Ana Navarro and a Definition of Dignity

Have you ever looked around at work and discovered that somehow you have morphed from the ingénue into the old guard?  About the same year a former student of mine was introduced as the new teacher, I found myself as co-chair of the teachers’ negotiation committee for a very large suburban St. Louis school district.

In my years as co-chair we got a great deal of good work done with no strikes or overt nastiness.  Part of the reason for that was the way my co-chair and I worked together.  We could switch our roles of good cop/bad cop on cue without so much as a nod to the other person.  Mary and I had that kind of relationship.

Mary was the daughter of immigrant Mexican parents who had settled in West Texas.  She had four sisters and said that when they were growing up the only thing that got them out of working in the fields was saying that they had to study for school.  So they did.  Despite long rides on the school bus, no plumping in the house, parents who were essentially illiterate, dirt floors and a limited diet, in the end, Mary and every one of her sisters had college degrees.  Mary, who taught algebra, was the head of the Central High School’s math department.

During the time Mary and I were working together her father became gravely ill.  Her mother had died many years before and now her father was failing.  She and her sisters took turns flying home and caring for him for several months.  By the time he died, Mary had used up all of her comp time.  There was no leave covering the death of a parent.  She asked for time off to attend her father’s funeral and was told she could have the time off, but her pay would be docked by several hundred dollars.  Mary was a widow with children of her own in college.  A reduction in her pay was not an option.  She appealed the decision all the way up to the Board of Education and was consistently told, “No.”  The day of her father’s funeral came and Mary was still in her classroom, teaching algebra.  And that is when Mary gave everyone a lesson in dignity.

Central High School was across the parking lot from the District Headquarters.  At the end of the day Mary closed her classroom and walked to the Superintendent’s office.  She had made an appointment and they were expecting her.  The Superintendent had also asked the president of the Board of Education to join him.  Good. 

This is what Mary said: “Today my father was buried.  You did not allow me to honor him with my presence at his grave so now I am going to honor him here, by telling you what kind of a man he was.”  She then sat down and talked to them for the better part of an hour about the parents who raised her.

Mary told me later that she did not shed a tear the whole time, but the two men in the room did.  They should have.

Ana Navarro is a favorite commentator of mine.  She is sassy, smart and informed.  When Donald Trump, after maligning, dismissing and condescending to people of color asked what they had to lose by voting for him she answered him this way:  What do they have to lose?  Their dignity.

My friend Mary has shared more dignity than Donald Trump has ever owned.  People like her help me keep the faith.