One Nation, One Standard: An Ex-Liberal on How Hispanics Can Succeed Just Like Other Immigrant Groups, by Herman Badillo

Abstract

One Nation, One Standard covers a lot of ground: this short book is a memoir of Herman Badillo’s early life and political career intertwined with his reflections on increasing upward mobility of Hispanics in the United States. As an admirer of Mr. Badillo, I greatly enjoyed the book as biography for its engrossing and inspiring view into his long life of personal and professional achievement. Now in his late 70s, Badillo rose from a childhood of poverty in Puerto Rico to a highly successful career as a political reformer. His achievements in education include raising academic standards in the New York City public school system and the City University of New York. His accounts of these long struggles reveal courage, determination and tenacity in the face of political resistance and intransigence from educational administrators, teachers’ unions, and left-wing faculty groups. One Nation, One Standard is less successful on a policy level. References are sparse, and Badillo’s policy recommendations are largely personal reflections stemming from his own experiences. Educational policy questions, such as the effectiveness of special education programs and ability tracking, require a more scholarly and in-depth analysis than could be included in this short memoir. The author discusses Hispanic-Americans as one homogenous cultural group rather than making distinctions among Hispanic groups from different countries of origin. In this context, some readers may take exception to his inclusion of Puerto Ricans, who are US citizens, in Hispanic immigrants. Herman Badillo’s early life and education resemble a Horatio Alger story. He was born in a small Puerto Rican town where his father was a teacher and his parents among the few Protestants on the largely Catholic island. Orphaned at age five after his parents died from tuberculosis, he spent the rest of his childhood with relatives. He was the only Protestant in his aunt’s family and continued to attend church Acad. Quest. (2007) 20:251–255 DOI 10.1007/s12129-007-9014-x