200% Guilty by Default

I always consider myself lucky with the opportunity to have studied abroad at a very young age.

Texas. A place where I would proudly call my second home as I spent some of my best life there. But still. Texas. Even before I left at 2016 it was still quite a racist place.

It is the reason why I so hardly try to push out of stereotypes yet find myself stereotyping or putting other people into stereotypes.

As an unathletic Asian girl, I spent countless recesses friendless, and alone, trying to fit in yet evading the crowd. I was afraid to sing because of my accent that someone would stop me because “I was singing Chinese in America.” Nor could I find anyone to complain against unfair treatment or my mistakes.

I hated mistreatments. Especially when I was blamed despite innocent. Especially.

But what did I have as a foreign, eight-year-old to prove my innocence for?

In second grade, I just moved into the US. It was a primary school in a relatively poor area. There are great people here – one of my best friends there, Irina, still keep in touch with me after all these years – but I cannot say so much about the others.

We had exchange classes where we go to other homerooms for some lessons in the second semester, and although I could understand most of the communication without a translator, I still heavily stammered in my speech. What could I do? My mother tongue still stammered in my mouth at that age. I was really excited for this one teacher. I’ll call her Ms. M. She was really pretty, slightly strict, and smiled often to students. The only scary thing about her was that she sent students out into the hallway, and those students coincidentally happen all to be that one Asian kid in her class. But what could go wrong with that?

So I came to her class. Groups gathered around large pieces of paper that we were supposed to create posters on and those Crayola markers that has a set of colors. I liked green and blue. We all did. I saw that my classmates, including Irina, before we were allowed to, secretly grab the markers. I did not like that. I grabbed Irina’s green marker and told her to put it back. It was not fair that she got to choose before us. And partially I wanted the green marker near me so I could easily grab it when we were told to.

Okay I admit I was not perfect. But I was only eight.

I remember it was only a sight tug. And Irina won. At that moment, Ms. M called me. I did not remember what she told me but I knew what she accused me of I was innocent of. I loved her. I was desperate to prove myself innocent from guilt, yet with the language barrier and my panic, all that could come out of me was a stammering “but, but, but…” She would not listen. It was as if I was guilty by default. Everything I did was only my escape from crime. She did not know my name, only that I was a sneaky little Asian that went everything to get out of the way.

I was told to leave the classroom, to stay in the hallway where other people could see. Shameful, it told me. I pressed my urges to cry and ran out. The 18 pairs of eyes seemed to burn right through me. I sat outside for seemingly an endless time. What she blamed me of, I remember others were doing it too. Why was I the only one outside? I was called to return at almost the end of class. I remember Irina handed me the green marker. I love her, but it didn’t really matter anymore.

After this, I did not know what she said to other people, but all my favorite teachers, including my homeroom teacher, ignored me for a week. Teachers were a big fundament support because, as I believed, they could stand from a distant point of view and understand me. It was different from classmates that I could not befriend with from cultural and language barriers. I was devastated. I questioned if I actually did something that horrible but could not find an answer.

It was not until my homeroom teacher, along with Ms. M, came to find me, did I find a clue of what might have happened.

“She forgave you,” my homeroom teacher smiled.

She forgave me. She forgave me. Did she even remember my name? Or was that the way she learned names?

It was her wasn’t it.

I was told to hug her. To embrace her forgiveness. To embrace my sins. What else could I do? Under such a power imbalance and a desperate desire to fit in, the only thing I could do was to give in.

So I hugged. All I felt was disgust in her embrace. I felt her cold smile rise in while I was in her arms. It made me want to throw up.

What a hypocrite.

Things returned normal after the hug. All but me.

I did not like the idea that I was told my voice didn’t matter at such a young age, but luckily I only stayed in this school for one year. Later I moved to another school, where although there was racism, there was also basic respect. And when I moved back to where I live now, I was almost a privileged child. People liked me. Teachers liked me, almost giving me an advantage. I felt like it was from those experiences that I had learned to be someone to be liked in order to survive. I’m grateful, but I felt despite my constant detachment from that past self, it never left me. Insecurities. That was my past name.

-       by: sel.

The past I am learning to embrace.