how many board members would serve on the, on the resulting consolidated school districts? My, my role was strictly on educational policies and educational practice. And, yes, it included bi-lingual education, multi-cultural education, included mandated parental involvement and included early childhood education and, so forth. It was a real landmark order which has been described a preclude to the gray prescription for what the school districts had, has to do in order to guarantee the rights of the, of, of, of the minority children. And included such areas as a new philosophy of education, governance, curriculum, whole curriculum, staffing, parental involvement, evaluation, non-instructional needs. A, a series of, of, of, of, of topics that, that I formulated for Judge William Wayne Justice and for the most part, I think, the whole plan was ordered implemented. If there were some weaknesses, the San Felipe School District or something in the Del Rio School District, the consolidated school district did not have extensive financial resources. It is a poor school district according to Texas standards and that's bad enough. And there was a federal representative from HEW [Health, Education and Welfare] that testified that federal money was available for those purposes. I think there was a misunderstanding in that Judge Justice felt that he had been mislead by being told by this federal representative that money for all of these programs would be provided directly by Washington. He did not understand that the acquisition of those funds were on a competitive basis by proposal. Well, San Felipe and Del Rio really did not break their necks in the writing of proposals nor did they spend a lot of time and effort on money in the writing of these proposals. And they did not qualify for a lot of the funds that could have been available in support of these programs. And as I said, Judge, Judge Justice felt that he had been misled to believe that the money was on an entitlement basis which, which it wasn't. It was on a competitive basis. And some of the programs such as early childhood education program which was modeled after the one that I instituted in, in the Edgewood School District was never funded, never implemented. Dr. Gutiérrez: What did he do about that? Dr. Cárdenas:Well, he kind of eased up some on, on, on the specifics. Judge Justice still demanded that the equal opportunity be provided to the students and continued in, in litigation. And then, the school district was successful in moving the litigation out of Wayne Justice's courtroom into one here in San Antonio. And, and, and, and the Judge here in San Antonio, the, the, the western district of Texas was not as sympathetic as the eastern district of Texas had been. Dr. Gutiérrez: How was it that this court case was filed in, in Tyler in his case? Who were the attorneys for San Felipe? Dr. Cárdenas:The attorney for San Felipe was Arturo, I don't remember. Dr. Gutiérrez: From El Paso? Dr. Cárdenas:Yeah. I don't remember his last, first name right now offhand. Anyway the reason it was in Tyler, Texas is because it became a part of, of, of US vs. Texas when, when they filed suit against the state of Texas. And incidentally it was the Department of Justice that filed the suit against the state of Texas desegregation suit. It was done in the, in the, in, in Judge Justice's court and he issued the famous fifty-two, eight-one court order that required desegregation and equality educational opportunity and, and included monitoring and, so forth. So that rather than filing a new suit, the people from San Felipe, well actually the people from Del Rio, just made it a part of US vs. Texas which covered the whole state and was accepted as a, an intervention motion in, in the original and, and total state desegregation suit. Dr. Gutiérrez: Were you involved in any of the desegregation cases in Victoria or Dallas or Houston or other places? Dr. Cárdenas:Yes, I was involved in many of them, not only throughout Texas, but actually throughout the whole country. Maybe some sixty something, eighty court cases throughout the whole country. Here in Texas I was involved in the Houston De Voss desegregation court case. In El Paso, in Dallas, in Raymondville, in Waco indirectly, and a few others. I was involved in many of the desegregation court cases. Dr. Gutiérrez: In hindsight . . . Dr. Cárdenas:In Ft. Worth and Dallas both, uh huh. Dr. Gutiérrez: . . .in hindsight, many people are, are critical today of the role MALDEF played in accepting the Singleton Ratio, that capped resources being out there to Mexican American children. Do you concur with that assessment today or can you tell us why that was done at that time and accepted by plaintiffs represented by MALDEF? Dr. Cárdenas:Yeah well, I think you can justify a lot of stuff just by saying it was, it became a lot better than what existed prior to it. Dr. Gutiérrez: But we have no standing now to re-enter those cases and adjust that. Dr. Cárdenas:Well, I, I think that there is no standing in segregation court cases. I think desegregation has fallen by the wayside. It was not popular and, and there has been a tremendous political change in this country. There has been a tremendous court change in this country. And I don't think that the conversation with the Supreme Court today would support any kind of desegregation legislation or litigation. I think that the change in the composition of the, of the court, the termination of the Warren court was very, obviously the first big case, but in it the civil rights case was