Thirty Years Later, a Bronx High School Graduate Looks into His Rearview Mirror
Julio Barreto

This summer marks 30 years since I graduated from high school in a ceremony at New York City’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral. As with any 18-year-old, I did not realize the significance of that moment. After three decades of reflection, I view the degree I received with pride above my other degrees. Why? Because for a young Puerto Rican kid from da Bronx, it reflects who I am, where I came from and how far I have traveled since leaving New York 30 years ago.

I graduated from Cardinal Hayes High School in 1975. The school is nestled in the South Bronx in what is still the poorest congressional district per capita in the country. When I graduated, the school reflected New York City. We were Hispanic, black, white (primarily Irish and Italian) and Asian. Most of us came from poor to working class families. For the most part we were defined by our neighborhoods and the parishes where we were raised.

I grew up in the Edenwald Projects in the North Bronx. The neighborhood consisted primarily of white families, but as the years went by it become more of an integrated community with more black and Hispanic families moving in.

Sports and games dominated much of our time. Baseball, basketball, football, stick ball, and off the wall kept us busy. Much like many collegiate and high school athletes on draft day, our athletic prowess was measured by how early we were selected when sides were chosen.

I learned how people thought of you based on the color of your skin or where you lived. The surrounding families, mostly white, did not like their children hanging with us kids from the “projects” as if we were a diseased species.

I am the fourth of five children, the only son of Puerto Rican parents who were born and raised on the island. My parents met, fell in love and married in New York City. We were first generation Puerto Ricans. My younger sister and I were educated in the Catholic school system, which I entered in fourth grade. I went from failing in public school to getting real smart after I heard the nuns would slap you for messing around.

In September 1971 I entered Hayes, as a skinny kid six feet tall, 130 pounds, with new glasses and zits to decorate my face. I wasn’t the most confident kid, but like many of my classmates I was schooled in the lessons of the street to look cool. During those four years in high school I grew up as a person. I did play four years of football, albeit not too well, ran track and appeared in a school play. I was in the school band, marched down Fifth Avenue in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade a few times, appeared in school concerts and slowly gained enough confidence in myself that I was ready to leave New York.

I traveled upstate, earned a bachelor’s degree from a state school, went outside Philadelphia to earn a master’s degree and eventually made it down to Washington, D.C. where for the past 24 years I have plied my trade first as a journalist, then an advocate and now an executive with a national housing association. During that time, I married, raised a son who is now attending school in New York City. I achieved a lifetime of experiences I never dreamed of growing up in the projects.

My classmates and I were joined by our common disdain for the discipline and demands imposed by the priests and faculty, but after four years we became more than kids from different neighborhoods, we were Hayesmen. We looked beyond our differences and developed a brotherhood. We matured, we succeeded at things.

Today Hayes continues to mold young boys into men. While the average annual spending per child in New York public schools is $11,474, the average spending per student at Hayes is $7,330. It has the lowest annual tuition among the Catholic high schools at $4,900. One-third of its student body receives financial assistance. Hayes graduates 99 percent of its students with 96 percent of those moving on to a college or university. Approximately 65% are Hispanic, 34% Afro-American.

Many prominent graduates such as John Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO and television personality, Regis Philbin, are graduates of Hayes. Among Hispanics, U.S. Congressman, Jose Serrano Jr., is a Hayesman. Others of note include Eddie Sanchez who is a very successful Wall Street Hedge Fund manager and Manuel Villafane who has successfully started a number of medical firms.

From my year alone a number of graduates include: David González, an award winning journalist at the New York Times, Grammy-nominated Latin jazz artist Bobby Sanabria, David Torres, Carlos Rivera, Christian Guzman and Arthur Badillo in the medical field, and Peter Fuster, George Gabriel and Eddie Hernandez in the legal field.

I do not know what path I would have followed had I attended another school. I do know I went to Hayes and am better for it. To this day I still carry the laminated wallet diploma they gave us on graduation day. It reminds me that I am a kid from the Bronx who has been blessed. I have come to learn that is who I am and all I ever want to be.

(Julio Barreto first came to Washington, D.C. as a journalism fellow with Hispanic Link News Service. He can be reached at editor@hispaniclink.org)

© 2005, Hispanic Link News Service
07/31/05
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