Manassas Park Resident Confronts Gingrich About Child Janitor Comments
Georgetown alumnus told the Republican presidential candidate that he was offended by his comments on the campaign trail.
A Manassas Park resident and former child janitor made news this week after having a verbal toe-to-toe with Newt Gingrich over his stance on child labor laws during a presidential campaign event at Georgetown University Wednesday.
Hector Cendejas, an alumnus of Georgetown, said he was compelled to forget his shyness and tell Gingrich that he was offended by the comments he made earlier on the campaign trail in which he called child labor laws “truly stupid," according to a Huffington Post report.
The 23-year-old told the former Speaker of the House in a packed auditorium that he had to work afternoons as a janitor at the private school he attended in Oklahoma to make up for the tuition his mother couldn’t afford.
Gingrich said in November 2011 that low-income children should work in their schools as janitors, as both a cost-saving measure to get rid of unionized adult workers and to give the students money and "pride in the schools," according to the Huffington Post.
“My mother wanted us to go to a private school because she wanted us to have the best education," said Cendejas, as he sat at a small restaurant back home in Manassas Park on Thursday, one day after the publicized exchange with Gingrich.
“I must admit, it was embarrassing holding a mop in front of your classmates. They were well off … one of them had parents with a plane. My brother had to do it, too. There were like, 10 of us, it was mostly Latinos and blacks who had to do it.”
Gingrich’s comments brought back memories, Cendejas said. He did custodial work his entire freshman year before moving to Manassas Park and attending the local high school where he graduated as one of the top five in his class.
“It made me reflect about my past. I never talked about it until (Wednesday). Not even my girlfriend knew about it,” Cendejas said.
Cendejas said he has a keen interest in politics and decided to attend the event after his girlfriend, who attends Georgetown, told him about it.
Gingrich’s comments had bothered him since he read them several months ago, but expressing his thoughts to the candidate himself was an encounter of David and Goliath proportions for Cendejas.
“In the Latino community you are taught to respect those in power,” he said. “I was upset about it. What I did was powerful. I think I gave power to those who are powerless; no one would stand up to someone of his status.”
“He tried to say his daughters cleaned up at their Baptist church, but that was more like a charity thing,” Cendejas said. "He tried to make this argument that it was with dignity … there’s a difference in being a janitor in your own school where you have to face your classmates.”
His mother, who is from El Salvador, worked long hours as a certified nursing assistant in Oklahoma after moving with her two sons from Los Angeles where Cendejas was born.
The family lived with a friend and he and his brother slept on a floor because there was no space for them, he said.
He remembers his schoolmates giving him “weird” looks when they saw him cleaning. “When you’re poor, you really realize the difference between being rich and being poor. You all might be wearing the same uniform, but it’s different,” he said. “When people asked, ‘Why?’ I’d say I couldn’t afford the school. I wish I could have joined a club or an organization, but I worked in the afternoons.”
The packed auditorium filled with mostly Gingrich supporters booed Cendejas during parts of his dialogue with the candidate.
“It made me upset and it made me sad that these so-called Georgetown students were being ignorant,” he said. “It’s different when you are talking to someone who doesn’t share your views … the audience was pro-Gingrich. A lot of them were elitist, most were wearing suits.”
At times, his alma mater can be a segregated place, Cendejas said, with the Latinos and blacks on one side and the whites on another.
Cendejas attended Georgetown University on a full scholarship. He was the first Manassas Park High graduate to be accepted and attend Georgetown, his “dream” school since he was 4 years old, he said. That's when he became fascinated with an uncle’s Georgetown sweatshirt. He liked the bull dog, he said with a smile and a hint of coyness.
Yet he found his studies difficult because he still worked 25 hours a week to support his family, including a younger brother who was attending the University of Virginia at the same time and later graduated.
He would send his brother money to buy books and then explain to his Georgetown professors that he needed to borrow books because of his situation, Cendejas said.
Often the professors would just give him the books after the course was over, he said.
Cendejas still spends nights at the campus library, studying. He's working online toward a master's degree in social work from the University of Southern California. His days are spent mentoring and substitute teaching at Manassas Park High.
