Requiem for a Dream

Amanda Dulcinea Cuéllar

Introduction:

In Jude the Obscure I see what could have been my destiny. Perhaps not here at UT, but in Mexico I could have grown up like Jude with no hopes of escaping my designated place in society. Unlike my parents' generation, the tragedy of our day is not the lack of opportunity, but the complacency of the new generation. My contemporaries grew up lacking little. They did not experience the oppression, the humiliation, nor the pain of living as part of the underclass. As a result, we have grown lacking idealism and blind to the injustices of the world that we have not experienced. Some may still develop this desire for justice in their youth only to lose it soon afterwards upon being instructed in the inflexible ways of the world. My family, as that of many here, struggled to rise from poverty and attain the comfortable position they fill today. Yet what part of this struggle did my contemporaries and I take part in? My mother was brought up without being taught the value of an education by her family. Her desire to become more and escape the cycle of birth and death in a rural Texas town led her to UT. She paid her way through college with loans and her wages from working in department stores and as a waitress. What motivation does my generation have to seize the day and realize our dreams of greatness? What sense do we have of the injustice that pervades the world and led our families to fight for their place in society?

My father also struggled to become who he is today. He grew up in a small city in Mexico. Though my grandparents had not studied beyond sixth grade, my grandfather knew that an education was the only way to escape a life of poverty. My grandfather would seat my uncles and aunts at the kitchen table and watch them study. Although he did not know what they were learning, he knew it was the key to their future. From his home in Tlaxcala, my father went to high school twenty miles from his hometown at the age of fifteen. Later, he attended college in Mexico City. His incredible desire to receive a doctorate and his idealism, so like Jude’s desire to study at Christminster, led him to UT. He arrived in Austin with two duffel bags: one filled with clothes and one with books.

From these humble origins both my parents escaped the destiny Jude could not. Now I am here, at the place where my parents’ lives converged. I feel the energy of their dreams and those of others vibrating the walls. They compel me to excel, to not waste their effort, but I do not know how. I only know that I must succeed to honor the sacrifice of my ancestors.

I dedicate this feeble recounting of a struggle like that of my family and so many others to my ancestors. To all who suffered a long journey to the end of the earth in hopes of gaining riches in the new world; to those who fought bravely to preserve their culture and their people from the invading white man; to those who risked all in hopes that maybe they could provide a better life for me.

 

Requiem for a Dream:

“Ramiro, you must study hard,” Ramiro’s father told him the night before he was killed. “That is the only way for you to get out of this place and make something of yourself. There is nothing for you here. You deserve more than the life of a poor farmer, and the only way you can advance is through your studies. No matter what you do, never forget who you are and where you came from; always help those less fortunate than you. Remember: you too were once in their place” In the dim light of the lone kerosene lamp in the room, Ramiro saw tears shining in his father’s eyes as he got up and walked towards the door. That night Ramiro’s father took part in a farm worker uprising in their small town to reclaim the land that had been stolen from their ancestors. Despite the fact that the Mexican revolution had ended years before, the desire for justice was still strong in the fieldworkers in rural Mexico. They were still willing to sacrifice their lives for land and liberty.

Ramiro was left an orphan. His mother had died giving life to him, her only son, eight years earlier. He went to live with his aunt in a nearby town. She had a small bakery where she sold traditional Mexican sweet bread. At his new home he was to attend school during the growing season and work harvesting corn the rest of the year.[1] He always remembered his father’s parting words. Though he had to miss school to work in the fields, he never lost an opportunity to learn. He obtained outdated, worn books from a sympathetic schoolteacher and read them during his lunch break. The other workers would laugh at him.

 “Look at that kid, he thinks books will help him get out of here,” they would say.“Learn, kid, that you are a worker and will always be one. Your books won’t change who you were born to be. ‘Such [things] be not for you—only for them with plenty o’ money.’"[2] Despite their taunts, there was a hint of bitterness in their voices.[3] Afterwards they would share their tacos with him and call him “el pequeño professor."          

