My Mom, the 9-Year-Old Radical
She experienced the tumultuous ’60s with a blend of innocence and ‘stand up for what’s right’ conviction
My mom is a natural storyteller. It only helps her storytelling that she grew up when American history was a living, breathing movie even Steven Spielberg couldn’t dream up.
The history I learned through textbooks and documentaries, my mom witnessed firsthand on a small boxy television. In black and white, she saw Lee Harvey Oswald get shot while being escorted to jail. In color, she watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. These massive moments in history happened before she was even in high school.
My mom, Cecelia Lacayo, is now a 64-year-old MSNBC fan who cares intensely about the United States. She believes that we each have a voice that can bring about significant change and that it starts with our right to vote. It makes sense: To cast their ballots, her parents had to stand with unimaginable dignity in the face of snarling dogs, firehoses, and racist taunts. She took in all of the messages, images, and integral movements for change and formed her own character and resolve.
For as long as I can remember, my mom has always told me to stand up for the right thing, even it means you have to stand alone. That’s exactly what she did in fourth grade.
My mom was one of the very few Black students at Our Lady Of Sorrows, a Catholic elementary school in Corona, New York. At the time it was a predominantly Italian Queens neighborhood. Her brother was one of the others. With pressed curls, knobby knees, and shiny black patent leather shoes, my mom was always one of the popular kids. She was so loved that when Simon & Garfunkel’s “Cecilia” came out, she got an impromptu serenade in the schoolyard from her classmates. Even though my mom was one of the few Brown faces, she never felt different. She had just as much fun and knew she was just as bright — perhaps even brighter — than the other kids.
But those were the children. Facing some of the school’s nuns was a different story.
For a project to celebrate leaders, my mom selected three of her favorites: John F. Kennedy for government leader, Pope John Paul XXIII for religious leader, and Martin Luther…
