The art of losing isn’t hard to master....

- “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop

The Art of Keeping

For first-generation Americans, there is the family you have that you don’t really have. My mom married my father and fled her country when she was seventeen. She had me here, in the United States, at eighteen. Here, my young mom and I grew up together with hardly any family nearby. But back in Nicaragua, there was a whole different world I would grow up hearing stories about, with people who were there and not there my whole life. I had two aunts and three uncles, all younger than my mom. According to the stories, two of them were amazing dancers, one was a veteran of the civil war, the aunt closest to my mom in age was an artist, and the youngest one was “about my age” (he was almost ten years older, but perpetually a baby to my mom). My mom’s father was diplomat and scholar. But the main character, the heroine and ingenue, the bit of a prankster with the childlike, knowing smile, the matriarch and damsel-in-distress was my mom’s mom. Most of the stories I heard revolved around her: how smart she was, how caring she was, how beautiful she was, how beloved she was. And so that’s who she became to me. She and all these characters knew me and loved me and had heard all about me and what I was up to here in the States. And I knew them and loved them and heard about their lives like they were something out of a storybook.

Since my mom was unable to go back to her home as she worked on her American citizenship, I didn’t get many opportunities to go back to the place I was from but wasn’t from. It wasn’t until I was eleven that I got to go to Nicaragua on a trip with my paternal uncle. I stayed with my mom’s mom for a week. Through all the culture shock and fear I had of being without my mom in a country I had learned to love and fear, the first thing I remember about being in my mom’s mom’s house was that she had one of my school pictures up on the mantle with all the other family photos. I remember thinking how out of place I looked up there with straightened hair and bangs, dressed in clothes we would eventually send down here for people in need, surrounded by photos of the family I was actually meeting in real life. It was surreal.

After that photo, my second memory was actually hugging my mom’s mom. She was small, but she was beaming with love enough to make her feel like a giant. For the first days there, she didn’t let go of me, always putting a hand on my cheek or patting my hand or otherwise being so close to me I could always feel her nearby. Because I was twelve, I struggled with the smothering. But now I think my mom’s mom understood more about how important those moments would be for me later on. After that, my mom’s mom became real to me, not just a voice on the phone but someone visceral and tangible and somehow more there. She became my grandmother.

When my mom got remarried a few years later, my grandmother came to visit us for the wedding. I don’t remember any of this. The only reason I know it happened is because I have a picture of us all together on that day.

It would be another two years before I would see my grandmother again. This time, she came to the US after my brother was born and stayed for several months. But because I was a teenager and fully absorbed in my own life, I don’t remember much about the time she spent with us. I know she walked to the Spanish-speaking church down the street from us pretty regularly. I know that no matter how early I woke up for school, I’d always find her in our one bathroom before me, brushing her teeth and getting ready. I know she sewed a pair of bell bottom pants for me to wear in my school show. I know she cooked a lot, didn’t leave the house a lot, and didn’t like escalators. I know she had to be coaxed out of the car to touch some snow on our trip to Northern California.

I don’t remember if we shared a room. I don’t remember a single conversation. I don't remember her talking to my mom. I’m sure all those things happened, but they are lost to me now. If I had known then that these fleeting moments would be the memories I’d have to rely on when asked about her, maybe I would have made more effort to make them stick. But like I said, I was too wrapped up in my teenage drama to make notes.

The last time I saw my grandmother was twenty years later. I was grown, married with three kids. She had suffered a debilitating stroke. She was nonverbal and had difficulty getting around. We all knew time was running out. For this trip, my grandmother got to spend time with my parents, my brother, my husband, and my kids - my grandmother's three great-grandkids. While we were there, it occurred to me that this would be the only time my kids would get to see her. But by then, that great light in her was gone and I knew my kids would never fully know it.

The hardest part of my grandmother’s decline was seeing my own mother watch it at a distance. She loved her mother deeply, wrote to her constantly, sent her whatever she could, and visited as often as possible. But I know those years apart had to have taken a toll on her. As a child, I remember short, frantic long distance phone calls from my family with everyone trying to squeeze in everything that had happened over the last few weeks in just fifteen minutes. I remember seeing my mom smiling but with tears in her eyes after time was up. I knew she could have talked for hours about the good things and was holding back from talking about the bad things. I knew that she didn’t have the opportunity to ask the many questions daughters ask of their mothers when they’re growing up and raising their kids. It had to have been hard to need a mother and have a mother but to have the distance be so great.

