From Cement Finisher to Poet
This California man has enjoyed a burst of self-confidence since learning to read and write
 | The Tree of Knowledge
By Rudy Diaz
I'm a silent old tree that lives among the giants
But I'm not a sequoia,
Nor am I a redwood.
Although I'm big,
I do not cast out a big shadow
Or live in the forest like other trees.
I live among the people and the giant buildings of the city.
My trunk is a book
With pages filled with wisdom,
And the leaves on my branches
Are the people that are climbing
The tree of knowledge.
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Rodolfo "Rudy" Diaz never liked to talk to educated people. The native of an El Paso, Texas barrio began working at age 13 and left school in the ninth grade without having learned to read.
"I felt people who could read knew everything, so I never talked to them," Diaz, 66, says. "I was afraid if we talked, they would discover I didn't know anything."
Diaz joined a construction crew at age 17 and became a cement finisher. For years, he resigned himself to being a nonreader. He wouldn't take steps to change that until he reached his mid-50s. Tired of asking others to read letters to him and angry that he couldn't help his grandchildren with their homework, Diaz took the hint when his sister found an ad in the newspaper for an adult literacy program at a nearby library.
"At first I was afraid they were going to laugh at me but they greeted me real nice," Diaz recalls. "They were very understanding."
His tutors were patient, but Diaz's progress was hindered by a divorce and work-related injury that left him depressed and unable to concentrate. He had been working with the program for five years when he confronted his reflection in the mirror one morning.
It was as if two halves of his psyche were arguing. One half was ashamed and wanted to give up; the other half was eager to continue learning.
"I gave myself a good talking to," Diaz remembers. "I cussed myself out. I said, 'If you don't want to catch up to me, fine, stay there. I'm going on.'"
That was a turning point for Diaz: his adult learner half won and every day since then, he has gained courage. "Now I don't care if people see my writing or hear me reading," he claims. He has become a voracious consumer of children's schoolbooks, which he reads to supplement his education. He attends a reading and writing class every Wednesday.
It has been a dramatic metamorphosis. From the person whose inability to read and write left him too shy to speak, Diaz turned into the man who, earlier this year, addressed an audience of high school students taking part in a student government day sponsored by the City of Commerce, Calif. Diaz, one of three adult learners taking part in a panel discussion at the city library, made an impassioned speech about the value of education and the importance of believing in yourself. He followed it up with an original poem, a copy of which he gave to everyone in attendance.
"They didn't move, their eyes were fixed upon him and they didn't wiggle in their chairs," Beatriz Sarmiento, the panel's moderator, says of the student audience. "Afterward, when we ate lunch, they talked about how surprised they were to find adults who couldn't read. Their favorite part of the day was the learner panel."
Diaz's family is surprised by the change they see in him. For example, his children cannot believe he actually won the certificate that hangs on his wall. He received it after winning a poetry contest.
Poetry is Diaz's passion. In 1997, one of his poems, "The Tree of Knowledge," was printed in the program accompanying the library's annual volunteer recognition breakfast. The next year, 13 of his poems were collected in a booklet printed by the library. In 2000, one of Diaz's poems was included in "It's All in the Frijoles," an anthology of Latino folk wisdom published by Simon & Schuster and sold on Amazon.com.
Encouraged by his success, Diaz continues to compose verse. At last count he had accumulated more than 80 original poems. He's now looking for an editor.
"I keep on writing," he says. "I hope that some day I can publish a book of poetry."
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