In the book The Color of Water by James McBride, there is a scene where the author is describing how he was questioning his mother about why she didn't look like him, given that he looks black, and she's white. The question occurred when he saw two other black boys with their mothers who were black. The author said that he began wondering why that was, and when he came home from school that day, he asked her why she didn't look like the other boys' mothers. She told him that was because she's not them. He asked her who she was, and she replied saying that she was his mother. Again, he asked why she didn't look like him, but his mother didn't answer his question. She said she did look like him, and that she was his mother, and told him to stop asking questions.
This scene in the book isn't as specific to my life, but I had a similar question like this when I was in preschool. I don't remember this, but as I'm told, my mother said I came home from preschool one day and told her that I was the only kid with brown skin in the entire school. I now know that I was incorrect, being that there were about 400 kids in the preschool through elementary school I went to. Of course there were other children with brown skin in the entire school, but to me, the entire school was the building I was in, which included kindergarten as well. But out of all of the preschoolers and kindergartners, I was correct. I was the only kid with brown skin, which I thought was odd being a three year old, because the kids I knew up until I got there were kids who looked like me. My mother still never answered my question either, but told me that when I was in preschool, Duke School was struggling with diversity, which is why there were no more that 20 kids with brown skin in the entire elementary school. So that day when I went home to tell her about how I looked different from other children, she was obviously disappointed with the lack of diversity at the school. This resulted in her joining the diversity committee at my school, all the way up until I left the school last year (Duke School goes from pre-k to 8th grade). I felt connected to this quote because I can relate to how a kid feels when they realize they look different from other kids. The author did a wonderful job describing his confusing reality as a mixed child living in the 60's, trying to discover what his identity was.
Hi Lauren. It's me. I was with our moms one time and your mom mentioned that story to my mom and I thought that that was really interesting that when you were that young you noticed something like that. I also know that at Duke School being one of 2 asian people in our class I also kind of wondered why there weren't more asian people or people of color really so I really like how you connected that story from the book to when you were a kid. Your ending is really well said and powerful. Do you feel the same way about being at DSA and love being surrounded by so many people? I love it! there are so many different people to meet. Btw you should checkout my post. Bye :)
ReplyDeleteHey girl, it's me Sylvie. I just read Liana's comment and I (if anyone was wondering)was the second Asian in that whole school Liana so thoughtfully pointed out. I never really thought about this as a good or a bad thing or even at all until 7th and 8th grade last year (my last two years in middle school) After my 11 years there I realized I was the only Asian for the first 4 years there until my friend came along. This is a topic I would bring up every day with my parents as well and they would just give me a straight forward response being " Duke School sucks with diversity and that's hopefully what they're going to work towards in the future." There was no sugar coating in they're response because they too knew that it was a flaw in the school. I remember looking at the website and seeing on their homepage advertising to children applying to school it said DIVERSITY in big huge letters and a picture of a small African American child. And I remember laughing my head off at that because 1. That was maybe about the only African American in the whole school hahaha and 2. Honey, what diversity? That's just a plain lie. I couldn't believe it and that's a great contributing factor as to why I was ready to move on to a new school. Now at this school (DSA) there's so much diversity and people of color and all different races and religions and ethnicity that it's such a great change for me especially coming from a school that maybe had about 3 people of color in the whole school. So that's my story thanks for reading my kind of sort of rant ❗️✨
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