My mom was able to make it back to Nicaragua to be there when her mother passed, just barely making it from the airport to the hospital in time to hold her hand into heaven. I’m thankful for that. But even so, I know my mom has never been the same after that last trip home. It wasn’t just the loss of her mother, but the weight of the distance fully and finally coming down on her. I didn’t know how much of a burden it was for my beloved mom to be away from her own beloved mother until it wasn’t a burden anymore.

As a society, we all learned how hard it was to feel connection, trust, and warmth from a distance during that long year in the heart of the pandemic. But in our house and in the houses of many first-generation children around the world, distance loving never ends. You love people through a screen that you see but can’t touch. You work to keep a connection from afar. You replace the warmth of a family gathering with the glow of the screen. And yet even through distance loving, you are a part of a greater family and so, you’re thankful. For the children of immigrants, the art of losing isn’t hard to master, but it’s the art of keeping that we become masters of.

This piece is part of the #31DaysIBPOC Blog Series, a month-long movement to feature the voices of indigenous and teachers of color as writers and scholars. Please CLICK HERE to read yesterday’s blog post by Lyschel Shipp (and be sure to check out the link at the end of each post to catch up on the rest of the blog series).

A WALK IN THE RAIN

By Lucia Bowers

I once read somewhere that most American adults live within 18 miles from their mothers. And although I have no clear idea of where I read that tidbit, I do know roughly when I read it: sometime 2015, when I was in my 10th year of teaching in my hometown, about five blocks away from my parents and my family home.

In fact, I’ve lived in the same city for most of my life. My parents still live in my childhood home. I met my husband in one of the ninth grade classrooms my older children pass on the way to their classes. I teach alongside my teachers. I’ve taught the children of my childhood classmates, their little smooth faces more closely resembling the memory of their parents than the 40-year-old faces that I see during school events. It’s familiar.

When I tell people this, they don’t think it’s too strange until they discover that my hometown isn’t exactly a small town. It isn’t Mayberry, even though for a long time, it had that reputation. Instead, it’s just a few miles away from Downtown Los Angeles, is the Media Capital of the World, and is the set of major motion pictures, not just my childhood videos.

It also was a sundown town.

Of course, I didn’t know what that meant as a child. Or as a teenager. Or even as a young adult. 2020, my 40th year on this planet and my 35th year in this city, is when I started really understanding some of the history of this city I’ve always known but haven’t. And in the last few years, I feel like I’ve lived here my whole life and I haven’t seen it. I was made aware of some of the hard history and suddenly, it’s everywhere, even sprinkled in my memories.

How does a person of color live in a sundown town for so long and not know it? The best way I can describe it is this: it’s like walking in the rain. In sunny Southern California, rain is rare and fleeting and maybe even unfamiliar. There is a moment before a downpour where you can’t tell if it’s raining. But you feel it in the air. You can feel the moisture all around you. You get that chill down your spine. And yet, you wonder if this is it, if it really is raining. Even when a drop falls on your face, you look up in disbelief, stick out your hand to try to catch something, check the ground for evidence.

“Is it raining?” you ask the person next to you. You don’t want to look silly, so you ask before you put up your umbrella, looking for reassurance. It doesn’t take much from them to convince you that you’re imagining it. “I didn’t feel anything,” they shrug and you shrug too, and you keep on walking, ignoring what you felt, ignoring what you continue to feel, because no one else seems to notice it all.

That is what being surrounded by microaggressions feels like. Throughout my life here, I’ve lived in a privileged space, even as a minority, first generation American. I am sure now that there were people out in my hometown who undoubtedly felt the torrents of racism. I count myself as lucky to have only felt some drops. But still, those drops have stuck with me.

The lovely principal who never pronounced my name correctly and embarrassed me in front of all my peers every year, even on my promotion from elementary school.

The times other students touched my hair and they didn’t stop when I asked and the teacher didn’t stop them.

The teacher who always asked “comprende?” in a condescending tone after an instruction and consistently called me by another classmate’s name.

The times a classmate called me the n-word, “beaner,” or “wetback.”

The times in school when strangers asked me where I was from. But where was I really from? Like, where was I originally from? Where was my family from? Like, where was my background from? The answer “here” was never enough.

