Tate's Family Tree Tate, Celestine (2010-03-21) PART 1 >>INTERVIEWER: Today is February 4, 2010, and we're interviewing Celeste Tate. Would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself? >>CELESTINE TATE: Well mean, basically I'm just trying to get myself together and I'm just trying to do all the things I can do. I am enrolled in school with the GED program at Job Leaders in Columbus, Ohio. It's a very good program. I'm now looking for work and trying, basically, to better myself; do my little thing. But my grandkids keep me happy though! [ALL LAUGH] >>CELESTINE TATE: Because I have so many of them. Any questions you all want to ask me? >>INTERVIEWER: Was that motivation to go back, your grandkids? >>CELESTINE TATE: Yes it is, oh yeah. For school? Oh yeah. >>INTERVIEWER: What was the connection, were you helping them and like: "Man, I need to go back!"? >>CELESTINE TATE: Yes, yes, yes. I needed GED right now because I have a lot of trades that I can do and I'm willing to do. I've been in fast food for 10 years, so I am trying to go ahead and do what I need to do with that. Also, I work at GM, General Motors, so I'm trying for progress into that, keeping my focus for that. I'm just trying to experience a lot of little things. [CELESTE LAUGHS] >>INTERVIEWER2: That's a good idea! [ALL LAUGH] >>CELESTINE TATE: Oh yeah, he's crazy, he cool! But I'm just trying to experience a lot of things that I'm willing to do because I have a lot of trades and a lot of things that I want to do, accomplish. Also, if I can get a little help with the trade and the grants that they have out there, and I'm willing to participate in that. So I'm just basically trying to just go ahead and do what I need to do. I'm just being very patient; I can't be very upset about anything, I just have to focus. So, anything you all would like to ask me? >>INTERVIEWER2: I would like to know, to take you back your childhood for a second, how did you feel about books, did you like books when you are an elementary school? Did you have any special success writing or reading? >>CELESTINE TATE: the only thing that I didn't really like was my English, that's what took me out of focus was my English. I had talked to Eric, about my English and preparations for my English, but that's on my way for graduation. I only messed up, I can tell you right now, if 1.25 just in my English. So, I'm going back, I can better focus on my English. Not as much, but I can focus on it; right now with the measurements as far as my math goes, but I've been taking, currently -- on my GED I am focusing on climbing that ladder. Once I get that ladder, it's cool, but I'm just on that metric. >>INTERVIEWER2: How long have you been involved in the program? >>CELESTINE TATE: Since last year, 2009. >>INTERVIEWER: Well, how many times do you have to go? >>CELESTINE TATE: Well, I go Mondays and Wednesdays. Usually I will go Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday but I went down to two days a week. As long as their focus on that, it's pretty much all right. >>INTERVIEWER2: Right, that's dedication though. >>CELESTINE TATE: Oh, yeah. I'm striving to go ahead and get his GED because they pay for it, because the class is free. Because it's free I did go and do when I didn't do. That's my main focus is to get this GED. I'm trying to get it before my birthday which would be at the end of this month. So I am really cramming it in there, but it's hard though. If I get it in June I will still be happy; at least I accomplished something. >>INTERVIEWER2: I have heard it's not an easy -- >>CELESTINE TATE: No, no no. I got the new 2010 GED book; it's a rough one. >>INTERVIEWER2: That is what I have heard. >>INTERVIEWER: You don't have it on you? >>CELESTINE TATE: No, I don't. >>INTERVIEWER: Tisha had it in her car. >>CELESTINE TATE: Yeah, she has it in her car. >>INTERVIEWER: Oh, okay, I was going to say to show us some of the stuff that you have been doing. If they happen to come back before the end and we can show it to us. >>CELESTINE TATE: Terrence! I mean, the GED is . . . send Jasper outside and get that GED book out my bag, please. >>TERRENCE: You don't have that anymore. >>CELESTINE TATE: Oh, okay. I mean, it's smaller but it's more efficient to which you want to do. But there are a lot of people out there that are trying to get their GED but you have to work. I haven't been the school since 1983; I just missed that one English. I hated English. >>INTERVIEWER: What you think was your big obstacle or struggle in English? >>CELESTINE TATE: Me and my teacher didn't get along because any time you would sit on the desk and you would show all those little body parts . . . me and my English teacher never got along anyway because she put, how do I say this, everybody else better. We were in the lower class of the neighborhood, so she put us down, because everybody was going to make it that was in a higher class. So she basically just put us down. I mean, I'm cool with it, I'm fine with it, but you have to treat everybody like . . . >>INTERVIEWER: Looking back, do you think should have just let her be? And whatever issues you all had . . .? >>CELESTINE TATE: yeah, I think so. But what I think, if we had more of a challenge as she would have paid more attention to us than what she did. Because I was in high school with a child, with two kids, she really belittled us. Let's see, if I'm not mistaken, I was pregnant when I was in school. So she kind of belittled us a little bit because we were pregnant students in the school. Everybody has their own particular thing, and I think I was pregnant with this. >>INTERVIEWER2: What year was that? >>CELESTINE TATE: 1980 -- let me see, Jasper was born in'82. Yeah. >>INTERVIEWER2: So is the kind of behavior still taking place in the eighties? That is -- >>CELESTINE TATE: I mean I even went from the high school to a college where they took the pregnant girls and I did that too. My schooling was always my thing, but it was just how people treated pregnant girls are the young age, because I was 15. >>INTERVIEWER2: My mom had me when she just turned 16, and she was pregnant in school; they kicked her out of school. >>CELESTINE TATE: well, seated in the same thing. I fought when I was in school. You know, those little girls . . . [ALL LAUGH] >>INTERVIEWER: So you were fighting, "I'm pregnant!" [ALL LAUGH] >>CELESTINE TATE: You already know! It was not nice up in here! [ALL LAUGH] >>INTERVIEWER: So you have the teacher, the conflict there and then with the females too; it kind of took away from --? >>CELESTINE TATE: what hurt me the most is that when we were in the auditorium and they were telling everyone who was going to graduate . . . I mean, they gave us a piece of paper like we were nothing. Those who graduated didn't get a piece of paper so they got to leave and those who didn't graduate got the piece of paper. So that's how they did us. The principal stood out there and said: "We have the graduating class of 1983 and some of those who weren't going to graduate are going to get a piece of paper." It was like a pink piece of paper. You know, I am going to go after that piece of paper. >>INTERVIEWER2: I would love to see that. >>CELESTINE TATE: yeah, it's a pink piece of paper, that they put right there, and they showed you what to class you did not achieve in; mine was the English. I kind of figured that she wasn't going to pass me because I gave her some . . . woo, we used to have some blow downs. To this day, I mean, she is still at Centennial. >>INTERVIEWER2: Oh, really? >>CELESTINE TATE: Yeah, she is still there. >>INTERVIEWER: Don't say her name. [ALL LAUGH] >>INTERVIEWER2: Yeah, right. We will have to edit that out. >>CELESTINE TATE: I mean, she is still at Centennial, but she was just a favoritism type teacher. She had her peons, she had her pets, she had groupies, stuff like that. I just wasn't one of her groupies. Man, me and her used to go to blows like grown folks. Because, she was like: "You need to go home and take care of that baby!" it would be little stuff that she used to say, they used to kind of tee me off. I know I got a baby at an early age, and I understand that buy my baby being taken care of? Don't worry about it. PART 2 >>CELESTINE TATE: You are hitting too much into the ground in here; you pass me or you fail me if and what she did it is fail me. I still see her every now and then, but she is slowly going down. >>INTERVIEWER: So you feel it's like karma? >>CELESTINE TATE: Yeah. If it's just like you can't disrespect those who are pregnant at an early age that really didn't know any better; don't try to downgrade us, at least try to help us. She was hurting us more than she was helping us. >>INTERVIEWER2: That is just not very professional for, that's the simple way to describe it. It's more complicated than that but -- >>CELESTINE TATE: With her, she was just… I would just say she was just evil. There were like three of us there who are pregnant that time; she was just an evil woman. Now the other two, she failed them all away through the whole class. I mean, she just [CELESTE MOTIONS WITH HER ARMS] >>CELESTINE TATE: They would be in class every day, all day, the same thing I was doing, but I was just the light one. These two girls didn't even graduate because of that English. There were only three of us in