To My Younger Self
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For years you will think that the decision to go to college was yours. You will look back at middle school and think that Mr. Wilson, your ninth-grade biology teacher, was the one who planted the seed in your mind. He will take you to the hallway, return your first exam of the year with a grade of 98, and tell you that you should go to college. As you return to your lab table you’ll glow like the morning sun. His voice, suggesting you attend the college fair at the high school in a few weeks, will echo in your mind.
The night of the college fair will fall on Mami’s day off from cleaning bathrooms at the Long Island Lighting Company. Even though her sunken eyelids reveal the exhaustion from her day shift at the U.S. Tape factory, you’ll convince her to take you. You’ll make your way through the library, the cafeteria, and the gym filled with tables displaying catalogs and think that you are just like all the other students, but you are not. Your peers will follow their parents who read consumer reports about the top colleges in the country and have lists of questions about admission requirements. You will be the one navigating through the rows of college representatives and listening to their pitches. By eavesdropping on other conversations you’ll learn which questions to ask. Mami will follow close behind without speaking.
When you sign up for mailings you’ll think Mami is quiet because she doesn’t know the language; in fact, you are accustomed to leading her through schools, hospitals, and government buildings, always translating English to Spanish and interpreting the unsaid. You won’t realize that this time she may be silent because she didn’t go to college—it was difficult for her to finish high-school at the age of twenty-two, and at that time, in Santo Domingo, there was only one university to attend. Mami no longer talks about her past or your future—at most, you see her in the morning before she leaves for work and at night before going to bed. In those few minutes she only gives you orders: to watch over your little sister and brother, to make dinner, to go to the laundromat before you run out of clean clothes, to call the landlord and complain about the malfunctioning boiler, to buy money orders at the post office to pay the rent, the electricity and the telephone.
In your home there are no family dinners where you can tell Mami how your day went at school. When you were in third grade she used to ask if you did your homework when she returned from work, but she doesn’t do that anymore, perhaps because you are a good student. She doesn’t tell you that education is important; she figures you know. She moved the family from Union City, New Jersey, to Long Island to live in better school districts, but you won’t find this out until you are in your thirties when you hear her talking to your aunt. Since the relocation you’ve thought she moved the family to the suburbs so that you would be far away from Papi after the divorce. But she believed that the best schools in Union City were private, which she couldn’t afford.
You know that even with several jobs it is hard for Mami to make the rent and buy food and clothes, yet you keep wishing for a mother who goes to your track meets, attends your school concerts, and helps you with your homework. You want someone like your best friend’s mother who gives you a ride home after most extracurricular activities. When Mami does arrive at school, you are embarrassed because you are one of the last to be picked up in a little green Datsun that is older than you. You know what your reality is—your mother is a blue-collar worker earning not much more than minimum wage. At a later age you won’t be proud of the shame you feel right now, but you will be glad you hoped for something better.
For years you will think that the decision to go to college was yours. You will look back at middle school and think that Mr. Wilson, your ninth-grade biology teacher, was the one who planted the seed in your mind. He will take you to the hallway, return your first exam of the year with a grade of 98, and tell you that you should go to college. As you return to your lab table you’ll glow like the morning sun. His voice, suggesting you attend the college fair at the high school in a few weeks, will echo in your mind.
The night of the college fair will fall on Mami’s day off from cleaning bathrooms at the Long Island Lighting Company. Even though her sunken eyelids reveal the exhaustion from her day shift at the U.S. Tape factory, you’ll convince her to take you. You’ll make your way through the library, the cafeteria, and the gym filled with tables displaying catalogs and think that you are just like all the other students, but you are not. Your peers will follow their parents who read consumer reports about the top colleges in the country and have lists of questions about admission requirements. You will be the one navigating through the rows of college representatives and listening to their pitches. By eavesdropping on other conversations you’ll learn which questions to ask. Mami will follow close behind without speaking.
When you sign up for mailings you’ll think Mami is quiet because she doesn’t know the language; in fact, you are accustomed to leading her through schools, hospitals, and government buildings, always translating English to Spanish and interpreting the unsaid. You won’t realize that this time she may be silent because she didn’t go to college—it was difficult for her to finish high-school at the age of twenty-two, and at that time, in Santo Domingo, there was only one university to attend. Mami no longer talks about her past or your future—at most, you see her in the morning before she leaves for work and at night before going to bed. In those few minutes she only gives you orders: to watch over your little sister and brother, to make dinner, to go to the laundromat before you run out of clean clothes, to call the landlord and complain about the malfunctioning boiler, to buy money orders at the post office to pay the rent, the electricity and the telephone.
In your home there are no family dinners where you can tell Mami how your day went at school. When you were in third grade she used to ask if you did your homework when she returned from work, but she doesn’t do that anymore, perhaps because you are a good student. She doesn’t tell you that education is important; she figures you know. She moved the family from Union City, New Jersey, to Long Island to live in better school districts, but you won’t find this out until you are in your thirties when you hear her talking to your aunt. Since the relocation you’ve thought she moved the family to the suburbs so that you would be far away from Papi after the divorce. But she believed that the best schools in Union City were private, which she couldn’t afford.
You know that even with several jobs it is hard for Mami to make the rent and buy food and clothes, yet you keep wishing for a mother who goes to your track meets, attends your school concerts, and helps you with your homework. You want someone like your best friend’s mother who gives you a ride home after most extracurricular activities. When Mami does arrive at school, you are embarrassed because you are one of the last to be picked up in a little green Datsun that is older than you. You know what your reality is—your mother is a blue-collar worker earning not much more than minimum wage. At a later age you won’t be proud of the shame you feel right now, but you will be glad you hoped for something better.