JOBLESS ONCE AGAIN

Guayaquil and the mighty Guayas River in 2009

Computers were something totally unknown in those days, but the idea of verifiable, crossed information about tax payers was something I heard from the IRS people and liked right away. On my own initiative, and with help from no one, I started to work on a project to apply the concept of crossed information to control taxpayers. By the end of December 1966, I had developed a manual system by which, on a limited scale, our department could have information about people working in different places who had never summed up their various salaries for purposes of filing their income taxes, a classical way to cheat. That was the starting point of what is today a very efficient personal revenues’ control system in the Ecuadorian IRS.

Everything seemed to be running as desired in my life, I had a good job, I was doing excellent at school and I was dating a real darling, but, all of a sudden things started to get sour. At the end of 1966, a new government came to power in the country; and an old fashion, tricky politician became the new president of the country, his name: Otto Arosemena. He was elected by congress with a majority of one vote. Soon after, the Department of Revenue was the target of a grand scale reorganization and, once again, as it had been in the past, the new president, his minuscule political party (which had only two votes in Congress) and its political allies, took the public administration under their control and started a full scale firing and hiring frenzy, replacing public servants like us, with totally unprepared and corrupt individuals who came in, money hungry, to grab whatever they could from whoever they could. This was the way Arosemena paid his allies’ for the votes he got in congress to be elected president. In December 1966, I was removed from my position and was replaced by an individual whose “resume” included several arrest warrants for issuing unfunded checks which bounced like a basket balls around the city. The Internal Revenue Department of Ecuador went back to the old habit of being the main ally of tax cheaters, it was a 180 degrees reverse from two years of improving and modernization efforts initiated and implemented by the previous government. It was not until the end of the century, 32 years later in 1998, that a similar, but this time lasting effort was made by the Ecuadorian Government, to modernize and clean up the Department of Revenue, which for decades was more like a rats’ nest than a tax generating office.

Jobless once again, at the end of 1966, I had the saddest Christmas of my life. I was back in the streets, looking for a job, in a job market where supply exceeded demand by at least three to one. What do I do now?, I was very disappointed and sad at my dismissal, however, I did not throw my arms down, I was not going to let myself be defeated by the system, nor was I going to throw the towel before the fight was over. I decided to figure out that the fight was just starting, that I was going to fight with vengeance , and that at the end, I was going to win.

I approved the school year 66-67 with the equivalent of a 3.93 GPA, not as good as the year before, but still by far the best in my class. Between Christmas and the end of the school year I was busy looking for a job (plan A), and looking for alternatives (plan B). Since jobs were nowhere to be seen, by the beginning of January I started to think about going to the U.S. to find a job (getting a visa was not a problem in those days) and go to school. Frankly, I liked this alternative, mainly because that would allow me to see Anita, my sweetheart again, but also because with luck it would allow me to learn English, which would then open the door for me to continue studying in the U.S.
I discussed this plan with my niece Maria who had a good friend living in NYC, and asked her to discuss this plan with her friend. The idea was that I would get housing at my niece’s friend and would soon get a job, which shortly after would allow me to find my own place to live. The response from NYC was enthusiastically affirmative.

The plan was a secret between Maria, her friend in NYC, Angela, her husband Jorge Terreros, and I. I would tell my family that I’ve gotten a two year scholarship and, therefore, there would be no questioning from any one.

On January 27, 1967, I boarded a plane going to NYC, and arrived late at night. Arriving was a mix of several feelings and emotions: first, I was dazzled by the NYC skyline, an image I will never forget and which made me feel like in another planet; then, on the other hand, I was barely prepared for the terribly cold weather (20 degrees Fahrenheit), as the city was going through one of the coldest winters in decades; and, then, I felt minimized by my inability to express myself in English, not even to tell the taxi driver where to go (I handed him a piece of paper on which I had written the address), and, finally and most important, I was having my own internal doubts as to whether I was doing the right thing by coming to this unknown city and country, and possibly disrupting my plans for the future. Finally I arrived at Angela and Jorge’s at 347 W. 47th St., NY, NY, 10036, a neighborhood in the NYC West Side (mid town Manhattan), then populated mostly by Puerto Ricans, which has now been renovated and it is a nice place to live in and visit. Angela and Jorge welcomed me at about midnight on that faithful day; they were very nice, welcoming and friendly.

Jorge, who had been living in NYC for the previous 10 years, told me we would have to wake up very early the following morning because we needed to go to the Social Security office located in Harlem, to get what would be indispensable if I was going to look for a job, the Social Security card, which by mid morning we surely got. Immediately thereafter, we went to “El Barrio”, a place where I could get some snow resistant shoes, leather gloves and a warm coat, without which I was unable to move around. With the SS card in hand, and warm enough to do the needed walking, we then went to an employment office and asked for places where I could get a job. I sure got a job the same day, and it was at an IHOP restaurant in Roosevelt Ave., in Queens, and the position was as a dishwasher. I started the following morning at 7 AM. January 28, 1967, was sure enough a long and busy day for me, and, unable as I was to express myself in English, Jorge did all the talking for me. I told Jorge my next priority was to register at a school to learn English. He was very surprised to hear me saying that, because, he, himself, had never gone to school to learn English in the ten years he had lived in NYC. Jorge’s acceptable English had been learned the hard way as he moved around in the Big Apple, from job to job. As of the time of the events I’m telling you about, he was a busboy at a restaurant located at 47Th ST at Broadway, and he was happy with his job and the income he was getting from it.

In my next posting: GETTING TO KNOW THE WORLD THROU NYC