Francis Palacio Personality of the Month July 09

My name is Francis (Frank) Palacio. I would like to thank Angela Palacio for helping to bring our Belizean as well as our Garifuna communities the world over together through her web site. It is indeed an honor to be selected as the personality for the month of July. I would like to congratulate the past honorees who have been featured and I am humbled to be part of this distinguished group. I hope I will not disappoint. As this feature article is about to be published, a book that I have co-authored about human interest stories that I have observed as a school teacher, entitled, “Middle Schoolin” will be released to the public in the coming month or so. My co-author is a fellow teacher, Mr. Jacques Rallion. The book contains fifty of our favorite stories about our actual classroom experiences as public school teachers in Los Angeles, California. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Glendarice and children, Victoria and Jeremy for their love, support, and infinite patience.

I am a proud Belizean who has been residing in Los Angeles for the past two and a half decades. I left Belize a few months shy of my 21st birthday. That memory is still very fresh in my mind. I had a good life in Belize up to that point. I attended catholic school in elementary and secondary and then proceeded to Belize Technical College Sixth form. My parents and my education infused in me a love of God and country, and human kind.

I had a happy childhood in Belize and would not trade it for anything in the world. Some of the things that I loved about Belize at that time were its: peacefulness, high literacy rate, beautiful landscapes, diverse population with everyone getting along, and its long, democratic tradition. The Honorable George Cadle Price had been the prime minister for about 10-15 years consecutively.

My childhood

I was blessed to be born to two loving parents, Theodore (Ted) and Bridget Palacio. I grew up with six siblings. Including myself, my parents had a total of seven children. Most families in those days tended to be large. I didn’t always know it then, through the eyes of a child, from age three to about thirteen years, that my parents loved and cared for us deeply even if they had some very odd ways of showing it. They believed in education, hard work, and regular church attendance.

I had to go to school every day, period, end of story. I don’t recall ever missing a day from school due to illness, although, I do recall not feeling my best and would have benefited tremendously from a day off, especially if a math test loomed in the near future. I would feel my throat begin to tickle and hoarseness begin to clog my throat! My parents had their own ideas when it came to sick days from school. Their motto it seems was: “Just say no to missing school.” If no homework was assigned, my dad, a teacher then later principal, made me do math problems and taught me Spanish in lieu of allowing me to play with my neighborhood friends.

My parents also believed in assigning chores to their beloved children. I did chores such as fetching water from the public pump, the nearest which was a mere two blocks away. Sometimes you had to wait in line for as long as an hour, under the burning sun, if there was a water shortage due to drought. Another of my favorite chores was cutting grass by hand with a machete, every two weeks or so. Believe it or not children used to go the grocery store to buy foodstuff for the family. I would lug groceries home on foot while the sun improved my tan.

On Sundays, we had to go to church; this was almost as important as going to

School, and furthermore it was non-negotiable. As far as my parents were concerned you would practically have to be on your deathbed and receive a special dispensation from the pope before you could be excused from mass on Sundays whew!

Education is vital for success

Midway through high school, I started to realize that my parents had always had my best interest at heart and that they wanted me to succeed in life almost as much as I did. With their love and support, I finished my high school studies at St. John’s College (SJC). I took a year off after high school and entered the job market as a clerk working with the Treasury Department in Belize City. I knew that if I wanted to accomplish something in life I would need more than a high school education, so I traded in my financial independence, and with my parent’s blessings and support, became their dependent again and I enrolled at Belize Technical College Sixth Form. Following the footsteps of my older brother, Tim, I majored in economics and Spanish. Having had a taste of the real world, I was a more motivated and focused student and for the first time in my life I started to enjoy school. My grades were good and I started planning on a way to get a bachelor’s degree.

In those days, getting a bachelors degree was cost prohibitive for an ordinary Belizean boy, especially one from Barranco. Unless you had straight A’s, family connections, or lots of money, your chances of going abroad to get a degree were slim to none. Whenever I heard of people with circumstances similar to mine getting lucky and going to the States to further their education, I would start experiencing mixed feelings—usually happy for that person, hopeful that my turn would eventually come, and a little depressed as I weighed my bleak options again and again. “Why couldn’t I have been born to a wealthy family-- maybe a sugar plantation owner, or a Chinese shopkeeper or a wealthy politician? or why hadn’t I been born an only child?” I often lamented feeling like Oliver Twist or some other Dickens character who was down on his luck. I loved my six siblings dearly but to feed, clothe, and educate seven children could easily bankrupt any poor civil servant since that was, in essence occupation-wise, what my dad was -- a government worker. Life in The United States

My life in the United States has been an interesting one. I was able to “keep my eyes on the prize” and not get diverted by the fast life or get rich quick schemes. I consider myself to be a hard worker and a person with good judgment. My parents had sowed the seeds of education, hard-work, and salvation/love of God in my life early. I didn’t get discouraged when things weren’t going that great. I persevered.

As a nontraditional student, I went to college as a married man and a parent with responsibilities. I finished my bachelors degree in English from California State University Los Angeles. I was hired by the Los Angeles Unified School District and so I went back to school to get my teaching credentials. This took another two years since again I kept my day job. My next educational move was to go for a masters degree in education which I received two years later.

Becoming a writer

I remember as a youngster in primary school, I discovered a great love for the use of words and an appreciation of the English language. This probably came about as a result of reading voraciously. The bookworm gene runs in my family. My older sister Lily (Jermaine) as a child herself, read novels, into the late hours of the night, after my parents gave the “lights out” command around 9:00pm. My sister would often relate to us the adventures of the characters that she was reading about. This had the effect of piquing my interest to read the same books once she was finished with them. Today, reading continues to be one of my favorite activities. In the education field, it has been documented that people who are good writers are more often than not avid readers. It was therefore logical for me to eventually attempt to write professionally or commercially.

As a public school teacher, I never cease to be amazed by the things that my students say and do. “The dog ate my homework,” would seem mundane or boring compared to what some of my more imaginative students can come up with. I would often come home at the end of the day and share interesting stories, --some of the drama that takes place in the classroom with my wife and children. The stories were often funny, occasionally sad, other times they outlined some of the frustrations that I encountered when dealing with one or two knuckle heads in the classroom. The upshot was that I decided to chronicle these stories. I teamed up with a teacher friend of mine and we decided to write these stories and put them in a book so that the public could get an idea of some of the most interesting things that have occurred in our combined twenty-two years or so years of teaching. As the honoree of the month, as an educator, as a parent, as a proud Belizean at heart, if I may impart some words of advice in closing to our young people or even the young at heart. Dreams do come true. I have worked on writing a book. It took about five years for this dream to become a reality. Now that it has, I believe that I can do anything that I set my mind to and I believe that you the reader can as well. One of the things that continues to inspire me daily is that I should try to work as hard as possible because I came to America to make something of myself. I believe that this journey is a work in progress and that with God’s help, I may be halfway there. America has a lot to offer Belizeans and conversely, Belizeans have a lot offer America.

Middle Schoolin will be released very soon. So you will be able to get your copy at a book store near you or on Amazon. You may also contact me at [email protected]. Also, there will be a website dedicated to this book about our experiences teaching middle school students in Los Angeles.