The Adorable Story of How One Child’s Name Helped Latinx Students Resist Assimilation

Text: Ramón “Chunky” Sanchez attended elementary school in a small farming town in the 1950s. Just as with many of his Mexican-American classmates, Ramón’s teachers Americanized his name. But in the second grade, everything changed when a new kid came to school.

Ramón: My name when I started kindergarten was Ramón. By the time I was in the 2nd grade, everybody was calling me Raymond, even out on the playground, in the classroom, “Raymond! Hey Raymond! Hey Raymond!” I was really trying to adjust to this, you know what I mean?

There was a girl named María. Her name became Mary, and Juanita became Jane.

One day, we got a new student by the name of Facundo Gonzalez. Facundo Gonzalez, man.

When he came to the school, we noticed they called an emergency administrative meeting. We could hear them talking through the door, “What are we going to do with this guy?” You hear me? “How are we going to change his name?”

One teacher goes, “You know what, why don’t we try to shorten the name a little bit?” They go, “Yeah, but how do you spell it? F-A-C-U-N-D-O?” “Why don’t we just spell it F-A-C?”

One of the teachers goes, “Well that means his name would be Fac.” One of the other teachers look at him, “No, that sounds too much like a dirty word. You can’t be saying, “Fac, where’s your homework?” You know? “Where’s Fac at?” You know what I mean?

That was a trip we always remembered going through elementary school. Because Facundo is the only guy never got his name changed.