Negro vs. Negro

I picked up a private class the other day and my first time meeting the students was.....interesting....and most definitely awkward. The director of the academy, who also happens to be from Canada, decided he wanted to join me for that first meeting. When I found that out, I figured I needed to mentally prepare myself, because that man? Strange doesn't even begin to describe. And sure enough, that mental preparation came in handy.

Everything was going as well as it could be when you have a class of 50 year old women who don't know English, although they've been in the class since October but are too impatient and lazy to actually study and do homework and so they learn nothing. Then, the class took a sharp left and we fell off a cliff. One of the women tried to make a vulgar joke and followed the fail of a joke with "Don't turn green from embarrassment! I know you can't turn red, because you're Black." My head most definitely tilted to the side on some "Bitch, what?!" I may even have a visual.....

There we go!

Then she stopped and solemnly said, "In the States you can't call a person negro, because they get very upset."

Dum, dum, duuum.

The director used that as his cue to explain the difference between negro in English and negro in Spanish. (Juuust in case you had any doubts, he did a horrible job and refused to let me jump in and save him.) He then proceeded to say that only other Black people can call each other 'negro' with their friends. And I quote from his most wonderful speech: "Like Juliet here, when she speaks with her friends, she uses this word, right?"

I'm sitting there, blank face on and all I can think is "Is this man talking about the word 'nigga' or 'negro'?" And if you need the visual for my most perfect blank face, direct your attention below.

After taking that moment to think it out, I politely turned to him and said, "I don't use the word." He was shocked and appalled.

If he had a string of pearls around his neck, I'm sure he woulda clutched them. If he could do such a thing, he woulda taken my "Black card" without a second thought. That's how appalled he was.

Somehow I navigated the class away from the subject and back to what we came there to do, which was to maybe learn English, and we (finally) ended the class. Needless to say I'm now looking for someone to take the class off my hands.

Before we started class the other day, 1 of my favorite girls came up to Arancha, my co-teacher, and complained that she was bleeding. When we both took a look, we discovered a big wound on the back of her left hand. We thought it a strange place to get injured and questioned her about what happened.

She blushed a little and sheepishly confessed that she was playing a game and injured herself. Arancha seemed ready to accept this excuse, but something about it didn't seem right to me and so I questioned her further. "Tell me more about this game." She tensed up and after much silence, reluctantly revealed the nature of this so called "game." The game requires a person to recite the alphabet and something that begins with each letter while scratching the back of one's hand. We didn't quite understand the game (or maybe we didn't want to believe what we were hearing) and so the little girl decided to demonstrate. "A. A is for apple. B. B is for baby..." and while she recited each line she was clawing the skin off the back of her hand. Apparently the goal is to get to the end of the alphabet.

Jesus Christ.

"This is a game?! How? Why? What's the prize?" She just laughed and shrugged her shoulders. We questioned her even further and discovered about 6 other girls who bore the same scars. When asked to show us, they raised the backs of their hands with pride.

Arancha and I stared at all of them like they were aliens. The guys in the class just shook their heads and continued with their arts and crafts. Crazy doesn't even begin to describe....

"What did you say?!"

Today we were practicing names of places and shops in the city. I asked what things they could buy at the mall and the kids were throwing out all sorts of things.

One kid said “knickers,” but the way he prounounced it, it sounded like “niggers.”

My head snapped up so quickly. I said, “what?!” and the bass in my voice? It was somethin’ serious. I’ve never seen a child look so afraid. He whispered “knickers” again and then said “como ropa interior, no?” Everyone was looking at me like I had lost my mind. I had to play that off. Thank God there were only 10 mins left in the class.

I blame the British for teaching these kids these words. I mean, knickers? Knickers?

God.

"Dislikes…..Africa”

We were playing a game. Each person receives a piece of paper with a little picture and a blank space for Name, Age, Job, Likes, Dislikes, and Hobbies. The objective? To increase vocabulary and creating sentences. I envisioned this exercise to be a bit more interesting because at least the children get to use their imaginations.

The responses started out generic enough. Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly) the children didn’t really understand that they were supposed to use their imagination for this exercise and I found myself listening to them re-introduce themselves. I decided to just take it in stride and corrected the mistakes as we went along. Eventually it was time for one of the girls to share what she had written. Nothing about this child grabbed my attention, she was a generic Spanish child, if there ever was such a thing. At this point, I can’t even remember her name….maybe Mari? No, she wasn’t particularly special. In fact, I probably wouldn’t have remembered her at all if she didn’t read what she wrote that day.

She read her name, her age, struggled to name a job in English and had no problem listing her likes. I’ll admit, I was mostly tuned out when she got to her dislikes. It was almost time for me to leave and I was thinking of what to make for lunch.

