3:01

3:01

I don’t have any funny accent stories to tell other than the mildly amusing anecdote of the time at NYU when I embarrassed a visiting linguist. He swore he could determine our birthplaces or ethnicities, eyes closed, just by hearing us speak. He guessed I was from Connecticut. I took no small pleasure in letting that Ivy League wind-bag know that I was a product of the mean streets of Brooklyn.
My father, on the other hand, had a very amusing bon mot he enjoyed sharing with all my Anglo boyfriends, perhaps as an explanation for the taciturn reception they’d received.
It was Thanksgiving, 1953. My father and his brothers had recently arrived in New York from Puerto Rico and were working the late shift at a pizzeria in Manhattan. They lived in the (then) predominantly Hispanic South Williamsburg but were forced to cross through the more Irish North Williamsburg on their way home from the subway. A big bunch of recent Irish immigrants were hanging out on a stoop when one of them called out “Hey Buddy, you got the time?” at which point, in his best Spang-lish, my dad replied “Jeah meng, ees tree o’clock.” By 3:01 they were three on one-my father and his brothers having been identified as Spics were beset on all sides by this welcoming committee. My dad, seeing no other alternative, pulled out a pen knife (which was later recorded in the police blotter as a switch blade) and stuck the nearest non-related red-head. Unfortunately for all involved, he managed to reach and knick the liver of a too-slim, under-fed Irishman. Police were called and you can guess who ended up in jail. My poor father was stunned. His father was a Spaniard, a European just like these men. He too harbored all sorts of racial “preferences” just like these men. He too was white and tall and young and a recent arrival. He and his brothers too had blond or red hair and green or blue eyes. How were they any more white than he? After 24 years of life as a white man how on earth had a 5 hour flight on Pan Am from San Juan to New York magically transformed him into something else? My dad was no dummy and he quickly learned what years of Civil Rights civic lessons would teach the generations to follow: race is relative. Racism is stupid, and arbitrary. The color of your skin should and does say absolutely nothing about who you are. In the end, a Jewish eye witness testified that my dad acted in self defense. And while the Irish cops didn’t like the Jews any more than they liked the Beaners, they trusted the Jews and let my dad go.
For your amusement, a coda to the story: years later I dated an Irish guy from the Northside who adored me and whom my father grew to love. He told an interesting story about the time his Uncle Ray and some buddies from the Ancient Order of Hibernians beat the crap out of some Puerto Ricans on Thanksgiving Day in 1953.
I left that poor boy standing on an altar. Isn’t America grand?

Betty Trevino