It was the professor at his small school, though, that influenced him the most.[4] He was a young man deeply influenced by the Cuban revolution and the famous Che Guevara.[5] In Ramiro he saw the future of the new America envisioned by El Che. Besides the traditional arithmetic and reading, Ramiro learned of Karl Marx, the People’s Revolution and the tragic history of Latin America.[6] Julio introduced Ramiro to the poetic protests of Silvio Rodriguez, a Cuban troubadour.

“Listen to this; this is incredible” he’d say, and start the turntable. The soft guitar chords would pour forth and then Silvio's thin voice could be heard singing about equality and revolution.

This oasis in his life only lasted for three years.[7] Julio was informed by his friends in Mexico City that there was to be a protest in the Plaza of the Three Cultures on October 2 of 1968. He departed early one cold morning in late September. Julio left Ramiro all of his old school books and one worn Silvio Rodriguez album.

“Take care, Ramiro,” he said on their parting, “Never forget the plight of your people or the revolution, but, remember, in order to help your people you must first help yourself. Educate yourself, ‘and read all you can;’[8] only then can you make a true difference in America Latina. ‘I shan’t forget you [Ramiro]’"[9]

With that he left[10] in a ‘small white tilted cart and horse’[11] belonging to a local farmer. Ramiro waved until his friend was out of sight and then went back to his aunt.

“Don’t sulk, ‘you idle young harlican,’"[12] she said unsympathetically when Ramiro returned to the bakery with tears in his eyes.“I never liked that man anyway. His head is full of crazy ideas. It’s a good thing he’s gone; that way he won’t cloud your mind with useless thoughts anymore. I don’t even know why I let you go to school at all. What do you need an education for? ‘tisn’t for [our kind] to take that step.’[13]A worker who can read and add earns no more than a worker who can’t. You should be learning a trade or working more with farmer Treviño to help me pay the bills.”

Despite the constant nagging of his aunt and her insistence that his kind was not meant to study, Ramiro never wavered. His determination grew after hearing of the massacre in the Plaza of the Three Cultures. On October 2, 1968, there was a student protest in Tlatelolco in Mexico City. The army was sent in to get the situation under control. Many protesters died. Julio was never heard from again, and everyone concluded that he must have perished in the protest. Ramiro stubbornly refused to believe that his beloved teacher had died and instead imagined Julio running bravely into the mass of students and guards to rescue his bloodied friends. Afterwards, in Ramiro’s dreams, Julio would escape to Cuba or somewhere in South America where he would call the peasants to arms and banish injustice.

Through the help of the new school teacher, Ramiro excelled in his studies. His teacher even recommended him to a public preparatory school in a city nearby and helped convince his aunt to let him go. The year he started preparatory school, Ramiro’s grandfather passed away, and, being the son of his grandfather’s oldest child, he received the majority of his inheritance. This precious money Ramiro saved and later used to pay his way through law school at La Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in Mexico City. While there, he became the favored student of an older professor[14] who saw in Ramiro the same idealism he had as a youth and whose loss he regretted deeply. He offered to pay for Ramiro to study international business at the University of Texas. At first Ramiro was hesitant.

“How will knowledge of the capitalist system of imperialist countries help the people of America?” he asked don Salvador, his professor.

“You need this knowledge to help build the economic infrastructure of a developing country. Believe me, it will be beneficial,” don Salvador told him.

In the end, Ramiro agreed. After many tears and warnings from his aunt that he should stay away from the ‘gringos’, Ramiro set off in a bus to the land of golden opportunities. He arrived in Austin three days later. Ramiro saw his arrival at U.T. as the first step towards realizing his dream of a united and free Latin America.[15] After graduating from this famed institution, he would posses the hammer and chisel of knowledge with which he could carve out the Latin American revolution. Like a mason, he would transform the shapeless lump of marble that was now Latin America and create a beautiful sculpture of unity and equality.[16]

Despite the mundaneness of Ramiro’s arrival at Austin, in his mind the night was celebrating his coming labor. The white limestone of the university glowed in the moonlight. The sharp contrast of the red tiled roof to the pale stone signaled to him the coming sacrifice that would make the resulting peace even brighter to those who had labored for it. As he walked through campus and around the legendary tower, he caught a glimpse of the words chiseled there, but, in the darkness, he was unable to decipher them.

