Americo Paredes: In His Own Words, an Authorized Biography

2. The Depression Years

15 When Américo was still attending junior high school, Blanca, one of his older sisters, died. He was both devastated and angry. In 1931, Américo Paredes started high school at Brownsville High School. His experiences during those years were marked by both frustration and achievement. William Buford Beeson, one of Paredes’ ninth grade classmates, had vivid recollections of Américo, whom he characterized as the brightest student he knew. He said that Américo was tall, slim, and light-complexioned and spoke very good English. They enrolled in English, mathematics, and Spanish classes. Beeson said that Américo was different. He was not too much involved in horseplay or fighting. He had a strong moral character and his teachers liked him because he was special.23 Américo, however, was also inquisitive, which at times produced negative consequences. He was strong willed and did not hesitate to challenge his teachers regarding content accuracy. To some instructors these questions exhibited little more than a lack of respect. To Américo they were legitimate requests for correct information. Paredes said he had some problems with some teachers who had come from other states because teaching jobs were scarce. He received A’s in all of his courses, except in a junior English course taught by Margaret Zachry. Paredes remarked, “She failed me because I wouldn’t tell her I liked Walt Whitman. She gave me a book on Whitman and said it was great poetry. I said it was prose. I didn’t understand it. She felt I had insulted her. I took junior English again Chapter฀two tHe฀dePression฀yeArs 16 Américo฀PAredes and the principal told me just to apologize to her. Well, I apologized to her.”24 The young Paredes eventually received a C in the course, but did not forget the incident. It was near the end of that junior year in 1933 that Paredes entered a poetry contest sponsored by Trinity College, located then in Waxahachie, Texas. When Paredes saw the announcement posted on the bulletin board, he completed the application and submitted a poem entitled “A Sonnet Tonight,” which he later described as “forgettable.” However, the poem won first prize. His high school principal, Mr. Irvine, was doubly impressed because Paredes won and because he took the initiative to enter the contest on his own. Américo learned about his award the following year when he was a senior. When Mrs. Zachry inquired about the prize that Paredes had received for winning, he replied that it was a leather-bound book from Spain. She then said that it was better than a “lousy” book of poetry. Many years later Paredes commented that those words told him what his teacher thought of poetry while she was teaching junior English.25 During his high school years, Paredes developed a serious interest in literature and music. The poetry contest gave him the confidence to pursue a career in writing, and as a junior he joined the staff of his high school yearbook. The editor was Reynaldo G. Garza, later appointed by President John F. Kennedy as the first Mexican American federal district judge. Garza recalled that Paredes helped him to complete the yearbook. Garza graduated that May and began his college studies in Austin two years later. Paredes contributed one essay, “The Tide,” for the yearbook. It was about a scientist who conducted research near a fishing village and was swept out to sea by a storm. Although Paredes was only eighteen at the time he already had a grasp of the language and youthful creativity: “For a few seconds , it [the wave] held the ladder almost perpendicular. Its mighty hand played with it as a boy plays with straws. Then it fell backwards into the sea. The man did not cry out. He was past that.”26 The yearbook , called the Palmegian, was a hybrid of the high school yearbook, 17 tHe฀dePression฀yeArs the Palmetto, and the junior college yearbook, the Collegian. It was created because of the prohibitive cost of producing two yearbooks during the hard times of the Great Depression, so one would serve both schools. Paredes continued the learning process begun during his summers at his uncle’s rancho. His mother sang ballads and told stories at home. His uncles and friends sang corridos around the rancho campfires near Matamoros. Américo enjoyed not only hearing stories, but also...