the Rodriguez versus San Antonio Independent School District and it was reversed. The lower court's decision was reversed by the Supreme Court that favored for lower courts decisions was reversed by the Supreme Court in a five to four vote. And I think that we have gone downhill with the Supreme Court ever since. Keep in mind that President Nixon appointed quite a few conservative Supreme Court Justices and this has been continued by other presidents and the, the, in fact some of them are more than just conservative and the fundamentalism has, has taken over the court. And, and right now I, I think you would be laughed out of court if you filed a desegregation court case similar to Brown versus Board of Education or any of the cases that I participated in. There has been very little enforcement. The, the federal Department of Justice and in some of those court cases has switched from a plaintiff to the defendant, to a defendant and, and had defendant had the status quos. Why did it fail? I think there are two reasons why these desegregation court cases failed so miserably. One is that the brunt of desegregation was placed on the minority population. And it was a minority population that had to be transported to the white schools. Usually over the argument that the white schools were physically superior to the minority schools, and this is true. But anyway, the minority population carried the brunt of the desegregation leading to kids attending school away from home, very seldom were provisions made for kids participating in extra curricular activities. No provisions were made for parental involvement in those remote schools that the minority population were assigned to and there was very little provision for emergency situations. And, and as a result, I think that the minority populations were never extremely happy with the insulting desegregation activity which was based mostly on minority kids being transported. There is another reason and I think if, it was evidence since, since my involvement in, in desegregation. And that is that I, I never really thought the Brown versus Board of Education rationale that said if minorities are performing very poorly in their schools and the white are performing very well, relatively speaking, in their schools, that if you send the minority students to the white school, that they will perform just like the whites. And the reason I don't buy that is because the program itself is the curriculum, the methodology, the, the, the whole operation is really the government's is, is also very racist and prejudiced in that the minority populations did not perform like the whites that are attending the, the, the schools before the desegregation court order. In other words, felt it was physical desegregation, there was never instructional integration. They were assigned to teachers who, who had certain attitudes about the kids and, and, and apparently no training nor experience dealing with those kids. And I think that there is something educational practice was not conducive for increased performance on the part of the, the minority kids. So, there has been an extensive amount of disillusionment about desegregation as being a solution when the educational problems of minority populations including the Mexican Americans. Dr. Gutiérrez: Historically, children have outnumbered available textbooks. Today, many children in many school districts don't have textbooks. Why is that? Dr. Cárdenas:Well, it's the, a conflict in, in the state policy. State policy says that there is a book for every kid, but state policy also says that kids should be working on, on their level and not have a, a, a, a book for the, for the grade. In other words, if there is a book assigned to the fifth grade and the kids who are not reading at the fifth grade level and they need a fourth grade book or a third grade book, these are not made available for those kids. So that the distribution of the books is one number, and one per grade level in that the reading level, of the kids are not only that, but it creates some problems if their kids were accelerated in the reading, it would create logistic problems in the distribution of the books. I think that is just an inefficiency on the part of the state in the administration of the textbook program. The second thing is that the textbooks you are furnished with by the state are relatively few. One per grade level. There is a lot of supplemental materials which are available. But, in the state, in the state of Texas these have to be purchased at local expense. And, of course, we had the wide disparities and still have wide disparities between the amount of funds available to low wealth school districts and high wealth school districts. So, that in some of the high wealth school districts, teachers may not even know where to put all of the supplemental materials which are purchased whereas in the low wealth school districts, there are none. Dr. Gutiérrez: Similarly, Title 7, bi-lingual education is a statutory mandate. Dr. Cárdenas:Yes sir. Dr. Cárdenas:Yet there is more children in almost every school district that does not receive that kind of education that is mandated. Why has NABE or TABE or LULAC or any other individuals stepped forward to sue? Is there no basis? Dr. Cárdenas:Well, there is, there is a basis. And yes, there was a suit here. In fact Senate Bill 477, which is the bi-lingual educational law was enacted as a result of pressure from, originally was a, I guess, an IDRA suit, and then, it became a, a, a MALDEF suit against the state of Texas. The