Bruce Bennett, Instructor - English Department

Reflections of a right place, right time sort of life

By Barry Shatzman
News editor

Reprinted from the Ohlone College Monitor - November 13, 2003.

Bruce Bennet opens the door to his quiet little office on the third floor of Building 2. — Photo by Ashanta Riley-Person.

If the path to Ohlone taken by English professor Bruce Bennett simply involved machine guns and tear gas, it might be fitting to describe it using Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken. That it involved these at virtually every step along the way, as well as a South American coup, being stranded in the Andes, and teaching in a prison, makes his journey as unique as one could ask for.

You'd never know all this if you just stopped by Bennett's office for a chat. Amid the cluttered papers, Bennett slipped off his tennis shoes and leaned back comfortably in his chair as he spoke calmly of his experiences. But, the experiences were anything other than sedate.

The real beginning to the story came when Bennett, after graduating from Cornell University in 1965, decided to do his graduate work at the U.C. California Berkeley campus. He had also been accepted at Stanford, but chose Berkeley because “I'd heard about the free speech movement and it seemed glamorous and exciting.”

Bennett would end up going to U.C. Berkeley twice, each time earning a Master's degree. One of those stints occurred at the height of the anti-war turmoil in the 1960's. “ The school was really racked by unrest,” according to Bennett. At one point, he said, he was trying to get onto the campus but the gate was blocked by bayonet-wielding National Guardsmen. Then, another time he was on the campus, helicopters dropped tear gas and he was forced to leave the area.

“It was a hard time to be a grad student…it was hard to be disciplined,” said Bennett, who added that, though morally opposed to the war, he was not an activist himself.

In 1973, Bennett went to Chile to head the English department at an international school near Santiago. He knew things there were unstable and the country was being paralyzed by various strikes, but went anyway. “It was a scary situation to get into. I didn't know what I was going to find.”

A few months after he arrived in Chile, he found out. On his way to work one day, the announcement came that a coup (in which the elected Chilean President Salvador Allende would be killed and be replaced by General Augusto Pinochet) was taking place and everyone should go home. After stopping at a grocery store to stock up on food, Bennett went to his apartment. He stayed there for days. All he could do was watch the black smoke from all the bombings in the distance.

That was nothing compared to what would come next. A few days later Bennett and his roommate would be arrested and taken to police headquarters by people carrying machine guns. They were forced to lie on the floor with other arrested foreigners. “I was so scared that my throat was completely dry,” said Bennett.

After being interrogated, Bennett was released when officials were satisfied that he was there legitimately, and was not an agent for the CIA. He remained in Chile for the duration of his two-year contract, living under the new regime. One of the most visible impacts was the nightly curfew. Bennett remembered “at least a couple of times running a mile or two” to get home in time after a social event or date.

Bennett's return from Chile was a year-long trek, mostly by bus. At one point, traveling through a snowstorm in the Andes from Argentina, his bus broke down. The passengers spent more than a day stranded in the freezing mountains, before being rescued by Chilean carabneros (military police). He was slightly alarmed when the police started firing their guns. But it was only as a signal. He was relieved that at “this one the guns weren't aimed at me.”

Another incident occurred while traveling from Brazil to Peru. The bus stopped for a short break, but when Bennett returned to the bus, it had left, along with all his belongings. Construction workers, while cursing Peruvian bus drivers, flagged down a truck to give Bennett a ride to the police station in the next town.

In a stereotypical scene, “the guy was sitting there with his feet on the desk in an empty room.” To Bennett's surprise, the police chief called the home of the bus driver, ordering him to return Bennett's gear.

Bennett returned to the U.S. in 1975. Teaching English at Laney College in Oakland for a few years must have seemed a bit dull compared to his previous experiences. In 1978, he moved to Carson City Nevada and, in addition to teaching at Western Nevada Community College, taught at a medium security prison.

“It was pretty eye-opening,” he said. “The guards weren't too excited about letting teachers in.” Bennett had much kinder words for his students there, the prisoners, describing them as respectful and friendly.

Although he was there just to teach, Bennett said he could still feel the effects of what being incarcerated was like. “It definitely weighs on you…It always felt so good when you got out. You could go for a cup of coffee.”

In 1980 Bennett decided to return to California. He received offers from two community colleges, and chose Ohlone. He asked to come as a remedial teacher, teaching disadvantaged students. Bennett said at first the school was skeptical, wondering why someone with his background would want to teach that rather than the more advanced classes. “But I was pretty passionate about it,” he said.

While Bennett's 22 years at Ohlone haven't been as adventurous as his previous positions, he's had his share of accomplishments. He pioneered the Puente Program, an accelerated program for Latino students. He taught freshman English at U.C. Berkeley as a Miles Fellow. And, in 2000, he had a poem published in the California Quarterly.

Next semester, Bennett will be teaching a poetry class here at Ohlone.