Ethnic issues at schools

Here’s a scene from a typical day in my high school classroom:
students from various countries, such as Mexico, Poland, Bangladesh, Yemen, and the Dominican Republic, are talking and laughing as they work together and help each other.
The teacher yells, “Why am I hearing you talking? Shouldn’t you be working?”
“We work and talk at the same time,” we answer.
When the clock marks lunchtime, we rush out of our classroom and head for the cafeteria. But by the time we reach our destina­tion, the kids who mixed happily in the classroom have left that spirit of unity behind.
At most of the tables in the cafeteria, you see faces of the same color. The students enjoy this time with their own folks. The kids say they do this because it’s just more comfortable. So whoever arrives in the cafeteria first gets her food and spots some seats, then saves a place for others of her same race or ethnic group.
After lunch, they leave together and spend the rest of the period in the hallways, or outside if it’s not cold. A group of Polish kids settles on the floor near the main office, chatting and gossiping. Sometimes other Polish kids play checkers or dice nearby.
Some of the Dominicans sit in the hallway a few feet from
the Polish kids. Most of the time they talk loudly and sing in
Spanish or dance. A little further along, some kids from Ecuador or
Peru hang out. The Bengalis gather in one classroom, listening to
Bengali music. The Haitian girls—the group I am part of—hang out next to our counselor’s office, while the Haitian boys assemble on the stairs.

The students are allowed to roam around freely like this because my school is very small and generally there’s harmony. People may have their personal disagreements, but groups rarely fight. That doesn’t mean that everybody’s friends, though—they aren’t.
Of course, some teens do befriend people from different races. One Polish girl often hangs with a Filipina girl, and there are two black guys, one from France, the other from Africa, who are friends with a kid from Mexico.

I am also someone who doesn’t stick only to her own race— although this wasn’t always the case. When I first arrived here I had never spent any time with white people.
I lived in Haiti until I was 14. When I saw white people in Haiti, I hated them because I knew that whites had enslaved and mis­treated blacks. I didn’t know any whites who considered blacks their equals.

Also, some Haitians said, “Oh, the whites are so smart!” when­ever they saw great things like computers or cars, as if no black person could invent things, and I hated that.

When I moved to the United States, I began to experience being around people of other races. I sat in a classroom and saw all dif­ferent kinds of people. I wanted to talk to them—except the whites. My friends were Chinese, Honduran, and Haitian.
But when I saw the white kids, I said to myself, “I am not going to talk to these people.” I assumed they were saying the same thing because I’m black. But gradually my attitude changed.
The white kids at school treated me nicely, and I saw that many blacks were doing great at my school. It seemed like in the United States, whether you were black or white, you could do great things. In class I learned that we all had things in common and I began to feel comfortable. My friends and I often discussed racism. We thought that teenagers should mix. Our culture and skin color differed, but we ignored our differences in the classroom and got along very well.

So it surprised me that when I returned to school last fall, I stopped mingling with other races and stayed with two Haitian girls. It didn’t happen that way because I was being a racist, or at least I didn’t think so.

It was because my Honduran friend, Daysa, was not yet back from vacation, and most of my old Chinese friends were in other classes. So every day during lunch, I started sitting with the Haitian girls.
After Daysa came back, I still spent most of my time with the Haitians. Daysa spoke with her friends in Spanish and I spoke Haitian Creole with my friends. I didn’t see any problem with this until one day I got to the lunchroom before my two Haitian friends.
A friend of mine from the Dominican Republic asked me to sit with her, so I did. When my Haitian friends came, they looked at me strangely, but I didn’t react and just said, “Hi.”
Then I ate my lunch and talked to the Dominican girl.
Later, when my Haitian friends were leaving, they passed and said, “Oh, yeah, Cassandra, you’re buy ing the Spanish face.” (“Buying someone’s face” is a Haitian expression. It means that you ignore your own race and stay with another one because you think that the other race is superior, even if that race is disrespectful to you.)

I laughed and said, “What do you mean I’m buying the Spanish face? Sitting with someone Spanish has nothing to do with that.” Later I talked with one of my friends and told her that what they said wasn’t fair and didn’t make me happy.
“Okay, girl,” she said, and that was it. We were again at peace.
I didn’t take these things too seriously. They sounded more like jokes to me. But soon I realized they were not jokes. Later in the year, I became friends with a Russian girl named Natasha. We were in the same group in class and she was very nice to me. We always talked to each other in class and she often called me on the telephone, but we never sat together at lunch.
One day my Haitian friends were sitting at our table while I was
still standing in line. After I got my meal I saw Natasha and she called to me.

“Come sit with me!” “Oh . . . I’m sorry. I have to sit with
the Haitians or else they will say that I’m buying your face. You know...”

“What?” Natasha said, confused. I explained the expression and she said, “Okay, I’ll see you later.”
I left her by herself and went to my other friends. Because I didn’t want my Haitian friends to tease me, I stopped hanging out with people of other races.
Sometimes in the morning I still walked around with one of the Chinese guys who had been my friend since ninth grade. My friends from Haiti never said anything about that, but another Haitian girl told me, “Cassandra, you love the Chinese too much. You’re buying their faces.”
I laughed and told her she was wrong. Still, I kept my friend­ship with kids from other races inside the classroom, because I hated what my Haitian friends said whenever I hung out with them at lunch.

The Haitian students mean a lot to me and I always try to get along with them because they’re my people. I never told them how much I was bothered by what they said. Then I started to write this story, and I began to think about how we were all acting.
I realized I had become a different person by not mixing with other students when I wanted to. And when I realized that, I decided to change back to who I really am.
Now, in the cafeteria, I sit with Natasha, my Russian friend, along with my Honduran friend, Daysa.
I had stopped mixing with other kids because I was scared of what my friends would think and say. It’s good to stay with “your people” sometimes. But, at the same time, if you only stay with your people, you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities to make new friends and have new experiences.
We need to break down the walls of language, culture, and skin color if we want racism to stop. We share many common things, but the only way we can find out what they are is if we mix.