intervention motion, again in US vs. Texas, in Judge Wayne Justice's court, a part of US vs. Texas, and there, there just has been very little compliance. Administrators don't believe in bi-lingual education. Remember that it was a methodology and that it was developed not by the schools, but outside of the schools. And they have rejected it ever since. Schools are tracted. They are not very receptive to, to innovative ideas or practices. They did not provide extensive financial support for the implementation of bi-lingual education program. They still don't. And the school has seen other needs more important than, than bi-lingual education or, or, or responding to the needs of limited English proficient kids, so there had never been a very adequate implementation of bi-lingual education programs in the state of Texas. And when you consider that the, that the state of Texas is perhaps one of the better performing states in bi-lingual education, you can imagine what is happening in other states. And, and perhaps appreciate, as well as, understand the reason for the opposition to bi-lingual education that has surfaced. Dr. Gutiérrez: Today, 1998 how do you characterize IDRA? What is it? Dr. Cárdenas:IDRA is relatively the same thing it was in 1973. It is a non-profit organization dedicated to the improvement of educational opportunities for children. And we believe that there are a lot of needs of, of children and we address those needs and attempt to work with school districts through research and evaluation and training and materials development and technical assistance in order to bring about improved education for children. Dr. Gutiérrez: You don't see IDRA as a think tank or as a policy center? Dr. Cárdenas:Yeah. I think a lot of the research and, and, and evaluation that is conducted and the development of materials and the development of training programs come as a result of the think tank activity of the organization, but remember that it implements programs. It is not just a think tank that, that thinks up solutions to problems. We take those solutions and implement them in pilot programs sometimes more extensively than pilot programs, but we do a lot of, of, of development and implementation along the lines of, of re-conceptualize in our think tank role. Dr. Gutiérrez: Currently, what is it that you are doing in the Tucson Unified School District? Dr. Cárdenas:We are assisting the school district in an evaluation of the bi-lingual education program in Tucson where there is some of our public sentiment that they should drop the bi-lingual education program. And I think we are doing a, a research study, an evaluation study, and perhaps even research in Tucson to determine why the program has not been success, as successful as, as, as they wished it to be. And, and, and make recommendations to the school district for the strengthening of the bi-lingual education program. We don't believe that, that, that there is justification for the termination of the program. There is certainly a lot of justification for the improvement of the program which is the same thing you find in most school districts. Dr. Gutiérrez: What is the role of IDRA in the context of leadership from a non-profit, from a staff led type of organization to the Mexican American community? Dr. Cárdenas:Well, we, all right, a non profit organization with an autonomous board and not a membership organization, but we have worked with the leadership of, of, of Mexican American and other communities here in Texas and throughout the country in bringing about improvement in educational opportunities for kids. We work on a cooperative basis. We provide a lot of technical assistance. And, and our technical assistance is not only to schools, it is very frequently to community groups. We have done a lot of parent education training for, for groups of parents in various communities really throughout the country in order to improve their capacity, their dealing with the school different. We have worked with community organizations here and elsewhere. So, that we, we meet consistently with, with the leadership. We have a lot of networking and we network with literally hundreds of organizations and brain stormed on the, the, the responses of, for existing problems. Dr. Gutiérrez: Generally speaking, what is the most pressing issues facing the Mexican American community? Dr. Cárdenas:Well, I think the most pressing issue, above everything else, is education. I think that it is basic to everything. And, and until Mexican Americans have access to better educational opportunity, I doubt that they are going to resolve some of their problems in, in employment and administration of justice and, and, and other areas. I, I, I think that, that, that it is basic impact, I mean . . .. I am alarmed because the dropout rate of Hispanics is really increasing in this country and in Texas. And you are going to have an ethnic population that does not have the skills for survival in a technological society such as the one that we are moving into, certainly be characteristic of the twenty first century. Dr. Gutiérrez: In the area of U. S.