Transcription

Narrator: José Trejo (JT)

Interviewer: Lorena Duarte (LD)

JT: I graduated from Albert Lea High School. I came in at fifteenth percentile. Out of 320 students, I was number 70 when I graduated, which wasn’t the top ten, but for coming with no English whatsoever six years before…

LD: Six years? Wow.

JT: Yeah, 1954 to 1961. The thing that was really sad about the whole thing is that I had done very well in high school, better than I had expected. I had become vice president of the science club and so on. But, when it came time to take the interscholastic exams, I was not given the interscholastic exams.

LD: Why not?

JT: I was informed that, you know, it would be better for me to go into the military or go to vocational school. It was announced that I should go and take my ACT test, the college entrance exam. I went in to take it. All the tests were passed out the same way. So when I went to ask, “Why don’t I get a test?” they said, “Well, you don’t need a test.” The assistant principal said to me, “You don’t need a test. You don’t have to take it.” I said, “Why not?” He said, “You don’t have to take it. You can go to a vocational school. They don’t need a test for that. Or you can join the military.” One of the counselors by the name of Mr. Anderson, at the time, he was irate. He was irate that this had happened to me. He demanded that I be given the test. So I took the test by myself in a classroom with four monitors present to make sure that I would not cheat.

LD: Oh my God.

JT: So I took my test, and I passed. I scored 96 percentile in English and 92 in math, which were the important ones.

LD: Yeah.

JT: And, you know, I went on to Austin Community College.