My kids go to a "school" that employs both full-time teachers and work-study college students. To me, there is a clear distinction, but to my kids they are all "teachers." And there are so many work-study students in that place, that I can't keep them straight and am not sure I have even met them all. But I hear lots of stories about them from my kids.
One day, while picking up Quynh at the end of the day, I happened to catch the name of the student helping her with her shoes, Samantha*. I did not scrutinize Samantha's features, and apparently neither did Quynh. A few days later we were out to dinner in town and a group of young women entered the restaurant. Quynh immediately started yelling, "Samantha! Samantha! Samantha!" and pointing.
I scanned the group of women for Samantha, but the closest I found was another white girl with similar hair color and body type to Samantha. But who really looked nothing like her. Embarrassed by her yelling, I tried to quiet Quynh and explain that was not Samantha, though possibly looked a little bit like her.
All of this happened in the amount of time it took this group of women to walk into the restaurant, be seated at the table next to us, and order a round of scorpion bowls. (Because that's what college-aged women do at 5pm on a Tuesday, I guess).
************Fast-Forward About 6 Months*******************
The kids and I were in a Mexican restaurant for dinner the other night. It's a very casual place where you order at the counter, and lots of folks come in and out for take-out. Tai and I were still enjoying our tacos, but Quynh was done staring at her quesadilla and chewing on her straw, so I let her get down and walk around. She disappeared briefly around the corner, by the take-out counter, and then came running back, shouting, "Jose* is here! Jose is here!"
Oh geez. Jose is another work-study student at school. But I figured that Quynh had surely just mistaken some random Latino man (possibly even an employee of the restaurant) for Jose. This is going to be embarrassing, I thought, and possibly result in a long conversation on the way home about race, and genotype versus phenotype, etc. I am not ready for that.
Like Lassie, Quynh stood 5 feet from our table, begging me and Tai to follow her around the corner and see Jose with our own eyes. In an attempt to get myself out of a potentially embarrassing situation and having to say to some stranger, "You'll have to excuse my daughter, she thinks all Latinos look alike," I said to Tai, "I don't really remember what Jose looks like, so why don't you go see if she's right."
Tai hopped down off his seat and they both ran off around the corner. Seconds later they re-appeared, with huge grins on their faces, and Jose by their side. Jose waved to me and talked to the kiddos for a minute. They peppered him with questions, "What are you doing here? Where are you going now? Why???"
As I watched them staring up at Jose, star-struck, it reminded me of once seeing an elementary school teacher of mine in the supermarket. It's totally weird to see a teacher out "in the wild" and be reminded that they are people too, with their own lives.
The good news is my daughter is not racist. But she thinks all white girls look alike. ;)
*Names have been changed.
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