-Mexico relations, what is the role or what should it ought to be of Mexican Americans toward Mexico and Mexico and the government of Mexico toward Mexican Americans and others of Mexican ancestry here? Dr. Cárdenas:I, I think we are, we ought to have a supportive and cooperative role. When Doe versus Plylar was being litigated and subsequently the multiple in district litigation, in which I testified against the injustice of denying educational opportunity to immigrants, undocumented immigrant children. I tried to enlist the, the assistance of, of the Republic of Mexico. I had worked in several cooperative programs with Mexico. At that time, Mexico was not particularly interested. And now they, our IDRA staff, our executive director, is a member of Solidarity, which is a group dedicated to improving relations between Mexico and the Mexican American community in the United States. I think that, that there should be a, a, a strong relationship. There should be a mutual interest, a reciprocal interest, and there, there should be reciprocal assistance also on the two entities. Dr. Gutiérrez: Who was that office or individual that rebuked you when you requested assistance? Dr. Cárdenas:The consulate in San Antonio at the time. Dr. Gutiérrez: No higher? You did not go to Mexico to meet with the president of Mexico or . . . Dr. Cárdenas:No. Dr. Gutiérrez: . . .the Secretary of Education? Dr. Cárdenas:No. Dr. Gutiérrez: Have you ever had those meetings? Dr. Cárdenas:Not, I have met with the, with the Secretary of Education, yes. I have had a meeting through the auspices of the Carnegie Foundation and talked about such things as mutually supportive activities. But I, I have had contact with subsequent consul generals here in San Antonio and who are much more interested and the government is much more receptive than it was then. Dr. Gutiérrez: This reference to Solidarity, is that the Fundacion de Solidaridad Mexicano Americano ? (Mexican American Solidarity Foundation?) Dr. Cárdenas:That is correct. Dr. Gutiérrez: OK. Who is the most effective Mexican American leader today? Dr. Cárdenas:I really don't know. I, I really don't know. I think that, I have never been much for finding the, the teacher of the year, the best teacher, good teachers or in the administrative. And here I think there are a lot of good administrators . . . And the Mexican American leader, I think that there are a lot of good Mexican Americans. I think that it would be very difficult. I can give you a list of who I consider the most effective Mexican Americans. I probably do some things, some people an injustice since I have had limited participation nationwide for the last five years, and then, now and retired employee of Inter-cultural Development Research Association. But I, I, I wouldn't, I don't think it is even desirable to select somebody and say that that is the most effective person today. Dr. Gutiérrez: Well, you offered to make a list. Would you take a stab at that? Two leaders who are among those that you do on your list. Dr. Cárdenas:Well, it's going to sound something like the over-the-hill gang because these, these are the person, persons that I work with, but certainly here in San Antonio Maria, Dr. Maria Robledo Montecel, the person, executive director of IDRA, I think, is somebody should, that should be considered and here in San Antonio you have such people as Blandina "Bambi" Cardenas who I think is, is, is one of the most intelligent Mexican American persons I have ever met. You have Raul Yzaguirre of Washington. You have people throughout the country, so many that and, and, and I have been out of it for so long that it is very hard. And I said that I would do an injustice to some, some people, but there are very influential Mexican Americans. Mario Obledo is being recognized, I saw in the paper this morning. I have a lot of respect for Mario Obledo. I have worked with him in court cases and in international education in California when he was Secretary of, of Health, Education and Welfare, Health in California. Jose Angel Gutierrez, I think, is a very formidable person. There are many throughout the country. Josue Gonzalez in, in New York City, Columbia University. Steve Arvizu in California. I think that there are a lot of them. I remember when I was superintendent of schools, I was probably the third Mexican American appointed as superintendent of schools in the state of Texas and, and in the country. Now, I think that there are a lot of them. Some of them are very, very effective and they are in very high level positions in, in education and in the corporate world. And I, I just could continue brainstorming and thinking of people to put on that list, but I, I think there are a lot of them. And as I said, I, I even find it distasteful to select one person and say that person is the most effective or the best Hispanic or Mexican American in the country. Dr. Gutiérrez: Do you know who was the first Mexican American superintendent in Texas? Dr. Cárdenas:I, I really don't know. It could have been, one of the early ones was Rodolfo de La Garza over in Rio Grande City. There was one in, in West Oso around Corpus Christi. And I really don't know who was "the" first Mexican American superintendent of Texas. Do you? Dr. Gutiérrez: No. When you were the third, do you remember who the second and others were, first was? Dr. Cárdenas:I remember that de La Garza preceded me. There was one named Garza, who was originally from Laredo that had worked as a superintendent of schools. And I can't think of any others in the state of Texas or in the country. Dr. Gutiérrez: All right. Getting back to those distasteful questions. What is or which is the most effective Mexican American organization toady? Dr. Cárdenas:I really don't know. Dr. Gutiérrez: OK. Dr. Cárdenas:If, if I had a, any inkling as to which one it is and there was one that could be singled out, I would do so. I don't, I really don't know which is the most effective organization today. Dr. Gutiérrez: