Stork Raving Mad: A Meg Langslow Mystery (A Meg Lanslow Mystery)

“How do you know what the guy went through to get where he is? You don’t know what kind of economic barriers he had to overcome, what kind of prejudice and discrimination he experienced. None of us do.”
    “If he’s suffered and struggled so much, how come he isn’t more sympathetic to other Hispanics?”
    Ramon just closed his eyes as if tired of arguing, so I spoke up.
    “Suffering and struggling don’t automatically ennoble someone,” I said. “Sometimes it just beats people down. Makes them anxious. Fearful. Protective of what they have.”
    “Yeah,” Ramon said. “Believe it or not, ‘I made it, so let me help you’ is a lot less common than ‘I got where I am under my own power—what’s wrong with you?’ ”
    “But does he have to be so hostile to his fellow Hispanics?”
    “He probably doesn’t see it as hostile,” Ramon said. “He probably sees it as making sure he isn’t seen to be favoring one group over another.”
    “I can’t believe you’re defending him,” Bronwyn said.
    “I’m not defending him,” Ramon said. “I’m just trying to explain why I’m not condemning him. I’d like to think I’ll do things differently if I’m ever in a position of power—”
    “When, not if,” Bronwyn put in.
    “But in the meantime, I’m not going to come down on the guy for doing what he thinks he has to. And hey—even if we don’t think he’s a very good role model, when outsiders look at the college staff directory, they see a Spanish name with ‘doctor’ in front of it and a fancy title after it. He doesn’t have to be a nice guy to break glass ceilings. Just hardheaded.”
    “And if he cancels your play and does what he can to sabotage your dissertation?” Bronwyn said softly.
    Ramon shook his head.
    “You can’t just sit back and do nothing,” Bronwyn said. “You have to fight to preserve your culture. Look what’s happening to whales!”
    I tried to make sense of what she was saying. Had I takenanother brief power nap? At what point had the conversation jumped from ethnic discrimination to conservation and animal welfare?
    Ramon simply rolled his eyes as if to say, “Not that again.” I could understand his point of view—Bronwyn was strident and singularly persistent.
    Then light dawned.
    “You mean the country of Wales?” I asked.
    “Well, of course the country,” she said. “A country where due to generations of discrimination against it, the native language has become all but obsolete. My family’s originally Welsh but none of them has spoken our native language for generations. Of course, that’s not surprising. Did you know that only twenty percent of the population of Wales can speak Welsh?”
    A sudden though hit me.
    “That’s why you came to school here, isn’t it?” I asked. “Because the college has a Welsh name.”
    “Yes,” she said. “Caerphilly. Such a beautiful name.”
    I was struck by the way she said the word. Not just that she was pronouncing it right, “car-FIL-ly,” instead of “care-FIL-ly” or, worse, “CARE-ful-ly.” But when she said it, there was a lilt, a hint of music, an echo of—
    “It’s Welsh?” Ramon asked.
    “Of course it is, you dolt,” Bronwyn snapped.
    “What did you think it was?”
    “I always figured it was Native American,” Ramon said.
    “It’s a town in Wales,” I said. “When we’re not mangling Indianplace names, Virginians like stealing place names from the British Isles.”
    “And pretty soon, that will be all that’s left of Wales,” Bronwyn said. “Beautiful place names that no one can pronounce, because all the Welsh turned their back on their culture. Just the way you—”
    “Give it a rest, dammit!” Ramon said. He grabbed a coat from one of the racks, strode over to the front door, and stormed out, slamming it behind him.
    Bronwyn looked after him, frowning. Then she glanced at me.
    “The guy is trouble,” she said.
    “Oh,” I said noncommittally, glancing at the front door, which I could almost imagine still quivering. Yes, with a temper like that, he could be.
    “He’s out to get Ramon,” she said.
    I should have realized she wouldn’t criticize Ramon, at least not to me. From my point of view, Blanco looked less likely to cause trouble than to become the next murder victim. Perhaps Bronwyn had already formed her opinion and wasn’t seeing his current mild-mannered behavior.
    “We expected it from Dr. Wright, but we were hoping for better from Dr.