It feels freeing, like a fish fry at a family member’s house after Friday night lights at the local high school football field. It feels liberating, like the wind blowing over my body as I ride on the back of my uncle’s little red pickup truck with my cousins. It feels warm, like pancakes saturated with syrup on Saturday morning while I watch The Muppet Show.
America feels normal. For every person in this country she feels normal from their respective familial culture. Day end and day out, she lives up to her purest desire of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…that is, until our cultures collide. When my normal crashes into my neighbor’s normal, America becomes a distant cousin in search of her desired inheritance with no real relationship. It is in the collisions of life; as Americans, we have sometimes fought to preserve her integrity for the whole of the greater good; however, in many instances, it is for the good of one’s own separate, at times selfish agenda. With eyes set to tunnel vision, individuals have forgotten that sharing is caring to persuade the whole to agree with their direction of what it means to be an American in this country. We come together under duress and Olympic-size celebrations to create an amalgamation of values, though collectively, we have strayed away from our government-given name, The United States of America.
Kindergarten is one of the first places I consistently socialized with people other than my family. Unlike my family, these people were not obligated by blood relation to show me love. I would encounter and interact with strangers all day. Many of the students and staff came from different backgrounds. They didn’t look like me or share the same upbringing. Many of these strangers didn’t know my Grandma’s philosophy of doing right by people no matter how they treat you. It is amazing how the school day opens up a new world for children. You can’t control how people will treat them. I now understand why parents are often terrified of their little people's first day of school.
Each day, my kindergarten teacher, Ms. Collins, would line our class up alphabetically to head to the gymnasium. In this way, according to my last name, I was always first. I would proudly lead Ms. Collin's class to the gym for physical education (P.E.) class, and we would sit in the same order until it was time to go out to the playground. Our P.E. teachers would lead us in calisthenics to get our little hearts pumping. Since the first day of school, I had led the line, but one day in September, one of my P.E. teachers asked me a question that my little ever-evolving mind was not prepared to process.
“Gal, why are you always leading this line?” she said.
“Ms.Collins always puts me here at the front of the line,” I answered.
“You oughta let somebody else get in front sometimes,” she responded. “You can’t always be first.”
“Okay,” I said quietly.
The encounter would stay with me all day. As I ate my chicken nuggets and green peas in the crowded and noisy cafeteria, I wondered about this word she had called me. What was a gal? Why had she chosen to call me that? What did it mean? Was I a gal? Did I look like a gal? What made a person a gal? These questions stayed with me as I returned to class with Ms. Collins. Could I ask Ms. Collins? Would she know what a gal was? Did she see me as a gal too? Maybe not because she had never called me one. These thoughts stayed with me even as I boarded the school bus at the end of the day. The bus ride that day seemed exceptionally long as we took the daily trek from the west side to the east side of town to my aunt’s house.
The experience with the gym teacher had stayed with me all evening. It was constantly turning over in my mind as a child. I needed to know what ‘gal’ meant. Why had she called me that? Was it a good thing? Was it a bad thing? I didn’t feel good when she said it. I had actually felt like she was coming down on me. I felt small when I heard her call me that. It was as if she didn’t like me. Who doesn’t like an adorable and smart kindergartner? These thoughts had to be explored with my Mama. She would know.
As she prepared me for my nightly bath, I built up the courage to ask as she slid my shirt over my head and started the bathwater.
“Mama, what’s a ‘gal’?” I asked as I stepped into the tub of lukewarm water.
“Where did you hear that? Who called you that?” she responded.
“My P.E. teacher did today,” I said.
My mother was quiet for a moment. It was almost as if she was absorbing the words I had just spoken, allowing them to flip over in the crevices of her mind. She looked me squarely in my eyes and said words that would shape my world forever- a defining moment.
“You tell her your name is Crystal, and if she can’t call you Crystal, she doesn’t need to call you anything.”
To this day, I have never really had a nickname. People have tried different variations of my first and last name over the years, but I am simply Crystal (pronounced /’kristl/).
My small eyes looked into my mother’s eyes as if she had given me a superpower. My name meant something, and people should respect it. Respect is an interesting thing. No matter your age, you are always worthy of it. If you live and walk by it, respect will gravitate towards you like rushing water. Respect for others starts with how you choose to respect yourself. If self-respect is lacking in one’s life, it will be hard to find it to give to others.
As an adult, I realized my gym teacher’s culture had clashed with my culture.
At that moment, my fellow American made me feel othered. Did we not share the same values as Americans? Was I to be treated differently? Were there two Americas that we had to live in and navigate?
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
~ George Bernard Shaw
In this great clashing, we, the Americans, seem to have allowed those among us with unreasonable motives to guide the ship of our definition of freedom, culture, and the pursuit of goodness. In the othering of our fellow Americans, we have lost empathy, which has opened a regression of holding and preserving humanity. Within reason, all of our cultures and values are valid and worthy of respect. When we unite as one, we are an unstoppable force filled with compassion, peace, and the greatest power on earth….love.
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