Believe it or not, I only have one last question. You know your life and your contribution better than I. I had tried to ask the questions and I have run out. Is there anything that you consider significant or or that needs to be mentioned about some aspect of your life or your contributions or your career that you should bring up that I didn't ask because I didn't know? Dr. Cárdenas:Well, I think it's been a very long conversation and we have talked about a lot of things. I don't know. I, I think that there are certain aspects of the career with the early Mexican American superintendent of schools. In fact, it may shock some people that I was the first Mexican American administrator in the Edgewood School District in 1955. School district at that time was about eighty five to ninety percent Hispanic and I was the first Hispanic administrator when I became vice principal of Edgewood High School. I did spend fifteen years in which I was probably the dominant Mexican American in education in this country. And the reason I say that is because I, I attended hundreds, perhaps thousands, of meetings throughout the country. And in many of the meetings I was the only Hispanic member there. But then, I was in a very unique position having and then this is why I got so involved in educational issues on a national level. I was one of the few Mexican Americans that had been or was a superintendent of schools. One of the few Mexican Americans that had their Doctorate degree from an accredited and highly recognized university. I was one of the few Mexican Americans that had a very strong educational, education background. By that I mean I had taught elementary school, junior high, and high school, taught college, was a departmental chairman in education, had taught at the largest universities here in, in, and in many throughout the country and, and I just had a, a lot of experience that, that was supplied. And, and like I said, sometimes if nothing else, for support and, and company, I wished that other Mexican Americans would have been included in hundreds of those meetings that I attended all over the United States in which I was the only superintendent, the only Mexican American in, in, not superintendent, Mexican American superintendent in, in these, in many years. Finally, I just couldn't keep the pace anymore. I, I was attending too many meetings all over the country and all over the world and, and I had to curtail my activities. Dr. Gutiérrez: Here toward the end of the interview, I am just curious. You started using the word Hispanic more often than ever in, in the entire conversation. What is your opinion about this labeling of being Chicano or Mexican American, Latin-American, Latino, Hispanic, other? Dr. Cárdenas:I say I use probably both. I, I just base my feelings on which were expressed by a friend of mine, Senator Joe Bernal, when he says, "I really don't care what you call me, just say it with affection. " Dr. Gutiérrez: I, I think we forgot in the very early part of the interview, on the biographical section, who your children are and what they are doing? Dr. Cárdenas:Well, I have a, five children and they are all doing very well, thank you. They are all grown. They, they are all very successful. I am just, I have got one son that is a pediatrician, practicing here in San Antonio, has a very, very big pediatric practice. I have got another son that is a surgeon here in San Antonio. Dr. Gutiérrez: Can we get names of them? Dr. Cárdenas:Joe, Jr. is, is the pediatrician. Michael Anthony, my son, Cardenas is, is a surgeon. Chris that, that works in dental supplies, and then, there is Christina who is working for Xerox. Dr. Gutiérrez: Chris is different than Christina? Dr. Cárdenas:Yeah. Uh huh. Dr. Gutiérrez: OK. Dr. Cárdenas:And then, there is Laurita, Aya, who is . . . Dr. Gutiérrez: Aya? A-Y-A? Dr. Cárdenas:Well, she couldn't say Laura, so she said her name was Aya and that just stuck. It is a nickname. Dr. Gutiérrez: Oh, that's a nickname. I thought it was a second name. Dr. Cárdenas:Laurita Ester who is a teacher in the Spring Branch Independent School District in, in the Houston area. All of them have done very well in college and, and all but one had, have college degrees. Many of them have several college degrees including Doctorates and Master's degrees. Dr. Gutiérrez: Well, I want to thank you for the generous amount of time. Dr. Cárdenas:And you didn't ask me, but my wife is Laura Tobin Cardenas. Dr. Gutiérrez: Well, she was mentioned before. What do you know about her or any other wives . . .? Dr. Cárdenas:That's why I work and supportive. I don't think that I could have done this, much as I did, or be involved in so much activity without the tremendous support that she has always provided. Dr. Gutiérrez: Anything else? Dr. Cárdenas: Se acabo . . ..(It's over . . ..) Dr. Gutiérrez: I know Dr. Cárdenas:Colorin Colorado, el cuento esta acabado . . . [Mexican rhyme] Dr. Gutiérrez: I, I know you . . .. Dr. Cárdenas: . . .el que no se levanta se queda pegado. Dr. Gutiérrez: Yeah, you, you mentioned that and recited that once before. I know that you have a lot of publications and I am going to order the ones that are in your resume, but remember again, this is your archive. I know you made mention of the Benson Collection. I suppose you are putting your papers there? Is, is that what you meant? Dr. Cárdenas:Yes. Dr. Gutiérrez: If there is anything that you want to add to this today or tomorrow or any other day, please feel free to do it. Dr. Cárdenas:Thank you, Jose. Dr. Gutiérrez: Thank you.