I'm pleased to announce that my essay. "A Difficult Lesson", appears in this issue of UC Berkeley's {m}aganda Magazine. Here, I wrote about my memories of receiving detention as a young person of color in my American elementary school. Here's an excerpt:
The second time I went to detention was in second grade, and this time I received no explanation for the punishment I received. All I remember was the shock on my homeroom teacher’s face when she was told I’d spend my entire recess in the detention room. It wasn’t any of my teachers who had decided to put me in detention, but a woman who was in charge that day of taking note of who misbehaved on the school bus. That morning, she had asked us to quietly file out of the bus and to form a line on the pavement. I remember that it was one of the first days of spring, and I was happy to be wearing a skirt for the first time in months. Like the rest, I stepped quietly out of the bus, but as I walked towards the pavement I couldn’t help skipping, feeling a lightness in my feet as my skirt danced in the spring wind.
When the drill was over, she read aloud the names of those who had misbehaved. These people would spend the entire recess in detention, she said. A pair of black boys who had almost come to blows with each other in the line and a blond girl named Hillary who had badmouthed the bus driver were in the list. When I thought this woman had finished reading her list, she spat out my last name, as if it were the name of an inconveniently misplaced object that was to be put in its proper place.
I remember reacting in disbelief when hearing my name being included in this list. I had gotten used to having my name included in lists such as the honor roll, not in lists such as these. I knew my name had a strange ring to it, and that my classmates could never say it right, but it occupied a permanent spot on the honor roll nonetheless, nestled between the Clarks and Smiths and Thompsons. I’d be the first to speak up in class, the first to turn in my homework, the first to memorize the Star Spangled Banner and sing it in front of the entire class. I was always identified with the teachers’ pets and math wizards, not with these troublemakers who bullied me in the bus and tore my report card upon seeing it covered with A’s. I sobbed the entire time I was in the detention room, unable to wipe my tears because of a rule that forbade us from raising our heads. Near the end of my detention, Mrs. Kirby, my petite, gray-haired, honey-voiced homeroom teacher, put a hand on my shoulder. “Monica, I’ll ask her why you got detention. It’s all right. Don’t cry.”
It was comforting to know that one teacher was on my side. When I got off the school bus the next day, I saw Mrs. Kirby at the school entrance chatting and laughing with the woman who sent me to detention, as though they had never spoken of anything serious that morning. Mrs. Kirby never mentioned anything about my detention to me again.
My father, Francis C. Macansantos, also has a poem about the Filipina pianist and child prodigy Cecile Licad and his memories of Martial Law in this issue. It's on page 30, go check it out. I'm proud to have my work appear alongside his.
One can read the entire issue here, while one can find out more about {maganda} Magazine here.
The second time I went to detention was in second grade, and this time I received no explanation for the punishment I received. All I remember was the shock on my homeroom teacher’s face when she was told I’d spend my entire recess in the detention room. It wasn’t any of my teachers who had decided to put me in detention, but a woman who was in charge that day of taking note of who misbehaved on the school bus. That morning, she had asked us to quietly file out of the bus and to form a line on the pavement. I remember that it was one of the first days of spring, and I was happy to be wearing a skirt for the first time in months. Like the rest, I stepped quietly out of the bus, but as I walked towards the pavement I couldn’t help skipping, feeling a lightness in my feet as my skirt danced in the spring wind.
When the drill was over, she read aloud the names of those who had misbehaved. These people would spend the entire recess in detention, she said. A pair of black boys who had almost come to blows with each other in the line and a blond girl named Hillary who had badmouthed the bus driver were in the list. When I thought this woman had finished reading her list, she spat out my last name, as if it were the name of an inconveniently misplaced object that was to be put in its proper place.
I remember reacting in disbelief when hearing my name being included in this list. I had gotten used to having my name included in lists such as the honor roll, not in lists such as these. I knew my name had a strange ring to it, and that my classmates could never say it right, but it occupied a permanent spot on the honor roll nonetheless, nestled between the Clarks and Smiths and Thompsons. I’d be the first to speak up in class, the first to turn in my homework, the first to memorize the Star Spangled Banner and sing it in front of the entire class. I was always identified with the teachers’ pets and math wizards, not with these troublemakers who bullied me in the bus and tore my report card upon seeing it covered with A’s. I sobbed the entire time I was in the detention room, unable to wipe my tears because of a rule that forbade us from raising our heads. Near the end of my detention, Mrs. Kirby, my petite, gray-haired, honey-voiced homeroom teacher, put a hand on my shoulder. “Monica, I’ll ask her why you got detention. It’s all right. Don’t cry.”
It was comforting to know that one teacher was on my side. When I got off the school bus the next day, I saw Mrs. Kirby at the school entrance chatting and laughing with the woman who sent me to detention, as though they had never spoken of anything serious that morning. Mrs. Kirby never mentioned anything about my detention to me again.
My father, Francis C. Macansantos, also has a poem about the Filipina pianist and child prodigy Cecile Licad and his memories of Martial Law in this issue. It's on page 30, go check it out. I'm proud to have my work appear alongside his.
One can read the entire issue here, while one can find out more about {maganda} Magazine here.
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