“It was a blessing. The education I got at Manassas Park High prepared me for the future. I really love this community," he said.
His mother came into the country undocumented because of the war in her home country, like many other young people his age, he said. His biological father is from Mexico, but he never really knew him. As for Cendejas, he considers himself very patriotic and very American.
“People’s parents come here, they work hard at the airports and other places cleaning up after everybody, not because they want to, but because they want us to do better,” he said. “My step dad is a landscaper. I can not be a landscaper.”
James G Timourian
7:41 am on Friday, March 30, 2012
Seems to me that Cendejas should step back and reflect on what has made him what he is today. His experience is not that unusual, and if anything was beneficial to him. It sounds good, to protect future children from the traumas you suffered when you were a child, but you end up with a pretty spoiled, lazy, self centered and dependent lot if you do that. In wallowing in his unhappy memories he is in fact accepting the culture and attitude of the rich kids that he so much wanted to have as friends.
Gingrich is terrible, but there is a lot to be said for getting children to contribute, whether with chores around a home, on a farm, in a small Mom and Pop business, or, in a controlled and safe environment in the outside world.
Dawn Castle
8:55 am on Friday, March 30, 2012
Cendejas is correct. Schools are neither controlled nor safe, particularly concerning children from different backgrounds than the general school population. There is nothing beneficial about being spurned and scorned by your classmates only deep emotional scars. In some instances, it can build you up and make you more more determined to rise above in others it will drag a child down and totally dishearten them. The idea that may want to be friends with the rich kids is mistaken. In most cases, the "misfits" just want to be left alone. There are other ways to contribute rather than being a janitor at school, at the very least this is an ignorant ridiculous scenario.
holly homan
11:51 am on Friday, March 30, 2012
You end up spoiled, self centered, lazy and dependent. Like you? That's a very insnensitive thing to say. What Cendejas went through should have been illegal. No child should have to go through that. Having a small part time job in high school is one thing, but he was what, ten years old? That's criminal! Newt is an ignorant, lazy, spoiled, amoral crature and it figures his ignorant supporters would boo this young man who has more integrity in his pinky finger than Newt and his supporters have combined. Mr. Cendejas is an honorable, intelligent young man and someone anyone should want to aspire to be like. Newt, on the other hand, is not.
jim cummins
1:01 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
So the rich kids should be made to mop the floors too? Is that your point?
Michael Mc
2:39 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
James G Timourian, shame on you. You know there is a difference between teaching your children the value of hard work at home, where you the parent can supervise and teach them, and throwing them into the labor market as cheap replacements for a working adult. Where they can be exploited, endangered and forced to endure the shame Mr. Cendejas experienced. That he didn't get raped, cheated, beaten up or worse is all a matter of luck. The child labor laws exist for a reason. I would rather that Newt scrub toilets for $4/hour than any child have to do it. Judging from his campaign, so do most Americans.
Tony Wallace
4:21 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
There is a vast difference between volunteering to do something for the common good and personal enrichment, and being forced to by circumstances outside of one's control, and poorly treated for it.
Sam Holloway
5:18 pm on Sunday, April 1, 2012
As someone who had a similar experience to that of Cendejas, I completely agree with his stance. As unfortunate as the reality might be, there is a deep stigma attached to manual labor in the US. Add to that, the fact that Gringrich is insisting that teenagers, during the most emotionaly vulnerable years of their lives, should perform manual labor tasks in front of classmates in order to recieve an adequate education. So, lets paint this in the modern light of reality instead of that of a rose colored fairytale. I am female. In high school wore second hand clothes that did not fit and lived in 7 different houses during my four years in high school. My classmates found me strange and repulsive. I was teased for being dirty since I cleaned up all my classmate's messes. I suppose that Gingrich as well as others who have never endured similar hardship assume that these circumstances engender great character, and perhaps they do. On the otherhand, I happen to think that instead of relying on students at these vulnerable ages to make the choice to endure years of punishment and embassament for an adequate education we should strive for the equality we claim to embrace as a nation. Next year I will teach at a school that is known as a drop out factory, in a neighborhood in which most of the students are born without a chance. Why is it that the fate of these children is something that many in this country believe they should be punished for in order to change?
janoe
10:01 am on Friday, March 30, 2012
He's a brave and honorable young man, as is my son. I think Newt and his pack of thugs are cowards, bigots and murderous liars with Daddy's cash in their wallets and cocaine in their blood.
