“Don’t worry Erik, we’ll always have each other,” I would tell my brother as we ate lunch by ourselves under the playscape of the elementary school playground. Growing up as the only two Hispanic children in the small town of Arco, Idaho, I found out very quickly that other children could be the cruelest and most judgmental individuals when it came to the subject of race. Comments like “Why are you here?” and “No one here likes you!” seemed to summarize my entire existence. Life for my brother and I was not always so lonely and hostile, in fact during our preschool years when race did not seem to matter, we could be seen playing with the other children and making a multitude of friends. But as our age progressed, and our distinctions in skin
…show more content…
Then one day, just as the class had been dismissed to recess, my teacher Mr. Henry pulled me aside and asked me to stay after class. As I sat back down in my desk, Mr. Henry pulled out a stack of graded papers from his suitcase, and to my amazement, the test I had taken the day before was lying at the top of the pile with a bolded “100” stamped near my name. “Orlando you were the only student to earn a 100 on this exam, keep it up and you are going to be somebody one day,” Mr. Henry remarked. All of the sudden for the first time in years, a sense of pure excitement built up from within me, provoking me to grab the test and burst out of the classroom in search of my brother to tell him the good news. I ended up finding him at our own little spot in the corner of the boy’s restroom, where I embraced him and proceeded to tell him about my recent success. As I stood there with tears of joy rolling down my face, he hugged me and told me that he had never been prouder. From that moment I decided that no amount of torment was going restrain my potential. I made it my mission to continue making my brother proud and to one day prove that being different was not something to be ashamed
Then one day, just as the class had been dismissed to recess, my teacher Mr. Henry pulled me aside and asked me to stay after class. As I sat back down in my desk, Mr. Henry pulled out a stack of graded papers from his suitcase, and to my amazement, the test I had taken the day before was lying at the top of the pile with a bolded “100” stamped near my name. “Orlando you were the only student to earn a 100 on this exam, keep it up and you are going to be somebody one day,” Mr. Henry remarked. All of the sudden for the first time in years, a sense of pure excitement built up from within me, provoking me to grab the test and burst out of the classroom in search of my brother to tell him the good news. I ended up finding him at our own little spot in the corner of the boy’s restroom, where I embraced him and proceeded to tell him about my recent success. As I stood there with tears of joy rolling down my face, he hugged me and told me that he had never been prouder. From that moment I decided that no amount of torment was going restrain my potential. I made it my mission to continue making my brother proud and to one day prove that being different was not something to be ashamed