"[W]e used to love to hang out with the handful of other black girls practicing the Watusi to imaginary James Brown music."


Adapted from Linda Chavez's blockbuster of a tell - all best seller, An Unlikely Conservative, Or How I Became the Most Hated Hispanic in America.

Snippets of the memories of Linda's student life in a Denver Catholic high school in the early nineteen sixties!

Pages 37 - 38.

"For much of high school, one of my best friends was a black student named Monica Scott.

"Monica and I were in French class together, and we used to love to hang out in the bathroom at lunchtime with the handful of other black girls in our class, practicing the Watusi, the Twist, and the Mashed Potato to imaginary James Brown music.

"My black class mates, however, came from an elite group:black Catholics.

"Conversion to Catholicism was frequently a sign of upward mobility for blacks, just as conversion to Protestantism has often been for Hispanics.

"But in the case of black Catholics, conversion brought an immediate benefit.

"The parochial school system -- then, unlike now, attended exclusively by Catholic children -- offered the best hope of an affordable, high - quality education for youngsters who might otherwise be consigned to poor - quality and unsafe public schools."