From within the famed tower a voice rang out clearly. ‘There were poets abroad’[17] that night. It was Silvio Rodriguez, repeating to him the quote from Bertolt Brecht.

There are men who fight one day and are good.
There are men who fight one year and are better.
There are some who fight many years and they are better still.
But there are some that fight their whole lives,
these are the ones that are indispensable.

Then the guitar chords began followed by Silvio Rodriguez’s soft voice, and he remembered Julio’s teachings.

“I will never forget your sacrifice nor your fight, I will succeed in your name,” he promised to the night and to the ghosts of all those who had dreamed and fought to realize their ideals here before him.[18]

Finally, nearing midnight, Ramiro found his way back to the cooperative where he would live during his first year at UT. The next day he attended orientation, both for the fall semester and for his new campus job. On his first day among the citizens of Austin, Ramiro was unaware of his inadequacy. He did not realize how out of place he was in his worn miner boots and trouser pants. His perception of those around him was clouded by his elation at beginning his first day as a student of the University of Texas. As he crossed the plaza in front of the tower, Ramiro looked up at the words inscribed on the building: “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” Ramiro was struck by the truth of these words and by the way in which they described his quest perfectly.

“Yes,” he said to himself after savoring the words several times“The truths I learn here I will teach to others in Latin America; with this knowledge they will break the bonds of a corrupt society.”

After registering for his classes, Ramiro reported to the maintenance department on campus where he received his uniform and was informed of his duties. He was to mow the grass and take care of the flower beds on the north side of campus.

Ramiro worked with zest beautifying the sacred campus he had loved immediately upon his arrival. His love was unconditional; ‘he allowed his eyes to slip over’[19] the other immigrant workers on campus who seemed to not advance despite their tireless labor. He ignored the obvious division between the workers and the inhabitants of ‘the venerable city’.[20] It was not until he started classes that he became aware of the stratification in society that existed at U.T.

He had been rushing to finish mowing the grass in the quadrangle formed by the Littlefield, Blanton, Andrews and Carothers dormitories. His class was on the other side of campus in the Perry-Castañeda Library, and he had no time to change out of his uniform or even wash his face before entering the lecture hall. As he rushed into the room, five minutes late, all of the students in his class of thirty-five turned to watch him enter. One student, named Matt, spoke up first, “There is a class in here now; you can come clean after we’re finished.”

Ramiro’s face turned bright red with embarrassment; he stared speechlessly at the other students. Finally, he managed to reply, “I’m here for the class.” His accent was thick, and for the first time he realized how completely out of place he was in this institution. That day he learned to be ashamed of his poverty.

Ramiro had always been proud of the fact that his money was earned through manual labor. Yet here it appeared that the most celebrated people were those whose funding came from rich parents. Never again did Ramiro make the mistake of going to a class in his uniform. He invested part of his earnings in a pair of denim pants and in some new shirts, more fashionable than the ones he had worn before. In this way Ramiro began to assimilate to the society of U.T. and the United States. He soon made friends with Matt. Ramiro’s new friend was a third generation German. His grandparents had arrived in Texas with few possessions, but they were hard-working people. Matt’s father was able to attend college through loans and scholarships. He became a well-respected lawyer in Houston. Matt, unlike his father, received no scholarships and barely made it into U.T., but this meant little to him as his parents had the means to pay his tuition. He could not understand Ramiro’s determination to excel at U.T.

On his first Thanksgiving in Austin, Matt invited Ramiro to go to Houston with him. They drove down in Matt's new Camaro at an exhilirating speed, and arrived at an enormous white stone house in a suburb of the city. Ramiro stared in awe at the beauty and luxury of Matt's home; he had never seen anything like it. Suddenly, the front door was opened by a middle-aged Mexican woman in a white apron.

"Oh, hi, Socorro," Matt said. "Are my parents home?"