“Deeslikes…..Africa”

*Insert record scratching here*

My head snapped up and my screw face was on and ready. Wait…..what?! I looked over at the head teacher and he had an embarrassed look on his face. The other students all turned and looked at her. There was silence.

Then came the barrage of questions.

Head Teacher: Dislikes Africa. Why do you say that?

Guilty girl who dislikes Africa: *shrugs shoulders*

Me: Wait…what?

Another child: You don’t like Africa? Why?

Moroccan child: No le gusta Africa? (speaks to friend while glaring at the guilty girl) 

Head Teacher: Why don’t you like Africa? Have you ever been there before?

Another child: Por la pobreza. Hay mucha pobreza. (Because of the poverty, there is a lot of poverty)

Moroccan child: Si ella no le gusta Africa, no me gusta Europa. (If she doesn’t like Africa, I don’t like Europe)

Head Professor: How can you dislike a whole country?

At this point, I was ready to slap both girl AND professor, because really, Africa is a country!? So I turned to this child and I said, “How can you dislike a whole continent? Especially when you’ve never been there before?” She looked back at me with the most confused look on her face and I had to pull myself back. I was in “it’s-time-to-educate-the-ignorant-one-or-slap-someone-whichever-feels-most-appropriate” mode and this child is still struggling to speak in complete sentences in English. She didn't have answers for us. In fact, she had the nerve to be indignant. I could see the thoughts moving through her mind. “I grace these people with my perfect English and they have the nerve to get riled up and start questioning me. This will be the last time I decide to help them out and participate!”

*sigh*

I’m not surprised at the racism. I know Spain has its own issues with race, as does every other place, but it’s the age of the child that got to me. Her age. Her inability to explain why exactly she hates Africa. Her blindness as to why that particular thought process is wrong. Wrong and dangerous.

I tire of trying to educate every ignorant person that crosses my path. What am I supposed to do?

Press Play and Join me in the twilight zone

Today in class, the excercise was to listen to this song and fill in the missing words in the lyrics. I didn’t know what song it was going to be. I’m sure I would’ve been better prepared had I known in advance.

The teacher pressed play and the students lost their minds. I’m talking fist pumping, raising the roof, jumping up and down; one girl even imitated a scene from Girls Gone Wild and lifted up her shirt. I’m so serious.

I looked out at that mini-sea of throbbing bodies and I had nothing to say. Did I mention they were between 9 and 10 years old?

I’m living a movie.

"And where are you from?"

So, I’ve started teaching and one of the first things we’ve done is introduce ourselves to each other. I was lucky enough to meet about 6 (8?) Alvaros, 5 Manuels, 15 Marias, 4 Diegos, 5 Albertos, 3 Javiers, 2 Miguels, 2 Lauras and 4 Paulas. (I’m probably exaggerating, but I still take comfort in the fact that I can yell out one of these names and I have a good probability of being correct)

I really love hearing the students introduce themselves in their broken English. They try so hard! It’s very endearing. Their introductions usually go something like this:

“Hello. My name…ees Alvaro. I leeve in…Haro. I have….[teacher interjects: I am or I’m] I’m 10 years old. I have got….one seester (sister) and..one doug (dog). My favorite food ees…hot doug (hot dog)” etc, etc, etc.

“Hello. My name ees Ishmael/Whitney/Cynthia/Sarah. I’m 10..” and so on and so forth.

Except this time, after the student finished his/her speech, a prompt would follow from the teacher: “And where are you from?”

I heard a range of countries from Portugal, Morocco, Pakistan, Cuba, Ecuador (this Ecuadorian boy was the cutest thing I’ve EVER seen) to India, China and Romania. These kids were coming from all over. Hearing the places some of these children traveled from was fascinating, but what really struck me was the way the teachers would subconsciously (hopefully not consciously) single them out. He/she never once asked a Spaniard child where they were from. It was almost understood that the Spaniards didn’t need to be asked, because they belonged.

It bothered me because I can’t recall witnessing that in the States, at least not in any elementary school classroom that I’ve been in. If anything we stressed assimilation, where you come from doesn’t matter, you’re in America now. Besides, race was always more important. After all it is a quick and easy label/box: Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, Other.

But now, after playing around with this idea, perhaps the “where are you from” question isn’t so bad. At least now your cultural/national identity is recognized, right? And you have no need to stop practicing your culture, because everyone acknowledges the difference and keeps it moving. No need to be ashamed. Hmmm….

I could very well be thinking optimistically, but I guess I won’t be able to tell until I spend more time in the classroom.

I heard that about 15 different times each class. And then I heard a different script.