I sat alone at a table reading an entertaining book about a little girl named Nancy. She was ver beautiful and spent a lot of her time in the forest picking flowers and playing with the animals. She would have the most interesting conversations with them! I wondered why the birds never spoke to me. This thought was interrupted by a loud voice over my shoulder, "I have noticed that you are looking at the book with the pretty pictures. Don't you just love those colors?" asked my first grade teacher in abnormally slow and over-enunciated English.

Mrs. Rich was wearing that bright yellow shirt with the flowered skirt that I so despised. She always tried to be so cheery and helpful, but it was obvious to us all that she had very little patience for ignorance.at least what she considered ignorance anyway. I looked at her feeling a bit confused. Why was she assuming that I had chosen the book for its pictures?I thought about how to respond to her in order no make sure she understood my point all the while trying to not make her angry. She had a very short temper and was especially quick to anger when you questioned her logic."I don't like the pictures as much as the story. They aren't even that good."

Mrs. Rich gave me a puzzled look while she rearranged her glasses and decided that I had been making up a story as I looked at the pictures rather than actually reading the printed words. In her mind, there was no way that a five-year-old child still in the English learning process, could appreciate a book written in English for its literary qualities as opposed to the pleasantness of its illustrations. I could see the frustration building on her face; it was reflected in her eyes--even behind those big eyeglasses. It was the same look she usually got when she tried to explain simple arithmetic problems to students whom did not understand; she would press her lips together, narrow her eyes and take deep breaths. "Aren't the colors just so bright and lively though?" she persisted. At this point, it sounded almost as though she were speaking through her teeth. Instinctively I responded to what I considered was a ridiculous question."The way Nancy is in the pictures isn't the way she is supposed to look like." While Mrs. Rich kept looking at me with a mixture of contempt and awe, I continued. "Since the girl Nancy is supposed to be so pretty, they should've drawn her that way. She looks ugly in the pictures. She has tiny eyes and her face is long and pale. I think she should have bigger eyes and at least pink cheeks or something." This all seemed like a fairly simple concept to me and I couldn't understand why my teacher of all people was not understanding. Now I realize that it wasn't that she did not understand my point, but that she refused to believe that I could actually read the book well enough to comment on the illustrations that accompanied it.

Mrs. Rich then proceeded to have me read a passage from the book. I believed her to be at the point where deep down she thought that I might be able to read it, but needed to have concrete proof before she could allow herself to believe it. When I finished the passage, she decided instead that someone must have read it to me so many times that I had memorized it; she took down a book from her shelf for me to read. Of course, while she was taking down her book, I thought that maybe she was going to show me a book where the pictures were actually the same way that the characters were described. She told me to read it. I was disappointed to find out that this book of hers didn't have any pictures at all and the letters were quite small too. I didn't doubt my reading abilities but I wondered why she wanted me to read something else if it weren't to show me that some books' illustrations do match the descriptions. It never occurred to me that Mrs. Rich wanted me to fail. She could not comprehend a little Mexican girl being able to read a book in English, and she therefore had to keep challenging me until she could prove to herself that that I could not read the language. ESL students simply did not read English in the first grade according to her. I read a few paragraphs out of her book but stumbled on some of the words. Looking back now, I can almost picture the sneaky little smile that she got whenever I did not pronounce the words correctly. I did not understand most of what I read purely because of the vocabulary involved, but that did not stop me from trying to read it. I thought that reading from her book would have been enough to satisfy her curiosity as to how fluent I was. Because, after I finished reading what she had told me to, she instructed me to go to the circle and announced to everyone else that free time was over. It was math time now and we needed to break into our math groups. Surprisingly enough however, the next day I was called into the library to take an English proficiency exam. The exam consisted of me telling the proctor what the names of the things in some pictures were (in English), translating words from Spanish to English and vice versa, and reading a few passages out loud in English after which I was supposed to answer a few simple questions about each one.

I passed this proficiency exam, and I owe Mrs. Rich credit for having sent me to be examined. I still don't know if she did it trying to prove to herself that I didn't have a handle on the language, or because I had proven to her that I did, and she wanted me to get recognized for it. Either way, I am glad that she had me take it and even more that I passed it, although I was not placed in English-only classes until the third grade. Had I not passed this test, she would have never taken me seriously as a student, I would have allowed her to keep thinking children like me could not excel in a language foreign to them.

It was a huge stepping stone aiding me in crossing a river that at the young and naïve age of five, I did not even realize existed. Now this "river" that I find myself still in is a constant reminder of my differences from other people. While I must learn to cross it, sometimes stumbling and falling on my way, others are allowed to start already on the other side never acknowledging the existence of it. Others are also allowed the luxury of not ever having to look back at the rest of the drowning people; they just keep looking ahead, "towards the future" they say. However, I have always believed that you cannot be successful without having the ability to look back and not only see where you came from, but also understand your past and judge how far you have come as well as how much further you need to go. If I had to cross that river, I gain nothing by showering and changing my clothes as soon as I step foot out of the dismal waters of racism and discrimination-that would be to not give myself credit for my accomplishments. When does one see basketball stars run to change out of the uniform they were wearing the night their team won the championship game? Usually, they will sleep in it and they have even been known to wear the same underwear from that night on upcoming nights of important games. If I need to stand amongst the clean and dry while my back may be dirty and wet then that is my obligation. If people cannot see past my differences, be them based on appearance or not, then their ignorance is what keeps me oppressed and in that river-not mine.

By: M. Lucía de la Torre