"Yes, Mr. Meyer, they're waiting for you in the living room." Socorro answered.

Matt walked into the house with Ramiro at his heels. Ramiro, not wanting to be rude, stopped in the doorway to introduce himself to Socorro. "It's nice to meet you, ma'am. My name is Ramiro, I'm a friend of Matt's," he greeted her in Spanish.

"Welcome," she replied. "My name is Socorro..."

"Ramiro! Are you coming?" Matt called suddenly from within the house.

"Excuse me," Ramiro apologized, and he followed Matt's voice into the living room.

After being introduced to Matt's parents, Ramiro was left alone with Matt's father while the food was being prepared.

"So, I understand you are studying international business." Mr. Meyer began. "What are you planning to do after you graduate?"

"I'd like to return to Latin America and work to help develop the economic infrastructure of new governments there."

"In other words you want to work with the revolutionaries, right?"

"Well, yes."

"That's a very noble goal, but are you sure that's what you want to do?"

"Yes, sir. It has always been my intention to help the people of Latin America." 

"While you're at U.T., though, you might want to consider everything else that you could do with your education. There's a lot of profit to be made in the business sector. Also think about whether you want to have a family. How would life be for them in a developing country? When I was young I had big ideas too, I was a little like you. I soon realized that my ideas were not feasible. I hate to break it to you, but you can't save the world. You'll die trying. Instead you have to look out for yourself. That's how the world works, everyone has to pull their own weight. I can see that you don't agree with me. That's okay; you'll discover I'm right on your own soon enough."

"Perhaps you are right, sir, but I owe it to my family to at least try."

Mr. Meyer smiled and shook his head. "Just consider your options and think about your future. You should at least consider getting an internship at a firm in Austin, or even Houston. I have friends I can put you in contact with here. Just get a feel for the opportunities you have."

"You're very kind," Ramiro replied. "I'll look into it." In his mind, though, he was thinking just the opposite. How could he just turn his back on his people? How could anyone be so selfish?

Thankfully, though, at that moment Socorro entered the room and announced that dinner was served. Though Ramiro admired Mr. Meyer's accomplishments, he did not understand the opinions of Matt's father. He did his best to avoid him the rest of the weekend and was relieved when Matt decided to leave for Austin a day early.

That weekend Ramiro had his first glimpse of a new and foreign world where wealth abounded and was attainable for all. Though Ramiro was initially repulsed by the idea of abandoning his ideals, he was also attracted by this new lifestyle which was now within his grasp. The night they returned to Austin, Matt invited Ramiro to a party in a friend’s apartment where Ramiro first got drunk, discovered the calming effects of marijuana, and met Maria, Matt’s girlfriend.

Maria was a free-spirited girl from Austin; she grew up close to the university. Though she had promised Matt she would marry him upon graduation from nursing school, nobody was really sure if she would be true to her promise. She was unpredictable and spontaneous. One minute she would be hanging affectionately onto Matt’s arm and the next she would be annoyed with him for some reason no one was really sure of. Ramiro immediately befriended her. He would skip class in order to go to lunch with her while Matt was away. Ramiro would attend every party Matt invited him to just to spend time with Maria and bask in her beauty.[21]

Maria made no effort to discourage Ramiro’s affection for her. It was quite obvious that he was in love with her. One night, at a party, Matt was off drinking with his friends and Ramiro was alone with Maria discussing his experiences at U.T. He was telling her of his childhood in Mexico and his reasons for studying international business in Austin. He confessed to her that his dream was to revive the revolution in Latin America.

“I want to help create a free America where everyone has an opportunity to succeed and no one is excluded because of their humble origins.”

“‘Then you haven’t given up the idea?—I thought perhaps you had by this time’"[22]

“Why do you say that?” Ramiro asked in surprise.

“Well, you seem to have adapted to life here. I thought you had also accepted the dreams of this place and abandoned your own. U.T. is ‘the home of lost causes;’[23] after being here long enough you come to the conclusion that nothing you dreamed of doing could ever be realized. Everyone arrives here bright-eyed and innocent and they leave, jaded, to become the lawyers and politicians they swore they would never imitate.”