Sandra Levitz
8:01 am on Saturday, March 31, 2012
Completely agree with you. I would say that I can't believe that he got booed, but being that it was an audience of Gingrich supporters, I CAN believe it. The total lack of empathy and understanding of others characterizes most Republicans today. Any Republican politician who displays such human characteristics is dead to his party these days.
Michelle
10:08 am on Friday, March 30, 2012
What he did took amazing courage, not something I could have done and not something most people are able to do. Not only taking on the hardship of what was dealt to him in life and making the absolute best of it, but also just being able to stand up in that venue and be able to express his opinions knowing the reaction he would probably receive. I in no way see this as "wallowing" but conveying his experiences so that others undestand the other side of it. I commend him for that and hope others will see that kind of strength and be encouraged to do the same in life.
Kathleen Carpenter
2:13 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
Yes I agree with you Michelle. I am ashamed that his fellow students at Georgetown tried to Boo him and shut him up. No tolerance for someone else's experience or opinion. Guess their tuition is wasted on them at a fine place like Georgetown. How sad. I guess the insensitivity and selfishness that the Republicans exhibit will carry on.
Eldor Dote
11:33 am on Friday, March 30, 2012
I commend Cendejas' mother -- bravo senora, la felicito. All work has dignity, though it may take us a while to realize it. As to your classmates in Oklahoma who might have made you feel bad when they saw you with a mop, who's laughiing now?
Arnold Edwards
11:52 am on Friday, March 30, 2012
This is a brave young man who had the courage to stand up to a man who is used to getting his way by bullying and intimidation. I went to Catholic school and some kids had to do chores at the school, but it was AFTER school so other kids wouldn't see or comment even though everyone knew. If anyone believes in Gingrich's theory on child labor laws and kids working as janitors in their own schools obviously has never had to do that.
Peter Durham
12:12 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
As a fellow MWS I congratulate this young man
Peter Durham
12:14 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
Did I mean MSW!!! Pls forgive an old F**t
Cooganalaska
12:39 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
I don't get it. Cendejas should be wearing his experience as a badge of honor. I am white (white trash that is) with plenty of fillings in my teeth due to the ignorance of my immigrant parents. However, I worked hard, and with the help of my hard-working parents I put myself through college with no scholarships. I saw the rich kids and I always had the feelings of being unworthy. But I think New is right. I now feel that I am actually more elite than those privileged kids I went to school with because I came up from a less-privileged backkground and overcame. I actually feel superior and stronger than the elitists. Newt may be privileged himself but his comment about poor kids working their way up is spot on. If they are merely handed the privileges the elitists enjoy then they themselves will become elitists. Speaking from experience.
Mises
1:40 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
I grew up poor, moved out halfway through high school, put myself through college, joined the military, and earned graduate degrees without the help of my parents. I even worked at my college as a part-time janitor in order to make ends meet. Hard work gets you far in life...sitting around thinking its not fair and wondering why things aren't handed to you is absurd.
Tony Wallace
4:15 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
You are superior to no one, regardless of your experiences, and neither is anyone else superior to you. Your hardships don't de facto make you "better" than anyone on the planet. They are simply part of your story, and can either be used to empower, or to tear down. It's your choice, but I think it's pretty obvious which is more positive for the country.
SUSAN H. DEAN
10:17 am on Saturday, March 31, 2012
Newt was not talking about poor kids "working their way up." He was talking about taking the unionized janitors off the payroll and making their children do the work for 25 cents an hour or so.
Steven Carter
12:50 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
I'm very proud of your accomplishment, but most of all I'm very proud of YOU!
Disenfranchised yet you overcame! Continue to seek your dream!
