Past midnight, I crawled back in bed and struggled to fall asleep. It seemed only minutes later that I heard loud banging on our door. Smokey jumped out of bed like a scared rabbit and turned on the light, "Who is it?" he asked.
"Open up! It's time to get up, you lazy freshmen!"
I glanced at the alarm clock. It was four o'clock in the morning, Smokey unlocked the door and slowly opened it, poking his head out to see who it was, I stumbled put of bed and stood behind him. Standing before us were two tall, muscular students dressed in red and white. They identified themselves as Mike and Jim and said they were members of the Orientation Committee. Mike handed each of us a sheet of paper with lyrics on it. At the top it read "Varsity Fight for Santa Clara."
"This is Santa Clara's rally song," he said. "You have to learn it by tomorrow and recite it on demand." He looked at his watch and added: "Oops, I stand corrected—tomorrow is already here. We'll he generous; we'll give you until eight a.m. to learn it."
"Sounds fair to me," Jim said.
"You got to be kidding," Smokey said, adjusting the bottoms of his pajamas.
"Nope, we're not joking, and if you don't learn it, you'll be sorry," Mike said. Both laughed hysterically and moved on to the next room, yelling, "Go Broncos!" Smokey and I sat on our beds and studied the lyrics.
"I don't have time to memorize this. It's ridiculous!" I exclaimed.
Smokey looked at me, smiled, and said: "Oh, come on—it's not that bad. It's all in fun."
"I don't consider this fun!" I was furious. "We have a test tomorrow!"
Smokey did not respond. He gave me a puzzled look and crawled back in bed. I crumpled the piece of paper, tossed it on my desk, and slipped into bed.
I woke up three hours later exhausted and disoriented. I didn't know where I was. As soon as I saw the ball of paper on my desk and Smokey's empty bed, it hit me like a bolt: The English test! I took off my underwear, wrapped a towel around my waist, grabbed a bar of soap from my closet, and rushed down the call to take a shower. The hot steaming water calmed me down. At home we bathed in a large aluminum tub that was located in a shed attached to the side of our barrack. We heated the water in a pot, carried it, poured it into the tub, and washed our hair with Fab laundry detergent because soap and shampoo were too mild to cut the sulfur and oil in the water.
When I got back to the room, Smokey was sitting at his desk, diligently memorizing the varsity fight song and waiting for me to go to breakfast. He had gotten up early and gone to Mass at the Mission Church. I was amazed at how much energy he had. He was like a giant dynamo. "After we eat, we can go take the English test," he said, glancing up at me and looking at the wrinkled piece of paper on my desk. I knew he was disappointed in me, but I pretended not to notice.
"I'll be ready in a second," I said, feeling tense about the test. No sooner had I gotten dressed than I heard pounding at the door.
"It must be those two guys coming back," Smokey said. I dashed to the closet and hid before he opened the door. Smokey was right. I recognized their deep, loud voices: "Go Broncos! Go Broncos! You know what to do," they shouted in unison.
Smokey began singing "Varsity fight for Santa Clara, Banners of red ... and white on high ... No matter how great your foe ... men, let your motto be 'To do or die.' Rah! Rah! Rah!" At points he sounded out of tune, but he continued, not missing a word. He punctuated the end by chanting: "Go Broncos!"
Mike and Jim applauded and hollered, "Go Broncos!" The noise subsided as they went down the hall looking for other victims.
"You can come out now, you chicken," Smokey said. I opened the closet door slowly, making sure they were completely gone.
"Thanks, Smokey."
"You owe me one, buddy." He punched me lightly on the shoulder.
We headed for the student dinning hall in Nobili for breakfast. On the way I felt lightheaded and had a knot in the pit of my stomach. We handed our meal ticket to a heavyset elderly woman who sat on a stool at the entrance of the dining hall. From a small table, we picked up a plastic tray, plate, and utensils and proceeded through a line as servers scooped large portions of scrambled eggs, sausage, and potatoes onto our plates. We sat at a round wooden table with a few other classmates. Smokey immediately struck up a conversation with them, but I tuned them out, worrying about the English placement test. English had always been my most difficult subject in school, and I did not test well in it. I felt sick to my stomach but ended up cleaning my plate as usual. I excused myself, rushed to the bathroom in Kenna Hall, splashed cold water on my face, and looked into the mirror. I was pale and had dark circles under my eyes.
I went back to my room and drank a glass of water, then lay in bed and closed my eyes for a few minutes. Then I headed across campus to Seifert Gym to take the test. The old red-brick rectangular building was on the north end of the campus. As I walked in, I was handed a blue book and informed that the test results would be posted that afternoon outside the gym. I took a seat at one of the long, narrow tables set up for the test and nervously glanced around. The gym had a row of evenly spaced square windows along the top of the two longer walls, shiny dark wooden floors, and a basketball net on both ends, anchored from the ceiling. My hand trembled as I opened the blue book and began writing on a topic that escaped my mind as soon as I turned in my essay. I left the gym in a daze, wondering whether or not I had really taken the dreaded rest.
When I got back to my room, Smokey was lying in bed, reading the newspaper and listening to the radio. "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" was playing.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," he said, putting down the sports page.
