“You act so white, Gabby,” Reyna says, accusingly.
“What did I do now?” I ask with a sigh, tired of hearing the same old crap from her.
“Girl, look at you,” she snickers, looking down at my shoes, “You got Converse on. When was the last time you saw a Latina wearing Converse, and high tops? Ay ay ay!” She shakes her head with disgust. Her posse giggles, in agreement.
I sneak a peek at my black high-tops. What? They’re cute, not to mention comfortable. They look good with my outfit. Who gives a crap what she thinks. She’d probably think differently if she’d seen them with the ensemble I picked out this morning. But they don’t look bad with my PE clothes either. That should count for something, because gym clothes always look a little nasty.
“Whatever Reyna…because your Vans are really screaming viva la raza!” I say, raising my fist. She laughs again, presumably at my poor excuse of an accent. She’s so annoying. She sounds like a damn hyena. I hear her mocking me to the other girls repeating my words, but without her usual authentic pronunciation of the phrase.
Why do we have to have the same last name? If we didn’t, we wouldn’t have to stand next to each other every day so Coach Stevens can take attendance, or during stretch time at the beginning of the period.
And I sure as hell wouldn’t see her in the rest of my classes. I doubt Reyna can even add, much less work integrals in Calculus.
Thankfully, we aren’t allowed to talk while we stretch, so Reyna finally shuts her big trap. I’ve had to put up with her daily taunting since the beginning of the year. After Thanksgiving break, I thought after a week off, she’d come back and be over herself, and leave me alone. No such luck. Now we’re back from Christmas break, and she still hasn’t let up. It’s like she’s made it her own personal goal to humiliate, or shame, me into becoming a better Mexican.
Why do I need to be a better Mexican, or more Mexican anyway? What does that even mean? I am who I am. It’s enough for me. It’s enough for my parents. It’s enough for my grandma, who shed blood, sweat, and tears to make it to the United States when she left Mexico. So damn it, if I’m Mexican enough for Grandma Martina, I’ve got to be for dumb ass Reyna.
Maybe, I should tell her this. She’d probably crack her neck and laugh in my face again. She says it doesn’t count that my grandma was born in Mexico, because you’d never know it by looking at me or talking to me.
She might consider me a true Latina if I let her have a piece of my mind. Most of my Spanish sucks in the worst way, but I have no problems communicating the bad words.
“You now have twenty minutes to complete this poetry assignment. Don’t forget, it’s not all about the artwork, you must have annotations in order to get full credit.” Mrs. Ruiz walks around the classroom, shouting reminders about the task we’re to complete.
Advance Placement Literature is not an easy task, especially when it comes to poetry. I’m so not the “the wilted rose is a symbol of love taking its last breath” kind of student. To me, a wilted rose means that someone forgot to water the dang thing and it’s about to die.
Why don’t people just say what they mean? Speaking in metaphors is so not my thing. And who’s to say that one person’s interpretation of a poem is more right than someone else’s. Unless we’re about to dig up some of these dead poets to see who’s right, I think we should all get A’s.
“I’ll start with some of the vocab. Gabby, why don’t you start sketching the main events. Marcus, start putting the lines in…you know, the ones that are supposed to tell us when a sentence is finished.” Like always, leave it to Ally to have a plan of attack as soon as the teacher says ‘go’. She’s the best person to have in a group.
Thankfully, Mrs. Ruiz lets us select our own groups. It’s always Ally, Marcus, and me. We have this class down to a science. Ally dishes orders, we follow. I usually do the artwork, only because I can draw just a bit better than stick figures. And I mean, just a bit. I’m no Picasso. Marcus is really into poetry, so annotating this junk comes easy to him. If this was physics, I’d be the one working on the hard stuff, not him. And Ally would make sure to check all my answers, even though she knows they will always be right.
“Ready, break!” I shout, pretending we’re in a football huddle. Marcus smiles, and Ally rolls her eyes. At lunch, she would’ve thought it was funny. But in class, she’s all business. She pulls a hair tie off her wrist, and smoothes her silky blonde hair into a pony. She then whips out her brown thick-rimmed reading glasses and fits them on her face. Now, she’s ready.
She’s funny to watch when she’s in a zone. Academically, she’s a nut. She’ll probably be uptight until we get our college letters in March. We still have a month to go, but she’s already started checking her mailbox like a mad woman.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m anxious. But my parents aren’t going to have to put me on a suicide watch if I don’t get accepted to USC. Ally’s, on the other hand, might just have to fill a prescription of anti-depressants if she gets the skinny envelop from Georgetown.
I still don’t get why she wants to go all the way over there. It’s not like she has family on the east coast. I know she’s a history buff, but we have museums here. Does she really think that if she goes to Georgetown, her classes are going to be taught at the Smithsonian, or something?
I start my job with a rough sketch of a small church. I have the urge to grab a red colored pencil to shade in the steps leading up to the front door. Maybe I’m not so scientific after all. To me, red means blood. And blood means death. Coloring the steps red will represent how some walked these steps to their deaths
I scratch my head, thinking about the image before me. This has to be the saddest poem I’ve ever read. I’m not really a church go-er. Since sophomore year, when I took biology, I just knew the idea of Adam and Eve was no longer going to fly with me.
But church…church is supposed to be a safe haven, like school or home. For those little girls, it wasn’t safe at all. I don’t understand how people can be so full of hate?
I rub my eyes.
At least, that stuff is history. All that racial stuff, it’s behind us now. I’m thankful I didn’t have to grow up in that era. What would I have done? Would I have protested alongside MLK, or would I have just sat back and done nothing? It was one or the other. There wasn’t any in between. So many innocent people died, when they didn’t have to. Sooooo depressing.
I toss the red color back in my pencil bag.
“Ay ay ay,” I gasp, looking at the incomplete work. This drawing is sucking the life out of me and I’m nowhere near being done.
“Dude, did you just say ‘ay ay’ something?” Ally asks.
“This poem breaks my heart to read it,” I cry, “and it’s even worse to try and draw it.” I rub my eyes again, and then stretch back in my seat, pushing away from my harsh portrayal of this emotional poem.
“I told you it wasn’t a good idea to put off PE ’til senior year,” she scolds, “You’ve been hanging out with those homie chicks in there and now you’re starting to sound all wetback.”
“You didn’t just seriously call me a wetback right now, did you?” It wouldn’t have been the first time, so why was I surprised.
“No Gabriela,” she says, emphasizing the roll of the r in my name. “I didn’t call you a wetback. But if you start painting on your eyebrows with a Sharpie…I’m so not going to be your friend anymore. I’m just saying.” She pushes her glasses up on her narrow nose, and starts writing again.
I have the itch to go all homegirl on her ass, but instead I take a deep breath and exhale slowly to calm myself. One of these days, she’s not going to be so lucky.
This really sucks! If I’m not a white girl in PE, then I’m a wetback in AP Lit. Really…there is no winning for me this year. Maybe the days of racial crap aren’t history after all. Forget these people, I’m moving to the Antarctic. Maybe I can fit in with the penguins.
