Racism+-+'Stephen+Cruz'

Racism: "Stephen Cruz"

One of the two main focuses in Stephen Cruz's personal history is the place and success of minorities in the business world. From Cruz's story, it seems that minorities can't succeed in the business world, lest they have the fortune to be hired to fill a quota. Cruz only moved up in the business world because he was minority, which made his company look good; he was the only one whose "office was glass-enclosed" (349) and he was th one who "interviewed most of the people that came in" (349). Cruz was only put into these positions, which were done via promotions so that he could become more visible which in turn makes the company look good. I feel bad for Cruz; the dissapointment he must have felt, and maybe still feels, over why he was hired. It has to be one huge blow to his ego to think he was hired because "[he] was so goddamned brilliant" (349) only to find that it was "because of the government edict [the Civil Rights Act of 1964]" (349). It is interesting that Cruz made such a good compromise, as he put it, for his companies: "people don't know by my speech patterns that I was of Mexican heritage. Some tell me I don't look Mexican" (351) and yet Cruz is Mexican. With his degree in engineering, Cruz was, as far as the companies were concerned, white without being white. I think that Cruz wasn't able to make it farther, and why a lot of minorities don't make it to begin with, is because of stereotypes and a focus on, at least for the business world, the wrong thing. Cruz mentioned that during the Great Society, "black programs are popping up ... cultural identity and all that ... [but] there were very few managment jobs for minorities, especially blacks" (349). I think that the business world is looking for white-like people, with focus on education and behavior, while the minorities themselves are looking at personal heritage. Instead of saying "I am [name of person] and I am proud of it", minorities are saying "I am [race of person] and I am proud", the problem being that minorities want to be seen as people, yet still see themselves as a race, which causes stereotypes that then affect white-dominated companies to be cautious about hiring minorities. Because Cruz acted "white", by not playing into stereotypes, and appearing white, he was able to go farther than other minorities would. Granted, it's not a perfect train of thought, of it's something I thought was there.

The other focus of Cruz's story was the American dream and how minorities fit into its picture. I think Cruz makes some really good points about what the American dream has become today. For the American dream as a whole, Cruz states that "the dream is //not losing//." (351). This makes way too much sense, I mean I think most would agree that we don't even really know what the American dream is in the first place: is it success, is it happiness, money, love? No one can really put a finger on it, but they can easily say what the dream is not, and the dream is not "be a loser". That mentality has a huge impact on the business hiring-practices: whites are already the "winner" and to live the American dream, they need to keep that first place title, which requires not giving it to minorities and hence few minorities can get a break lest it furthers the winner's goal. That falls with Cruz's other assessment that "you've got to be a proven success in business before you can get there" (351). That isn't so much as having the great education and qualifications, like Cruz found out the hard way, but having the traits of a winner, which I guess could be classified as simply "white-ness".

Perhaps the most important aspect of Cruz's story is the advice he gives to minorities about business; "whenever you hear "get to know our business," they're really saying "fall in line." Stay within the fence, and the glory can be yours" (350). Cruz talks a lot about how companiew want their minority employees to not be ambitious and to just do as they're told. I don't really understand what the big deal is, most anything that has a heirarchy, like a business, want those on the bottom to do what the top says. Cruz is told "don't rock the boat" (351) but what could he possibly do that rocks the boat; try to single-handedlymove the company in a direction it doesn't want to go? Business wise, probably not, which would mean that rocking the boat would involve minorities. If put in this light, it makes some sense; companies don't want their employees to hire too many minorities, which would disrupt the winner-vs-loser scale that whites have so well kept. Since that makes sense, it really shows Cruz's personal ideas, which seem to be largely shaped by his childhood thoughts about success and the American dream: it's the person that matters, not the race. So then Cruz left all those companies because they didn't fit with the way he felt business and employment should work, which also meant that he wouldn't progress from his own natural ability, something he's very proud about. This little bit of advice helps put everything into perspective to see Cruz's argument: that the American dream, as viewed by most, is no longer compatible with the current business models.