| Realizing Race Through My Eyes |
| by Paul Guevara |
My life is somewhat ordinary compared to others such as Michael Jordan or Bill Gates. I have not experienced anything greatly emotional or successful. However, I am not here to talk about a life to be envied or pitied by anyone. I only want to get off my chest something that has been troubling me for quite a while now. This specific topic I am about to reveal surely has been discussed and argued by many. Keeping this topic in secret is useless; for that reason, I shall describe it in the next few pages. It is simply the case of race and all the extra baggage that comes with it. I know that blacks and other oppressed minorities in America have received their civil rights a long time ago. Nevertheless, I also know that it is not enough for it to be written down in law since I still see, up to this present day, the troubles of racial stereotyping and profiling. Therefore, I am going to tell the story of my life hoping others will realize that people aren’t different because of their race, but because everyone is different in their own way.
Before I begin my story, I should tell you about my surroundings. I am currently living my life where I was born in Jersey City, NJ. The overall layout regarding ethnic background is very diverse. Every known race is represented and not one dominates. My street can be a good example of the kind of diversity in this city. Chinese, Africans, Italians, Latinos, Filipinos, and Indians live on this one block radius. Then again, it was not always like this. Everyone gets along except for a family that lives in the “drug” house and the crazy guy next door. My family is one of the four Filipino families of the block. Living with me are my two parents and my sister. We occupy a two family house where my sister and I are on the top floor and my parents are on the bottom floor. Middle class is probably the closest classification of the type of people that live here.
Not until the age of ten did I realize that race plays a major role in the world. As is known universally, many kids don’t understand how their classmates’ race is different from their own. They only comprehend to the female and male genders. The moment I began to see the difference in race was one day after school to sign up for the school basketball team. While I was going toward the cafeteria with my classmates who were mostly white and maybe one or two black kids, we saw a group of about fifteen kids who we did not know signing up to be on the basketball team. It wasn’t hard to notice the difference between them and us. They wore street clothes and their group consisted of minorities such as Blacks and Latinos. I asked the coach, who was also my forth grade teacher, about those kids and he said, “Oh! They are only public school kids. Since they don’t have a basketball team, they were allowed to try out for our team.” Although I didn’t know much about how public schools were operated back then, I assumed that no one wanted to coach them or no one was willing to pay for their own team. After the response from my teacher and my own notions, I wondered about public schools and why I didn’t go there.
Once finishing signing up, I rushed home because I was hungry but also I wanted to ask my mom the questions I had in my mind. I saw her in the kitchen cooking food but I didn’t know how to ask her about this issue. Then out of my mouth came the question “Mom, why didn’t I go to a public school?” She looked confused for a minute and then responded, “I wanted you to get a better education and besides I don’t want you to be mixed up in that crowd.” A very odd feeling came to me a second later. I was thinking she didn’t want me to hang out with black or dumb kids. I went to my room to play video games but I was too bewildered to actually focus on the game.
At basketball tryouts the next day, I made a lot more friends from public school. One of them, who I called “Speedy”, became one of my best basketball buddies. That day after tryouts, I went with him to his house, which was not that far from mine. He lived on a block with many more Black families than mine. He was also Black, specifically Jamaican. I knew of his ethnic background through the accent of his mother. She was a very nice lady who seemed to care a lot about her son. Before we even thought about turning on the Super Nintendo, his mother told him he better finish his homework or else he wouldn’t be able to get dessert after dinner. “Speedy” seemed like a smart boy. He had academic honor medals on his wall and a numerous amount of sports trophies in his room. The sight of the medals got my attention because of what my mother had said the other day. While he was doing his homework, I was snooping through his room. I saw his class picture and I was amazed at the cultural differences in his class compared to my homogeneous class. There were many Black students, but also there were Latinos, Filipinos, and Indians. My mind believed I should be there instead of where I was then. My skin color looked much more like those of “Speedy’s” class than the white-skinned people of my own. A few weeks later, I just let the whole idea die off and continued to go to the white Catholic school.
