Literacy Program’s Tutors Help Open Doors to a New World

They see each other every week.

He is a school dropout who was picking fruit to help support his family when he was 8.

She is the daughter of a well-educated family from an affluent Northern California town who is pursuing a master’s degree in international studies.

What brings them together is that she is teaching him, at 59, to read. His name is Peter. There are many things he has trouble with: applications for jobs, questionnaires at the doctor’s office, writing checks, figuring out his mail.

Her name is Bonnie MacKenzie. She is a 28-year-old Los Angeles resident who volunteered for a South Pasadena program that tries to guide adults through a remedial reading course. She has met with Peter for five weeks.

“I want to pick up the newspaper and read about the world,” said Peter, who lives with his mother in Monterey Park and does odd jobs for a living. He asked that his last name not be used. “I don’t want to just ask people questions about things, I want to be the person with some answers.”

They are sitting together at a large conference room table where they meet each Tuesday morning in the South Pasadena Library.

“Sometimes, I just have to say ‘Wow!’ when Pete tells me about the things he has gone through,” said MacKenzie, who majored in Spanish and linguistics at UC Davis and studied literacy around the world before she began working with Peter. “The little things, like getting mail, is something most people take for granted.”

Born in Bakersfield, Peter said he dropped out of school after first grade to help his family put food on the table. His diabetic father was unable to work, so at 8 Peter went out to the fields to pick tomatoes and oranges.

“My parents couldn’t help it; we did not have much,” he said. “I went to school for a little while in fifth grade, but I got tired of seeing my family hungry. I was the No. 1 boy. The oldest. I felt like I had to do something.”

On typical nights, his family dined on macaroni and cheese with crackers; when a day was especially prosperous they feasted on eggs. Today, Peter said, his two brothers and two sisters are scattered around the country, not fully aware of the price Peter paid.

“People wonder why I don’t write letters or why I don’t write Christmas cards. When I get Christmas cards, I think, ‘I don’t know who it’s from, but what a fancy card.’ ”

There are 1.8 million adults in Los Angeles County with limited reading or writing skills, according to a study done by the Literacy Network of Greater Los Angeles. Like Peter, they find many ways to stumble through.

Peter often “forgets” his glasses to explain why he cannot immediately read something, and at restaurants he sometimes asks the waiter for whatever his companion orders.

“It is all the little things that get to me. When I got my TV, I had to play with the buttons on the remote control for a while before I knew what they did. When something is wrong with your car, a light goes on on the dashboard, but I don’t know what that is. I can’t buy cake mix because I can’t read the directions. One time my niece came up to me and said, ‘Uncle Peter, read me this book.’ When I said no, she asked me if I was mad at her or if I didn’t love her anymore. That hurts me.”

Finally, Peter, a divorced father of one who in recent years has spent considerable time taking care of his mother, stopped looking for ways around his problem. He called a toll-free number he saw on television. It led him to the South Pasadena Adult Reading Center, one of numerous literacy organizations in Los Angeles County. In the four years of its existence, the South Pasadena program has graduated 170 people.

Dena Spanos-Hawkey, the literacy coordinator at the South Pasadena Library, says some students who walk through her doors do not stay for the full program.

“Some people come here because they want to pass their driver’s test. They stay a month, and then they leave. Other people stay here for 10 months and have it change their lives,” Spanos-Hawkey said.

After only a few weeks, Peter said, he is motivated to keep going.

“A friend of mine who I told [about tutoring] calls me at 10 every Tuesday to make sure I am going to class at 11. But I just look at myself in the mirror and say, ‘Don’t miss any classes, don’t get discouraged.’ I know I need to do this now.

“Not knowing how to read is like being in a dark room. There is no light, so you don’t know where to turn, but you know there is a door. Now I am getting a little light.

“And you,” he said, turning to MacKenzie in good humor, “better have the switch.”

Spanos-Hawkey tries to measure compatibility when she assigns a tutor to a student.

“I am sort of like Cupid,” she said. “I get an impression of the people, and then I have to match up the right people. I am not always right, and it doesn’t always work. For it to work, I need to find a chemistry between people.”

MacKenzie grew up in Pacific Grove, near Monterey. Both her parents had master’s degrees, and instilled in her a passion for education that led her to become an honors student. She is now a second-year master’s degree student in international studies at Biola University in Los Angeles.

For one of her recent classes, she had the option of writing a paper or doing field work. She volunteered for the South Pasadena program because it was near the Episcopal church where her father is a priest.

“I look forward to seeing Pete every week,” she said. “It is a real gift for me to get the wisdom Pete learned through his life.”

Having spent a lifetime doing unskilled labor, Peter sees reading as a key to late-blooming ambitions.

“Someday I would like to get my education and become a teacher,” he said. “I want to help other people who have the same problem I do.”