Luis Perez:
CLASS OF 1955
Commerce High SchoolClass of 1955
New york, NY
Patrick Henry Public School 171Class of 1952
New york, NY
Luis's Story
Life
After graduation in 1957, I continued working at Harlem Hospital until I retired in 1995. I said continued because I worked since I was five years young. Yes, I also worked thru my junior years of school as a grocery store clerk from age twelve until I finished H.S. Thanks to all that good work that I did in my earlier years I am now financially independant. I continue to be active working around my house. And I also teach SALSA DANCING part time at a community center and get paid very well. I am also a good student of the Bible, learning and practicing, daily, the accurate knowledge that God provides in the bible for effective living now and in the future kingdom that He is going to establish right here on this Earth under perfect conditions and under the kingship and direction of His son Jesus Christ.
School
My school experience has some happiness and a lot of sadness. I came to new york in 1952. I was enrolled at PS 171 in Manhattan. I was 12 years of age and I was assigned to the seventh grade, 7-13 was my class. I spoke no english and at the time there were no bilingual classes. My room teacher spoke a little Spanish and she was very sweet and kind. She helped me to learn english. And with my great motivation to survive and to learn the English language I learned quickly and enough to go to the next grade. I was assigned to class 8-3. That was quite of an accomplisment, from 7-13 to 8-3 in one year that was a tremendous progress. I was able to make many friends who, like me, spoke very little English and were very good kids. I was also priviledged to have friends from a multitude of cultures, especially african americans and italians who were the predominant races among hispanics in that community at the time. And we got along very well despite our cultural differences. However, the school consisted of very poor children who, by enlarge, didn't have good parents and there were a lot of bullies who preyed on the good kids. So we had to fight fights that we didn't start. There were kids who brought drugs to school and offered them to others. I never even bother to smoke cigarrettes. Unfortunately,...Expand for more
one of my best friends who was very musically talented fell preyed to the drug dealers and ruined his life at a very early age. Many others were jailed maimed physically, and some lost their life in dead. I had wonderful teachers who were pretty strict with discipline and I did my best to respect them. I have very good memories of most of my teachers at this school. While I was attending this school, I worked part time for a wonderful Jewish family who owned a grocery store. They became my informal parents. I would work one hour in the morning from 6:00 am to 7:am then after school I would work from 4:00 pm to 7:00pm daily and most of the day on Saturday. It was a great experience that helped me mold my life in many ways, especially in the financial aspect. I learned the value of hard work and how to spend money wisely. After graduation from ps 171, I went to Commerce High School and enjoyed my tenure of four years very much. I had great teachers who were willing to help me very much. One of my favorite teachers was Ms. Braithwaite who was my English teacher. She is an African American. Ironically, when I first met her on my first day of class with her, I thought that she was so ugly that I said to myself, how I am going to concentrate looking at her? Well, when she started teaching there was such an inner beauty emanating from her that I really had a hard time concentrating not because of my initial impression that she was physically ugly but because of the great inner beauty she possessed. In fact, today, she is one the few teachers whose name I can recall effortlessly. There were many other teachers at this school that I recalled fondly. Such as Mr. Wolf, my gym teacher, my history teacher, Mr. Rudolph, my accounting teacher and others. After graduation from Commerce H.S.I went to work at Harlem Hospital,a wonderful place. I also went to Bronx community college at night while working days at the hospital. I got married and so I got my diploma in husbandry, not from the college I was attending, but from my wife and four children as my certificates for punctuality in stud-ing. to be continued.....
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