there with English and there were two other girls and me, but she just shorted me out 1.25 in the English. But she just flat out -- [CELESTE MOTIONS AGAIN] >>CELESTINE TATE: because they were pregnant. >>INTERVIEWER: Did that change the way you felt about reading a book or reading the newspaper? >>CELESTINE TATE: Oh no, that is my everyday thing. I have to, I have to know everything. That's something I have to do. Literacy to me is that I have to read every day. I don't get my newspaper every day; if I don't I read up on the computer. I'm not the best at computers, but I know about computers; I can go through my e-mail, if there is something I want to do; look up a job, I can do that. You may not find the best jobs in Columbus but you put your interview in, put your resume, because some sites they do have where you put your resume and just send your resume through. That right there. I'm on that. I go to the library every day because my homework is on the computer. That's one thing about my teacher, she is on point. She puts my homework on the computer, I can go ahead, and she can look see what I do every day, because we have to be on the computer for 5 hours a day. >>INTERVIEWER2: Okay >>CELESTINE TATE: so once I come in, she overlooks what I do, and she is like: "Okay, I am going to pop you on the test." See, I just did a test on Monday, and I went on that Wednesday and she was like, because she is so busy: "I didn't check your test yet." And so I'm like: "Okay, that's fine." But I have to keep in school though; it might take me a long time to get where I need to go but I'm still in there. >>INTERVIEWER: Do you think, and it's kind of long, what she was asking . . .- do you think that you went this long without pursuing it just because of that bad experience then? You just weren't even thinking about school? >>CELESTINE TATE: No, I always wanted to; right now, all the jobs that you apply for are about GED. You have to have some type of thing of wonder you if you doing graduate. You know I can get seasonal jobs, it's easy, but that's just seasonal. And with that, they were like: "We can't really hire you on because you don't have --" >>INTERVIEWER: Mmhmm. >> CELESTINE TATE: And waiting kind of hurts but I just have to keep doing what I have to do. Like I tell my son, I haven't been to school since 1983. I read every day, I read up on my currents and everything, but it's just that paper. Even if you have that paper, it still doesn't guarantee you any $100,000 job. >>INVTERVIEWER: Right. >>CELESTINE TATE: It's just that paper that you have for show, that you have to have to show that you've got some type of education. >>INTERVIEWER2: It's getting more and more like that. Back when my mom had to drop out of school, she got her GED, but you could get a good job with the GED. >>CELESTINE TATE: See, that's what I am saying. >>INTERVIEWER2: It seems like they're making it harder on people who don't have that. >>CELESTINE TATE: And then too, it takes a lot of the literature stuff too; if you read a certain way, if you don't talk a certain way, then that takes out a lot too. I went for Chipotle's on Tuesday, I went for the interview for Chipotle Les on Tuesday, but it was a stacked house. I mean stacked. Standing in the room like you were in the club. [INTERVIEWER2 LAUGHS] >>CELESTINE TATE: But it was only one interviewer, he said: "I am not going to be able to get through everybody, but if you'll just leave you resumes and stuff like that." Which I did. I left all my stuff right there for him. And I said: "Well, you can call me." People were getting mad, getting frustrated; you can't get frustrated by anything. If it's not there, it's not there. You just have to keep moving. That's what I said: "Keep moving", because they were starting to get mad! You've got to do other things. [ALL LAUGH] >>INTERVIEWER2: Right, right. >>CELESTINE TATE: But I can't get mad on that news; I filled out the application, that to my resume a right there, which is presentable. Because now, if your resume is not presentable, the only thing they're going to do is toss it. I'm going through some tough times but I . . . >>INTERVIEWER: Trying to get back into that school mode? >>CELESTINE TATE: Yeah, but even school mode is always going to be there. I've been there faithfully, every Monday and Wednesday. I've been there faithfully. Really, I don't ask for her to help too much because I basically try to learn it all on my own. She was like: "You don't ever ask me for any help." I said: "Well, I try to do it on my own." That's one thing that she liked, plus I'm on the computer too because we have four computer flat screens that we can sit there