For many years I believed in the American Dream. Work hard, stay out of trouble, and the dream is yours.
But it is not the case of Pacoima, California, my hometown. I grew up in this now overwhelmingly Latino Los Angeles community at the eastern edge of the otherwise posh San Fernando Valley in the 1950s and 60s. Back then, it was a black ghetto. It’s not an exaggeration to say that everyone was poor. As a high school student in 1967 and 68, I worked a full-time swing shift factory job.
My annual pay before taxes was just a bit less than $4,000 per year. Today, Pacoima’s per capita income is $19,004. The national average is $67,000.
About a year ago, I visited my hometown to see what had changed. Except for a Costco in a strip mall, all else seemed frozen in time or in a deteriorated state. My neighborhood, for instance, is dotted with ramshackle, tiny homes.
The sprawling public housing complex appeared as downtrodden as I remember it.
San Fernando High, my alma mater, remains an academic basket case. Nearly 100 percent of the students, all Latinos, are officially poor. Its math, science and reading proficiency rankings are markedly below the national average. The school’s college readiness average is 37 percent out of 100.
Pacoima typifies the cycle of poverty. Presidents have come and gone since I lived there, and they have done nothing but blather about battling poverty. The facts on the ground tell us the real story. Do people in my hometown have real shot at the American Dream?
Ricardo Chavira Chicano 