Once I reached high school, things began to shift direction in my life. My street was turning less white and more diverse. As for me, I was being pushed by instinct toward my own kind. High school gave me a chance to let me make my own choices such as the friends I would have. Although the school I was going to attend was one of the more expensive Catholic schools in Jersey City, I heard that there was a little more diversity than one would expect. The first day of school, the cafeteria seemed to be segregated. The tables were separated as Asians on the left side, Indians on the other, Blacks and Latinos in the middle, and a countless amount of white students scattered throughout the room. Instinctively, I headed to be with the Asian group because it seemed like the right place to go. Even though I felt kind of awkward around them because it was a whole new surrounding then I was used to, I knew this was where I was supposed to be. As time went on, I felt closer to Filipinos that I met in high school than I ever had felt with my friends in elementary school. They were easy to relate to since they understood where I was coming from. For example, I never had to explain the food I eat to them like how I had to with the white kids.
However, things began to change during junior year of high school. I met an African- American, caramel colored girl who I took a liking to very much. Every time I was with her I felt butterflies in my stomach. It felt like a dream. Things were going enjoyably well until one Saturday night at a party with my friends. My friends saw this black boy with a very attractive Filipino girl. One of my friends jokingly said, ” Look at those two. Why is she with a black guy? A girl as pretty as her should stay within her own kind.” I grew very nervous and uncomfortable, even though it was a joke. Why was it wrong for her to be with him? That question was going through my mind repeatedly. Throughout the night, I couldn’t get myself to have any fun. I just stared at the interracial couple. In my life, I have seen very many people that are not of the same race together. Only now did I recognize the risk that it bears. When the night was over, I went home thinking about my caramel-colored girl.
During the next couple of weeks, I gradually broke away from this girl who I liked very much. I didn’t know whether I should discontinue the relationship with her or to stop hanging out with my friends. Consequently, I told her I didn’t think it was going to work out and that was the last time we saw each other’s faces. My friends have been with me most of my teenage life. I didn’t want to become an outcast of the group. Nevertheless, I did not look at them the same way after that night.
That summer, I tried moving away from Filipinos and began to not care what race my friends were. It was a little difficult at first, since I did not know how to go about communicating with other races because I ignored them for the past 3 years. I kept wondering if the other races were going to accept me as one of their friends. As time went on, I began to pay closer attention to the United States as a whole, instead of just caring about the Filipino world. I remember hearing on the news that summer about a problem a racial profiling in my home state. The state troopers were pulling over a lot more drivers from minority races than the white race. Certainly, I knew there were still racist people in America; however, cops whom we depend on for our safety being part of that group surprised me. In another aspect, I have witnessed minorities who think the world is always against them. Once a black man’s blood is on a white man’s hands, automatically they think it’s because of racism. The more I listened to the news, the more I grew aware of discrimination in our country.
One incident concerning my neighbors reminds me of the racism that is still going on in this country. My African-American neighbors who just moved in a couple of weeks ago commenced in a very racist argument with an Indian family that lived next door to them. The kids of the Black family were playing with a soccer ball that kept landing in the flowerbed of the other house. The Indian lady rushed out and said, “I am tired of you nigger children killing my flowers.” Once hearing that comment, the mother of the children came out furiously. She yelled, “What make you think you can call my kids niggers!” The other replied, “You know, I’m tired of you damn niggers coming on this block and ruining it for everyone. Before you people came here this was a nice block. But now it is a rat hole.” As soon as that statement ended, the black woman charged toward the other and punched her in the face. It ended abruptly once the police came and cleared the whole mess up. They told the hostile black woman to calm down or else they will have to arrest her for domestic disturbance. Because that conflict made the Indian woman hysterical, her and her family moved out not long after.
Presently, I am now attending college with many friends of different races where I feel most at ease. Making friends with merely one race prevented me from meeting someone who might have made a difference in my life. Surely, I regret that I hadn’t done this in high school. Nevertheless, it was a good learning experience for me as a growing person. I am glad I learned this lifestyle of cultural diversity before it was to late to enjoy it. Through my experience, I hope others will figure out that racial profiling will set out country back instead of progress toward true independence. Consequently, I deem that as long as people live in the white or black area instead of the gray middle area, racism will never be extinct.