and do whatever we want to do. We discuss a lot of stuff though. If you are in school, you can get a lot of free stuff; you can get free laptops, stuff like that. That's why I'm aiming for! That's what I want right there! [ALL LAUGH] >>CELESTINE TATE: That's what I want, is a free laptop, by going to school. By me working at GM, I've been going through their program, and they'll pay half and then I have to pay the other half, but what I am trying to do is not want them to pay nothing, so I can just get everything for free. But see everything for free costs. I mean me and my teacher, we're working on Saturday. Trying to get a laptop! I need this laptop! [ALL LAUGH] >>INTERVIEWER2: Did you work on your resume, building up your resume, and how to format it and everything through your GRE instruction? Was that with this teacher you have, that she helped you figure out . . . writing resumes is not easy. >>CELESTINE TATE: My teacher is superb. She is bad. I love my teacher because anything that I need or whatever. . . I have a friend, I don't even know what I want to call him because he is nothing, he only helps the cute girls. He is one of those specialists, who only help the cute girls. I gave him a rough time because I am like: "Look, do you see this paperwork that you have, you see this paperwork I have, do this one, do you see this one?" and he is like: "It's not good enough." OK, then what you want me to do then? Show you some leg? I can't show you any leg. [ALL LAUGH] >>INTERVIEWER: You go to . . . >>CELESTINE TATE: I go to my teacher, yeah. Me and him do not get along, me and him do not get along the home he always does that bad stuff instead of the good stuff; he is always looking for the bad way: "You didn't do this, you didn't do that." But, you have to understand I have a job. I don't necessarily need you; I know how to go out there and get a job. "Well you need your GED! I don't know why people keep hiring you!" That is how the talks. >>INTERVIEWER: It sounds like your fault grade teacher. >>CELESTINE TATE: Yeah, my English teacher, by his attitude. Instead of doing a good, he does the bad. And I just tell him in a minute: "Look, You are lucky I don't catch you -" [ALL LAUGH] >>CELESTINE TATE: So you know for you know! Yeah, buddy! I mean, but he is . . . no, I can't do that. I can say without one because he is . . . I'm trying to do the good not the bad; I can do the bad by myself. >>INTERVIEWER: And he might get you to a point where you get worked up and then you're into it with him. >>CELESTINE TATE: When it gets to that . . . when I see him, I see him when I am in school and then my teacher was like: PART 3 >>CELESTINE TATE: "Well what seems to be the problem Miss Tate?" This came from my . . . she was like: "Don't even tell me about it." [INTERVIEWER2 LAUGHS] >>CELESTINE TATE: She said: "Don't let him work you" because that's how he is, he's just nasty, he is just real nasty. >>INTERVIEWER2: It doesn't sound like there's anything she can do about it either. >>CELESTINE TATE: Oh, no no no. >>INTERVIEWER2: If she knows though, then she is going to support. >>CELESTINE TATE: I mean she supports me; she's like "Just go ahead and go do your school." She doesn't know it's going to take you a long time; I've been in here, I've been in school since February 18, 2009. >>INTERVIEWER2: Ow. That's almost a year. >>CELESTINE TATE: Yeah. She had to take me from the beginning to the end, so now I am in the middle. Well, not in the middle middle. So she is basically, she got me. >>INTERVIEWER2: Cool. Wow, wait. >> INTERVIEWER: Is there any --? >>INTERVIEWER2: We're just running out. I know one run out and go over. I'm just sorry but you said you had --? >> INTERVIEWER: Thirty nine minutes. Any last thoughts or anything? >>CELESTINE TATE: Oh, no baby, you know you can have me over any time! >>INTERVIEWER2: I'm not trying to cut you off, I do not just want this to stop and I had to ask her really quick how many minutes are left. >>CELESTINE TATE: Oh no, I'm cool. It's just, I just stay in school, keep meeting from jobs, that's all I can do; the resume is straight. I can't put a gun to anybody's head to hire me. I have to keep looking. As long as I stay out of trouble. [ALL LAUGH] >>CELESTINE TATE: And another thing, you know people with problems do not have a job. >>INTERVIEWER: It's true; right now it is even harder. >>CELESTINE TATE: I see them every day, all day. People that work for their jobs for 30 years, retired, they just kept the keep going. >>INTERVIEWER: That is everybody now. >>CELESTINE TATE: I see kids out there, man, every day. I see kids that don't even know how to read and write; go to school!