Holly Hoyt
1:34 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
Why are these jobs only good enough for the "poor" kids? I don't believe that it would harm the "previledged" children to pick up a broom and clean their own schools. No matter what the color of their skin. The poor were the ones who Newt singled out for these types of jobs. It was apparent that he felt these positions were below the "previledged" if that's what you want to call them. By the way, I am a white woman who has raised two children of my own and I was not "prevlidged" at all. I would not have hesitated at all to have my children clean their school if it was necessary even if they were "the previldeged". Mr. Gingrich is apparently not in touch with the American public and is totally oblivious to the real working class. People, no matter what income bracket they are in, make themselves what they are. You either want to suceed and improve your place in the world or you want to be lazy and have everything handed to you as a "previledged" person. I'd say this young man is a strong, well rounded individual. His determination to have his voice heard is outstanding.
MJ
2:29 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
Most horrifying thing about this article? Those Gingrich supporters who chose to boo a fine young man.
SUSAN H. DEAN
10:18 am on Saturday, March 31, 2012
Most horrifying thing is that Gingrich HAS supporters.
kathy
2:51 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
Over and over again, republicans show themselves to be insensitive fools . They always boo people who are superior to themselves. How can they be so out of touch with morality, christianity, and basic human kindness? Priviledged seems to equal idiocy.
Mises
4:44 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
Kathy, I'm sorry to tell you this, but Democrats are pretty damn privileged too. And last time I checked, plenty of democrats are willing to show their true colors that are just as bad as what you saw here. Are you implying that that democrats have never unnecessarily booed someone? I can provide you with 10 videos if you wish. Public discourse on anything political these days is full of double standards and hypocrisy from BOTH sides. And to generalize that all republicans are out of touch with morality, christianity, and basic human kindness based on some people booing is actually idiocy on your part.
Vasquez2
12:38 am on Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Yeah, that's right Kathy ALLL Republicans feel that way...that's why Newt is consistently polling last because they're all behind him. Brilliant
Jorge Gil
3:31 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
Viva la Revolucion
N. S. Torres
4:09 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
In the 1860's. Newt would have been on the front lines praising slavery as a fit institution for teaching Africans the value of hard work and Christianity. He's a venal man. Good on you Hector, your courage is an inspiration!
SUSAN H. DEAN
10:21 am on Saturday, March 31, 2012
Good post--
I remember in 1960, in the thick of the civil rights movement and the desegration in the South, a "church lady" type was moaning that it "is too soon, just too SOON." At whick I replied--"Yes, IT HAS ONLY BEEN A HUNDRED YEARS!"
John Cowden
2:16 am on Saturday, March 31, 2012
Newt's wrong ten thousand years of human history sceams this from billions of graves both from the HAVES and not..
chery ned
2:26 am on Saturday, March 31, 2012
I get so tired of the 'adversity builds character' phrase. Of course it does, it is a life experience. But all life experiences build character. While we praise this man's triumph over adversity one has to wonder how many hours were spent over worry and work instead of studying and networking like his more privledged classmates. To me, this phrase is just intended to make those less fortunate feel better, when the truth is innovations require free time to explore and problem solve.
SUSAN H. DEAN
10:21 am on Saturday, March 31, 2012
Adversity builds character--obviously there has been very little "adversity" in Gingrich's life.
Yomi Salu
4:12 am on Saturday, March 31, 2012
Hey youngman, i am very proud of you. Like many of us before you, we are offended when elites tell us what we should be doing whereas their children are not doing it. Thank you for your courage and God bless you and your family
Jill
7:05 am on Saturday, March 31, 2012
In this day and age, where children are bullied to the point of committing suicide, why would we put them into a position of working as janitors so that they can be teased and stared at this way by the more fortunate? While I believe that there is value in children learning the value of a dollar, I think there is almost more value in having children of the more fortunate learning this lesson than the children of the less fortunate learning this lesson. Maybe then, we would value those who do the most menial jobs in our society and treat them with the dignity they deserve.
dave weit
9:45 am on Saturday, March 31, 2012
There is a huge difference between a child being looked down upon by his peers and an adult working part time. Gingrich is a total jerk- thank heavens the voters are going elsewhere.