"I hope I passed the English test." I plopped onto the bed.
"Of course you did. It was a snap!"
That afternoon, when I went back to the gym, a crowd of freshmen had already gathered around a large bulletin board on which were posted, in alphabetical order, the list of names of those who had passed the examination. Students whose names did not appear on the list had failed the exam and had to take a remedial English course without academic-credit. Students groaned as they pushed and shoved each other, trying to read the list. Some shouted in joy and others grinned from ear to ear as soon as they spotted their name. I stayed behind the crowd, waiting for it to disperse. I struggled to muster enough strength to overcome the disappointment I expected was waiting for me. I approached the bulletin board and quickly glanced down the list, beginning with the j's. And there was my name! I could not believe my eyes. I checked and double-checked to make sure. Even though I was exhausted, I felt as happy as I had the day my tenth grade English teacher, Miss Bell, told me I had writing talent.
At the end of the day, Smokey and I went back to Sefiert Gym to attend a general assembly for all freshmen. The Orientation Committee explained the history and traditions of the university. We were informed that Santa Clara was the oldest institution of higher education in California. It was founded as a college in 1851 by the Jesuit John Nobili and became a university in 1912. I knew that in 1961 women were first admitted to Santa Clara, breaking the all-male tradition. As I looked around the auditorium, I was surprised to see so few girls. I had been used to attending public schools where the number of boys and girls was about equal. When it was announced that our class of 1966 was the largest freshman class ever, consisting of 579 students, one-third of which were girls, Smokey leaned over and whispered, "The odds are not good for us guys,"
"Especially at dances," I responded.
What surprised me the most later on was to see how some male upperclassmen treated girls. At supper that evening I noticed that they refused to sit with girls in the dining hall, and later I found out that girls were barred from the football cheering section. The behavior of these students made me feel sad and angry. I wondered if the girls felt as lonely and alienated as I had felt in first grade when classmates excluded me from playing with them because I did not know English.
That night I was so exhausted when I went to bed that I did not even hear our prefect do room check at eleven. I jumped out of bed at six a.m., thinking I was late for work cleaning the Western Union before it opened at seven. I quickly realized I was at Santa Clara and not at home when I glanced over and saw Smokey still asleep.
After breakfast, I read through the graduation requirements in the university's catalogue. The required and recommended elective courses were listed by major for each semester for the four years. Since most majors had the same requirements for the first two years, I decided to take four required courses; Fundamental Theology; Composition and Literature; Logic and Military Science; and History of Western Civilization; and one elective, Spanish, for a total of sixteen and a half units. I jotted them down on a scrap of paper and headed to Sefiert Gym to register.
The gym was noisy and crammed with freshmen trying to register for classes. None of them looked like my friends from Bonetti Ranch or friends I had made in labor camps. I realized this made me feel uncomfortable even though my high school had very few students from migrant communities. Large signs indicating the various departments were taped along the south wall of the gym, and beneath each sign faculty sat behind small tables, giving advice and signing up students for courses. There were long waiting lines for each subject. My mouth felt dry and my hands were cold and clammy. I went through the lines for required courses first, hoping that the classes I had selected were not closed. Luck was on my side. I got them all. I then waited in line for Spanish. When I got to the front, the professor manning the table stood up, introduced himself as Dr. Victor Vari, and shook my hand. "I want to make sure you take the right level of Spanish," he said with a slight accent, looking straight into my eyes. "Do you speak Spanish? You should, with the name Jimenez," he said, smiling and pronouncing my name correctly.
"Yes, I do," I said proudly. He and I proceeded to speak in my native language.
"Well," he said, switching to English. "You must take Spanish 100A, which is Advanced Composition and Reading." I agreed, not knowing exactly what I was getting into. I filled out a card with all my classes and handed it to a staff member standing at the entrance to the building.
As I exited the gym, I was greeted by a sophomore who smashed a Ding Dong cake over my head. He handed me a booklet and informed me that I had to fill it with signatures of upperclassmen by the end of the following day, and that if I failed, I would he taken to "moot court." He laughed loudly as he waited for the next freshman to come out of the gym. I was not amused. I felt embarrassed and humiliated. I knew it was all for fun, but I thought it was disrespectful. I dashed back to my room, trying to avoid running into any upperclassmen. I stayed in my room with the door locked until Smokey came back from registration. As soon as he walked in, he turned on the radio and proudly showed me his booklet half filled with signatures. "I'll have this baby filled in no time," he said. "How many signatures have you got?" I did not respond. Smokey glanced at me and laughed.
"Did you get the classes you wanted?" I asked.
"Yep."
We compared our class schedules and were disappointed not to share any classes, but we had the same English instructor for Composition and Literature, which made me feel a little better.
Smokey changed clothes and invited me to help create a dummy to represent the "image of the Santa Clara man." It was a contest between male freshman dorms, sponsored by the sophomore class, to build school spirit. My Kenna Hall classmates dressed a mannequin in a red sweater, white shirt, and narrow black tie, and had him pointing to a sign that read NOBILI HALL. I did not participate because I was still upset about the Ding Dong prank. I stayed in my room, missing my family, worrying about the classes I had enrolled in for that semester, and hoping that time at Santa Clara would go by fast.