“No, that's not true for me. ‘I still think [U.T.] has much that is glorious.’[24] Here I am acquiring knowledge that has strengthened my conviction that a change is needed in America; the university has not limited my beliefs, it has fortified them.”

“You’re wrong, ‘you prove it in your own person. You are one of the very men [U.T.] was intended for when the colleges were founded; a man with a passion for learning, but no money, or opportunities or friends.’[25] Of course you will graduate and work in a prestigious business and become successful in the conventional meaning of the word. You will have completed the cycle the university was meant to carry out; you will have been assimilated into society. You will become just another unit in the machine. No longer are you a dissenting piece trying to change the inner workings of the machinery; you are a productive gear in the monster. There is nothing wrong in that; it is just a truth that you must face. You are no longer a revolutionary; you are a student at a university bent on producing successful members of society.”

Ramiro furrowed his brow and looked away from Maria’s serious face. He had become aware of this change in himself just recently. His letters to his family in Mexico had become less frequent and he had recently caught himself day-dreaming about life in a New York City high-rise working for a marketing firm. He had long since packed up the books and record Julio had given him as a parting gift. They now resided in a dusty recess of his closet.

Maria, sensing Ramiro’s discomfort at her frankness, tried to make amends. “Are ‘you really vexed with me dear [Ramiro]?” she suddenly asked in a voice of such extraordinary tenderness that it hardly seemed to come from the same woman who had just told her [beliefs] so lightly. “I would rather offend anybody in the world than you, I think”

“I don’t know whether I am vexed or not. I know I care very much about you!”

“I care as much for you as for anybody I ever met,’”[26] she replied in her mysterious way which left Ramiro wondering what she really meant by those words.

At that moment, Matt returned from the bar and wrapped his arm around Maria. “She’s something else, isn’t she Ramiro?” he drawled. “‘She’s one of the oddest creatures I ever met…She’s one too many for me.’"[27]

“Come on, Matt, I think it’s time for us to go home. Bye, Ramiro. It was nice talking to you.” She ended in an impersonal tone and walked out with Matt leaning on her shoulder.

After her departure, depression sunk in. For the first time Ramiro felt the full weight of reality hit him. He realized that Maria was right. The ideals which had fueled his efforts had long since been put out. No longer did the flame of the memory of his family, Julio, or the plight of the Latin American people burn in him. He had become like Matt and so many others at U.T. He would rather live comfortably than sacrifice his life for the well-being of countless others. The rush and desire for material wealth prevalent in Austin and the university had invaded him, and he could not shake these longings.

That night Ramiro drank until the party ended at four in the morning. Nobody he knew was left at the party to walk back with him, so he wandered alone on campus. As he passed by the tower, he chanced to look up at those words which had seemed so mysterious to him on his arrival and later became the motto of his stay at the university. Now they seemed to mock him.

“The truth shall set you free?” He asked drunkenly as he swayed before the building.“What has the truth ever done for anyone? I know the truth, I know that the world is not fair and man is innately cruel to his own race. America Latina knows this, but what has this gotten my people? It has not ended our suffering. Knowing that you are a slave to the whims of society does nothing to change the fact that you are still in chains. What can I do to help them? ... Nothing. All I can do is succeed here.”

In that moment he again heard Silvio Rodriguez speaking Bertolt Brecht’s words in one last attempt to regain Ramiro’s loyalty, but he could listen to it no more.

“Shut up!” he yelled in a pain-filled voice, “I cannot be who you want me to. It is not humanely possible. You ask too much of me. Leave me; I am done with your demands. I never wanted a free America Latina to begin with; that was Julio's dream, not mine. Now I will live for myself.” Ramiro walked away from the mocking image of the words on the tower and from that place that so reminded him of his former self and of his first night-time walk around campus. When he returned to his room in the cooperative he pulled the box out from his closet in which he had stored Julio’s gifts. In his drunken clumsiness he dropped the box. The Silvio Rodriguez record clattered to the floor and shattered. Ramiro first stared at it in drunken disbelief; then he stamped angrily on the black shards.

