Silvera was then hired as the first guest director at Fresno State College (FSC), with plans to stage a production of "The Tea Concession" by Henry J. Kemp-Blair, which reversed the racial positions of black and white in a drama about South Africa. However, he was forced to resign less than two weeks later, caught in the middle of administrative shakeups and the aborted hiring of Marvin X by the Black Studies department. "With this upheaval it seemed to blacks and browns that Silvera was part of the package, part of the hardline takeover (at FSC). There was such a sense of despair and betrayal...they took it out on me," Silvera said to David Hale, theater writer for The Fresno Bee. "It seemed to me they thought I was the agent to smooth things over while the establishment hatched up something else dirty."