Carla Katz - The Advocate

 

So, I grew up in Paterson, New Jersey which is famous for the Great Falls of Passaic, the rapper Fetty Wap and violent crime. So, it was normal for me in elementary school that our teachers would line us up at the schoolhouse door at the end of the day and count off, “One, two, three. Run.” We were supposed to race home as quickly as humanly possible to avoid being shot or snatched by some psycho. Upside is I turned into a lifelong runner. [audience laughter] 

 

I loved school, but things were tough for me at home. My father had a hair trigger temper, and I had what my father referred to as a big mouth. It was not a good combination. My mother would beg me to just don't egg him on, “You know what he's like.” I promised all the time to be quiet, but that was very hard for me. 

 

But when I walked into the schoolhouse door every morning, I felt safe and special. My kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Rocker, was this big loving woman. She made me her assistant to help the other kids learn how to read, because I already knew how. I'm not bragging. [audience laughter] All my teachers going up were wonderful until I hit fourth grade. Mrs. Campbell. 

 

Mrs. Campbell, my fourth-grade teacher was thin as a rake and mean as a snake. She was the worst bully and adult that picks on kids. She was mean to all of us, but she had a particular affinity for just torturing this one boy, Paul Boscarino. And Paul was a chubby kid from a big Italian family that lived in my neighborhood. The Boscarino look like Russian nesting dolls if you [audience laughter] pull them apart. Paul and I weren't really close, but we were friends from the neighborhood. 

 

One particular day, Mrs. Campbell called Paul up to the blackboard, and he was moving a little slow and she just started in on her usual sort of barrage of insults, “Move your fat butt. Stop waddling.” Paul was looking down and starting to cry. I was doing everything I could, honestly, to avoid eye contact with Mrs. Campbell, because I just didn't want to be next. I'm looking down into my lap and I just felt something welling in my chest. Before I knew it, I heard myself scream, “Leave him alone, you witch.” [audience laughter] 

 

I'm pretty sure she heard bitch, but-- [audience laughter] She forgot about Paul and she dragged me up to the blackboard and she just started whacking me across the board backside with a yardstick until it broke, because she wanted me to cry. I hadn't cried yet, so she had me turn around and put my hands out and she just beat me across the knuckles over and over trying to get me to cry, but honestly, I'd had a lot of practice at home, sort of defiantly withholding my tears. 

 

Eventually, I just sat down. My hands were throbbing, and my mind was just racing with fantasies of revenge. I was going to go home, I was going to tell my parents, they were going to race to the school, she was going to go to jail and she'd be in a little cell and just drinking water. She'd be even skinnier and turn into a skeleton. [audience laughter] In my eight-year-old head, she was going to be in so much trouble. But when I got home and told my father, he punished me instead for disrespecting the teacher. 

 

I went to my room and cried and hid under the covers, just feeling incredibly small, sort of more stung by my father's rebuke than Mrs. Campbell's yardstick. And then, I heard the doorbell ring. My father yelled, “Carla, door.” I thought I was definitely in trouble again, so I tiptoed out. When he swung the door open though, I could see the entire Boscarino family standing on our stoop. Mrs. Boscarino nudged Paul, forward a little bit, and he looked at me and said, “Thank you for today.” And then, Mr. Boscarino put his hand out to shake my father's hand and said, “We came as a family to thank Carla, but also to thank you and Mrs. Katz for raising a kind and caring daughter.” 

 

And in my head, I just was fervently hoping that my father was ashamed for having just hit me, and also, I guess hoping that he was a little bit proud. But he never said anything and he's gone now, so I'll never know. But what I do know, is that that moment changed everything for me. Because in that moment, I suddenly stopped feeling so afraid. And in that moment was the first time I felt a real sense of my own personal power. And that's the moment, when I look back, that I attribute to my becoming an advocate. 

 

And years later, I became a union organizer and a union leader and a political activist and a labor lawyer. And five decades have passed and I'm still at it. I still have a big mouth, but in my deepest heart, I'm still that eight-year-old girl standing on the stoop in Paterson, New Jersey, finding her mighty new voice. Thank you.