07-04-2009, 08:20 AM
(This post was last modified: 07-04-2009, 08:58 AM by Adele Edisen.)
Myra,
Yes, he asked me how would I like it if half of my students in class were black. I replied that one has to start somewhere (meaning to begin integration of the races). That was before I realized that he was so opposed to racial integration. He also spoke of the "blacks" in Washington as if they were to be feared, that they would attack white people, and he kept warning me about them. At that time, the use of the word "blacks" in reference to African-Americans was quite derogatory. The proper and polite term would have been "Negro". In later years, African-Americans adopted the word "blacks" and made it a prideful term.
It surprised me because his own complexion was darker than that of many African-Americans whom I knew. Many African-Americans I had seen and knew as friends had facial features very much like people of Caucasian descent, but with olive and tan skin coloring (which suggests that racial integration had been going on for many generations). As my social-worker friend once put it one day, "people have been doing more than just saying 'hello' to each other."
He, himself, was of mixed racial and ethnic origins, possibly Spanish, Inca, and some people have suspected he had some Japanese ancestry. He knew the Japanese language and could read it. We learned that he had many Japanese friends in the United States, and that his first wife had had a Japanese (or Japanese-American) obstetrician deliver their child. Rivera had had two marriages, and each one had produced a daughter. He also spoke glowingly of the Japanese and their culture to me when describing his travels there, and of how much he enjoyed living in Japan. He was there during the years when the US occupied Japan.
Before I learned much about his background, I had assumed he was somewhere from the area near the border with Mexico and a native-born American citizen. I knew that people from that region spoke Spanish as their first language and had strong accents when speaking English as if they had recently arrived from a Latin country. His accent was quite obvious. He claimed two birthplaces on government documents: San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Lima, Peru. Most likely he grew up in Peru because his father, it is claimed, was a military surgeon in the Peruvian Army. He arrived in the US in the late 1920s, but did not become a US citizen until around 1943. He began working for the US government before he became a US citizen, and that may be why he claimed to have been born in Puerto Rico. I am writing this from memory of government files right now, so these dates are approximate.
I also learned that he had an older brother, Alexandro Rivera, M.D., who practiced medicine on Long Island, NY. As far as I know, Jose Rivera never received an MD degree; he flunked out of a US medical school in his second year, and was working at NIH at a ranking of GS11, not a very high ranking. He received a Ph.D. in Biology in 1970 or so, presumably to give himself a higher salary and pension. He lied about his birth year and his age on many government documents, a definite no-no, and was older than 78 when he died in 1989, based on information he provided on government documents.
Adele
Yes, he asked me how would I like it if half of my students in class were black. I replied that one has to start somewhere (meaning to begin integration of the races). That was before I realized that he was so opposed to racial integration. He also spoke of the "blacks" in Washington as if they were to be feared, that they would attack white people, and he kept warning me about them. At that time, the use of the word "blacks" in reference to African-Americans was quite derogatory. The proper and polite term would have been "Negro". In later years, African-Americans adopted the word "blacks" and made it a prideful term.
It surprised me because his own complexion was darker than that of many African-Americans whom I knew. Many African-Americans I had seen and knew as friends had facial features very much like people of Caucasian descent, but with olive and tan skin coloring (which suggests that racial integration had been going on for many generations). As my social-worker friend once put it one day, "people have been doing more than just saying 'hello' to each other."
He, himself, was of mixed racial and ethnic origins, possibly Spanish, Inca, and some people have suspected he had some Japanese ancestry. He knew the Japanese language and could read it. We learned that he had many Japanese friends in the United States, and that his first wife had had a Japanese (or Japanese-American) obstetrician deliver their child. Rivera had had two marriages, and each one had produced a daughter. He also spoke glowingly of the Japanese and their culture to me when describing his travels there, and of how much he enjoyed living in Japan. He was there during the years when the US occupied Japan.
Before I learned much about his background, I had assumed he was somewhere from the area near the border with Mexico and a native-born American citizen. I knew that people from that region spoke Spanish as their first language and had strong accents when speaking English as if they had recently arrived from a Latin country. His accent was quite obvious. He claimed two birthplaces on government documents: San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Lima, Peru. Most likely he grew up in Peru because his father, it is claimed, was a military surgeon in the Peruvian Army. He arrived in the US in the late 1920s, but did not become a US citizen until around 1943. He began working for the US government before he became a US citizen, and that may be why he claimed to have been born in Puerto Rico. I am writing this from memory of government files right now, so these dates are approximate.
I also learned that he had an older brother, Alexandro Rivera, M.D., who practiced medicine on Long Island, NY. As far as I know, Jose Rivera never received an MD degree; he flunked out of a US medical school in his second year, and was working at NIH at a ranking of GS11, not a very high ranking. He received a Ph.D. in Biology in 1970 or so, presumably to give himself a higher salary and pension. He lied about his birth year and his age on many government documents, a definite no-no, and was older than 78 when he died in 1989, based on information he provided on government documents.
Adele