This is a honor of Primitivo Garcia
1967 I taught seventh grade in the Kansas City School District during the day and an English class for the Naturalization Council in the evening. The evening class met at Westport High and was composed of adults from countries all over the world who wanted to become US citizens. The class had students who functioned at all different levels of English proficiency. Two brothers, Alfredo and Primitivo Garcia, were the youngest adults in the classroom. Primitivo tentatively tried to speak English now and then, but Alfredo was still at the stage where he chose to listen and observe a little while longer. They never missed a class and sat attentively in the left corner of the front row each time they One cold, dark November night after class, I headed down the hall toward an exit along a side street to wait for my ride home. On the way, I passed overturned waste baskets, but I didn’t pay any attention to them. Lots of people were getting out of their classes. Some were by the exit where I was and others were waiting for the bus along the perpendicular street. A group of teenage boys came up to me and started taunting me. “Oo-ee! Lookee here!” I just ignored them until one grabbed my purse and threw it to another one. Then that one threw it across the street. I crossed the street to pick up my purse. The youths ran over to flock around me. There was a clear ringleader who knocked me down and I screamed. he people who had been at my exit with me all disappeared quickly and I was alone on the ground. I felt a compelling need to protect my unborn child. Hoping one of the teens had some sense of humanity, I begged them to leave me alone as I told them that I was pregnant. I was so frightened that it seemed like an eternity those ruffians were pawing me. You can’t imagine the relief I felt as Alfredo and Primitivo came running toward me from the bus stop. What had seemed like an eon to me had, in fact, been only a short time that I was down on the ground at the mercy of an uncontrolled group of hooligans. Primitivo and Alfredo pulled the youths off me and engaged them enough that I could stand up and run back across the street to the school. It was too dark for me to see the fighting or shooting, but I heard a pop and saw a stream of horizontal fire. I had never seen a gun go off before. I felt an eerie sense that I wasn’t really there. I must have been watching a movie or having a dream. That’s where guns are, not in real life. The gang tore off across the tennis courts and away from the school. Then I saw the Garcia brothers crossing the street to join me. Alfredo was in the lead because Primitivo was slower. He was able to walk on his own, holding his side. I was in shock and had no idea what to do. In clear English, Alfredo took charge saying, “You call an ambulance. I will wait here with Tivo.” Primitivo lay down on the cold cement. I took off my long, gray overcoat and placed it on him. In those days there were no cell phones, and the side entrance to the school was already locked. I ran around the corner to the main entrance by the office that still had clerks working in it. Once inside the office, I barged through a swinging, wooden gate in the counter that separated the office staff from the students and went straight for the telephone to call for an ambulance. The clerks overheard me and began talking about the gang that had apparently been in the office earlier that evening and left angry overturning wastebaskets along the way. Reporting the shooting over the phone had cleared my head enough that I was finally struck by the enormity of the situation as I walked back out of the school to join the Garcia brothers and wait for the ambulance. The paramedics put Primitivo on a stretcher, covered him with a blanket and gave me back my coat. Alfredo got into the ambulance while the police gave me their initial interview.