All those little signs of the rain. But when I asked anyone if they noticed, they shrugged it off. I was being too sensitive. I misunderstood. We’re colorblind here. They didn’t mean it that way.

My principal truly was a kind woman and my name was hard to pronounce. It wasn’t her fault that she couldn’t say it after five years.

And touching my hair? I mean, we had just read a Ramona book where she does the same thing to the girl with the curly hair, so they were just copying that. They were just being curious.

As for the comprende. I mean, Spanish was my first language in kindergarten and even though I was now in middle school with an A+ in her class, the teacher was just making sure I understood. And she made an honest mistake by calling me Joanna the whole year because we look exactly alike! Joanna, who was about a foot shorter with straight hair was indistinguishable from me with my head full of long curls.

Oh, and the name calling wasn’t name calling. I mean, they weren’t calling me that, they were asking me if I was one. Again, they were just curious.

When they asked me where I was from, it was nothing personal. I don’t look like most of the people here. I am a first-generation American, so maybe I really am not from here in the same way. They can tell I didn’t grow up here is all. Even though I did, I didn’t grow up here the same way they grew up here.

Even though I felt racism and microaggressions growing up here and I knew I felt it, I also didn’t know if it was real. I had read about the terrors of racism and what I experienced wasn’t anything like that. And I was constantly told that no one was racist here, that the sundown town thing wasn’t racism but was just something they did to keep the city safe and property value up. I learned that none of these things that were racism were racism at all. They were me, constantly misunderstanding things and being too sensitive. I was the weirdo sticking up my umbrella on a perfectly sunny day.

It wasn’t until embarrassingly recently that I’ve started to understand, acknowledge, and assert that what I felt growing up was in fact me walking in the rain.

The events of the last two years have been like shaking the clouds themselves and letting it all fall out for all to see. And now, I can’t put it out of my thoughts again, can’t pretend I don’t see it. It’s time to take out the umbrellas to protect ourselves and our students from the downpour. Time to put on some boots so we can march forward through it. Better yet, time to be the bright, loud sun that drives the rain away. Time to talk about it, time to acknowledge it, time to do something about it. But even with the huge downpour, I still hear the voices saying that this rain is not rain, racism is not racism, injustice is not injustice. And in some ways, those voices are even more hurtful than the voices who say rain is natural, racism is good, and injustice is in fact justice.

The difference between me as a child and me as an adult is that as an adult, I don’t listen to other voices to validate my own experiences anymore. As a child, I needed that support. Listening, acknowledging, and acting is the very least educators could be doing to help our students of color thrive in our classrooms. So many times, students have shared how dismissive teachers are of their experiences. It takes me right back to my own childhood being told that what I know I experienced was an overreaction, a misunderstanding, or oversensitivity. There are things each of us can do to help our students of color thrive, but it all starts with listening, acknowledging, and acting.

My city has started doing that. We have made some strides forward in the last few years. Our school, which was previously named after a eugenists, was recently renamed, becoming the first school in our city to be named after a female or person of color. My alma mater recently changed its mascot from the Indian to the Bears. Our district created an anti-racism statement and is reevaluating the way it chooses it’s curriculum to ensure it is both reflective of the IBPOC experience while also not traumatizing its IBPOC students with only slavery, abuse, and explotation narratives. There’s talk of looking into hiring practices to bring more IBPOC educators and staff into our school system. So in a lot of ways, we’re moving forward.

However, it’s still raining out there. Has been for a while and probably will be for a while. Even though there are still so many people in our city who loudly deny it, at least now I have the ability to see through that and see the rain for what it is. In my hometown, where I am still just a few miles away from my childhood home and where I bump into someone I know almost everywhere I go, I can see that I’m not the only person here who feels this. There are many others that are here walking through the rain with me. Some are in a downpour. Some are in a drizzle. But no matter the struggle, we are stronger together. We can make sure we have an umbrella if we need it. We can help each other put on our boots to march forward. Most of all, we can help each other to be the sunshine – the loud, passionate, unrelenting sunshine – so we can make brighter skies in this city together.

This blog post is part of the #31DaysIBPOC Blog Series, a month-long movement to feature the voices of indigenous and teachers of color as writers and scholars. Please CLICK HERE to read the previous blog post by Nawal Q Casiano (and be sure to check out the link at the end of each post to catch up on the rest of the blog series).