by Ava Kingston

Created on: June 06, 2008

I was robbed.
Before I even entered Elementary.
I was robbed
In the nursery.

I was robbed. My mother would drop me off in the nursery. I would learn English for eight hours. We read books, watched Sesame Street and Barney. There was no Dora the Explorer. The closest were Rosita and Maria Figueroa on Sesame Street, and their Hispanic roots were barely, if at all, emphasized. My race was of no importance. My skin color made no difference. I spoke with no accent of any kind. I was American. All I knew was the 10-block span of my neighborhood, from the park on 173rd to my aunt's house on 165th. There was no distinguishing black from white, white from Hispanic, Hispanic from Asian, Asian from Jewish there was nothing but people people working, living, breathing in the 10-block span of my neighborhood. When my family spoke Spanish, my response was in English. After living in the city for close to 20 years they had begun to pick up the language. I had also begun to pick up the language. Not the language of my country, but the language of their country. If Grandma spoke to me, I knew enough Spanish to respond.

But that was the language I learned when I was home, after I had spent eight hours speaking the language of my country which I continued to use at home with my parents and my brother. I learned enough English that when the Elementary schools didn't want to accept me because of my age, I could pass any test they threw my way. And Elementary school was just a small dot in my hand. I could read far beyond my level and when Scholastic Books came around I would tug on my mother's shirt pointing out the new Wishbone I just had to have.

I wasn't Hispanic. And I wasn't black. Race wasn't a concern, because all my girlfriends were just like me. They had dark hair and dark eyes with light tan complexions. The darkest person I knew was my father who was just a light caramel. And one of my friends in second grade was near my dad's complexion, and that was as far as the color spectrum went for me. I never even realized the impact when I became friends with the new girl in fourth grade. She spoke like me; liked dolls like me and was silly, just like me. While the other girls were running around chasing fifth grade boys we were sitting in a corner of the playground listening to our CD players. When I brought her home, I barely thought about what made me different to her. We were no different in my book. We were two little American girls, playing with light-skinned dolls.

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