9:31 a.m. - 2008-04-04
different
This morning, I got an email from someone whose name is something close to Dr. Savrinity Darmounini. (Name changed slightly to protect the innocent.)
I was annoyed that one of those stupid emails about how this person from another country wants to put a million dollars in my bank account made it into my inbox again. I get about 10 of these in my junk mail a day and about 3 a week in my inbox. I nearly deleted it without a second thought but then I noticed something about summer camp in the subject line. It was actually an email from a local parent who wants to put their kid in our camp. I laughed out loud because I bet this happens to this person all of the time. And then I felt a little sad.
Racism and culturalism and such things are still alive and well. And some really unexpected things perpetuate it. Like those emails. You get an email in all caps from a foreign-sounding name and you sigh with annoyance. And it's actually a real person with a real child who is eagerly anticipating playing on your playground this summer.
In my job, I have the benefit of meeting people from a lot of different backgrounds. We have a lot of black and mixed-race (african american and caucasian) children. We also have a growing number of Chinese immigrants and temporary visitors as well as Spanish speaking families from a number of countries - Mexico, Columbia. We have a couple of kids from India. I have learned so much from their families - little by little as I get to know them as individuals. There are trends and similarities of families from the same culture - the Chinese families are all extremely polite and often express their gratitude for our services, for example. And it is tempting to assign certain traits to certain groups because they are often consistent and true - some things that might be described as good like the Chinese parents being overly respectful and paying their tuition fee early or on time every month, and others not so good like how the only angry phone calls I have gotten have been from single-parent African American women.
The cool part is that as time goes on, even as language barriers persist in come cases, I am getting to see the more distinct personalities in the parents - the children, since I see them every day - they are all unique to me. But the parents, I see sporadically. I have designed certain processes in the programs to create opportunities for me to see these families more often and get to know them. It is a really wonderful experience. I am finally starting to see some personalities emerge. They are becoming comfortable in showing me a little bit of themselves. Their sense of humor and their worries. I had a conversation full of laughter yesterday with a women from a Spanish speaking family. Somehow, with her limited English and my ultra-limited Spanish, we were communicating and she was teasing me incessantly about getting pregnant! It was a riot. I wanted to have her and her husband and their 5 children over for dinner. Impossible, really, because I don't live near them at all and they take public transportation and it's probably not smart to cross my professional boundaries. But I found myself really wanting to know them more and befriend her personally.
I met with one African American woman yesterday who works hard - has had the same job for nearly a decade but does not make much money. She takes care of her son and forgoes public assistance and somehow manages to make it on an amount of money I can't fathom getting by on. She has never complained about our fees. She comes to parent meetings. Her son is smart and well-mannered. She is reserved but friendly. I found myself in awe of her and then realized that although my feelings toward her were positive, it was unfair of me to be surprised by her strength and humility and the absense of a sense of entitlement. It is true that many of the parents I know through my program in circumstances similar to hers do have that sense of entitlement. But it is absolutely unacceptable for me to assign those to her without knowing her. It is exciting to me, to challenge myself on that continually. As much work as I've done with different people, I am still susceptible to subtle, internal racism.
I met with another woman yesterday who had similar circumstances - she was more boisterous and outspoken, but also works hard in a low paying job and is raising a young black male on her own. She is very aware of the education issues at hand and has pulled her son out of the middle school he would have normally attended and gotten him into a magnet school. She values our program highly and told me what she likes about it, specifically. One thing is that she loves the diversity.
I look around at my kids and I hear the "It's a Small World" song in my head.
I had my eyes opened a long time ago - that these types of jobs are not just about saving the world or helping the poor. It's also about what happens to ME in the process. Do I let me heart get hard? Do I learn as I go? Do I give up when it's hard? Do I let my ego get in the way? Do I see the world more and more for what it is? Do I care more or less?
This type of reflection if important for me - I don't have some exciting snappy ending here. Thanks for letting me process my journey and reading along.
