RESPONSE TO AN "ELOQUENT" ST. JOSEPH ACADEMY ALUMNUS

"Juan puñetas, you apparently maybe wanted to be a St. Joe alumni (sic), but wasn't and never will be good enough, you're just a disgruntled blogger who will write anything you're told to write, as long as your (sic) paid to do it. (T) think about it bro, doesn't it make you feel like a loser?" Anonymous Commenter

By Juan Montoya

I had been reluctant to respond to this hatred and bitterness because, as an old editor of mine used to say at the San Antonio Light, write the story so the reader will be informed of the what, when, where, and how. Nobody cares what you think. Keep yourself out of the story.

But this commenter – like the handful of usual suspects who visit this blog to criticize and insult the messenger – don't show such admirable restraint to spew their rage and hatred behind a wall of anonymity.  I put my name on what I write.

(I also wanted to observe a decent interval to allow the academy's community to mourn the death of one of their students who was killed last week in a car accident without injuring their sensibilities and invading their privacy.)

Just a cursory analysis of the language used in that comment indicates that their knowledge of such articulate vulgarities and terms place their upbringing along the border, most probably south of the river in Tamaulipas, and, more specifically the neighborhoods and barrios of Matamoros.

I, in fact, was offered – and turned down – a full-ride scholarship to St. Joe's after I placed first in the annual aptitude testing at Cromack Elementary. Cormack's principal ( Mr. Antonio A. Benavidez, a WWII vet) called me and Alfonso Gutierrez, my classmate and the runner-up to his office, and we were introduced to the Marist brothers who said my scores had led them to offer me the scholarship.

I knew that the school coach, Carlos Alvarado, favored Alfonso, but he had no decision in the matter.

I, in turn, responded to the offer and said that although I was grateful for their consideration, I would have to respectfully decline.

"Why?," they asked, surprised. "Other people would jump at the chance to go to St. Joe at no cost to their family."

"We are an agricultural migrant family and we leave for work in the Midwest in April and return in late October," I replied. "You'd be wasting your scholarship on me. But thanks, anyway. Alfonso is a smart guy."

And so Alfonso got the scholarship, and he was well deserving, since there was a handful of students – boys and girls – who were always competing for the top grades. He was one of them, most often finishing on top.

Years later, after he had graduated and joined the workforce and I had gone on to Castañeda migrant school, graduated from Brownsville High School, joined and was honorably discharged from the U.S. Marines and then attended Texas Southmost College on the G.I. Bill, I transferred to and graduated from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, and after a stint in several newspapers which included the Brownsville Herald, Corpus Christi Caller, and San Antonio Light, I returned to academics and earned a Master's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

(Incidentally, my kid sister, Maria – also a migrant – graduated from Pace High School at the top of her class and got full-ride scholarships to Trinity and Baylor - both prestigious private schools -, got her Ph.D. and retired before she was 50. My first-born – a Ph.D candidate –  has been invited to the White House twice and all of my kids will be college graduates, one already has an MBA from U. of M School of Business, another with Master's from UTRGV, and the others with B.A.s within the next two years, one of them in computer science from the University of Houston, God willing.)

Years later after I retired from working in the Midwest and returned to Brownsville to be close to my aging parents, I started a weekly newspaper (Crossroads) in collaboration with the late State Rep. Henry Sanchez. It was the first of perhaps half a dozen of these "alternative" media endeavors that eventually became today's El RrunRrun.

I ran into Alfonso at a doctor's office during the time I worked with Henry. He was there representing either the American Heart Association or Cancer Society, can't remember which. But we shook hands and gave each other the traditional abrazo. The doctor looked at us and asked quizzically:

"You know each other?"

"Juan and I went to elementary school together," Alfonso replied. "In fact, It's because of  him that I attended St. Joseph's Academy. If it hadn't been for him turning down the scholarship the brothers offered him, my family couldn't afford to send me there and I wouldn't have been able to attend."

"Well, it all turned out for the best," I told the doctor. "As a former migrant worker in Michigan I was eligible for in-state tuition. I wouldn't have been able to attend there just on the G.I. Bill. So it all worked out for everyone." 

Alfonso – a cultivated, impeccably respectful man and a credit to St. Joe – and I, to this day, remain good friends. If you doubt this, ask him to confirm.

The commenter's unpublished comment takes me to task for saying that because a disproportionate number of city boards' members (like the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation) and cash grant award recipients are St. Joe alumni, they tend to use that board's funds like a personal ATM.

(As far as getting paid to write, ask two Republican candidates for local office who wanted to advertise here and were willing to pay double or triple the going rate. I required a signed affidavit of them rejecting the Texas Republican Party platform's minority voter suppression, anti-immigrant, pro-assault weapon, anti-woman's right to choice, and the anti-LGBTQ planks. No takers. There went $3,000 for a month's ads and good riddance.  It's a quaint concept called principle, in case our commenter isn't familiar with the term. )

Statistics and simple probability would prove that St. Joe alumni participation in disbursing and receiving grant monies is disproportionate  to their numbers, but I leave it to the learned commenter to make his point:

"The fact that they are St. Joe Alumni is total bullshit and Juan Montoya spreads bullshit. The school will teach you in an academic way the word of the Lord, and they will obligate you to go to mass while you're attending. BUT if your home upbringing is by parents who don't believe in GOD and your parents worked as fiche's (sic) at the cantinas where Juan Montoya got pissed drunk at, then arrested, then that's what you see, those are your thoughts, those are your ideas, those are your actions, those are your habits those will become your character."

My eight readers will judge by the commenter's own words whether the school taught them "in an academic way the word of the Lord" even though they seem to resent that it  "obligates" its students to attend mass. I'm sure these views do not reflect the opinions of the majority of its grads. His or her ignorance of my parent's religious views – lifelong members of an evangelical church who have never seen the inside of a cantina – is libelous per se. God knows better. But let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

As for their "character," well, the proof is in the pudding for everyone to see. A few more obligatory masses might have lessened this sense of perceived privilege, entitlement, and just plain arrogance. This is the moral caliber of a St. Joe grad?

But I think that the adage that "si le haces caso a pendejos, los agrandeces" fully applies here. I truly hope they don't choke in their own vitriol and bile.