“Be gone!!” he screamed, and in his anger he pulled the sacred books from the box and ripped the pages from the binding. He fell asleep on his bed with the pieces of paper strewn about him. His dreams were restless; in them he saw his father and aunt, staring at him silently. Then, Julio joined his two family members with his face bloodied from the protest; beside him the workers who had taunted him as a child gathered. They looked at Ramiro and shook their heads, “You have failed us pequeño professor. We worked so hard to help you escape our destiny, and look how you have repaid us. Now who will honor our sacrifice?”

 

 The next morning Ramiro cleaned his room. All evidence of the night’s events was thrown into the dumpster outside. On the following Monday Ramiro went to the career assistance center to apply for an internship with a marketing firm in Austin for the summer. The next semester he changed his major from international business to marketing.

Ramiro’s transformation was complete. His nights were now peaceful. He no longer thought of every assignment he completed for a class as an advancement towards the well-being of Latin America and the revolution. Instead, Ramiro began to think of his future family and made it his goal to provide them with a better life than his own.

Matt had fallen victim to L.S.D. and Maria left school to care for him. Ramiro wanted no part in his friend’s bad reputation, so he distanced himself from him and joined a new circle of friends. They were the sons of rich, central Texas businessmen. Ramiro soon left his first job in the maintenance department for a part-time one offered to him by the marketing firm he had interned with.

Years passed; Ramiro graduated from U.T. and left the Austin firm for a more prestigious one in New York. While there he met a third-generation Puerto Rican. She was a beautiful woman, used to a luxurious life and few duties. Ramiro purchased a penthouse in a high-rise near Central Park and lived happily with his wife, Olivia. They had three children who never lacked anything. They learned little about their father’s past. He did not like speaking about his childhood in Mexico. Thinking about his youth caused him to feel uncomfortable; he couldn’t quite pin-point the reason why.

One day, while caught in his Mercedes in evening traffic, a story on N.P.R. caught his attention. What first seized his interest was the music which introduced the report. It consisted of soft guitar chords, and then a thin, clear voice sang out. It was Silvio Rodriguez singing “Dias y Flores”. Ramiro froze when he realized what song it was. Memories flooded back, and for a moment he was back in that dusty town in Mexico listening to Julio explain to him the importance of the revolution. He again heard Julio praise El Che and his mentor’s parting words. Then the story began, but Ramiro heard little of this. All he could see where the faces of those that he had forgotten for so many years. He had betrayed them. He had failed his people, his father, Julio, himself. As he sat in his expensive car, surrounded by the city he had thought he wanted to live in, he realized what an incredible failure his life had been. He had lost himself the day he lost his ideals before the tower in Austin. Now he was little more than a walking shell housing the dreams of a culture alien to his own.

Ramiro arrived home that day crying uncontrollably. He was unable to stop the flow of tears from his eyes. His wife was alarmed at seeing her husband in such a state, but she was on her way to go shopping with a friend and could not take the time to console him more than to say that they would talk when she got home. The children came out from the study where they had been fighting over control of the computer to see their father seated in the dark, sobbing quietly. They stared at this spectacle for a minute. Then one of them, seeing an opportunity to outwit his siblings, ran back into the room and seized control of the computer mouse. The others quickly followed to demand possession of the machine. Ramiro remained seated in the arm chair with tears dripping from his face until the next morning when his wife remembered that he had not spent the night at the office and went out to the television room to look for him. While she was on the phone explaining the situation to the doctor, Ramiro stood up from the chair and walked out of the apartment. He walked through the city streets, not caring that others stared in confusion at his wet face, until he reached the outskirts of the sprawling metropolis. Ramiro continued his trek throughout the night until he stumbled and fell on the grass by the side of the road. “Forgive me,” he whispered before he lay his head down on the ground and gave into the elements.

He was found there, a week later, frozen in the November snowfall that had come the day after his disappearance. On his face was a pained expression. “He’s at rest now,” the family’s priest said to Ramiro’s mourning widow, “He’s free.”

Word count: 5,335