Speaking in my Homeland and Sons for the Return Home

"Specifically, SPA-CIF-ICK-LY, like SP-EH-ghetti" 
"Se-saa-sep..."
I felt the weight of 25 sets of eyes on me. The undercurrent of snickering from the other 6th graders was all I could focus on. My throat dried and crackled as I continued to struggle with the "sp-eh" sound at the beginning of this seemingly simple word. I was burning in anguish the longer Ms. Long let me sit in this position of embarrassment. 

"Alright-y, someone want to help her out?" Ms. Long sighed and pointed to an eager classmate to finish the paragraph. My face flushed and my heart sank to my knees. "Please never call on me to read  again." I thought to myself then, and still think to myself every time there is any out-loud reading being done in the classroom. This was the first time I vividly remember being called out for my speech difficulty. I know this is not the first time this happened to me, but this was the first time it hurt me.

I believe little me was so incredibly disappointed with herself in that moment because this was 6th grade literature class. This was the first time I had an entire class period and teacher dedicated to my favorite subject. Not only my favorite subject, but reading and experiencing literature with others was my favorite state of being. I had looked stupid and incapable in front of my fellow classmates and teacher who I admired. My parents and close friends told me that perception of stupidity I felt was an anxious worry and no one really thought I was stupid because of the way I spoke. But still, after this incident, I began to withdraw from participating in Literature class. I remember feeling an oppressive anxiety anytime I was called on to answer a question in that class and then in other classes too. I felt every time anyone helped explain things to me individually, as if I was being talked down to. Ms. Long asked me a lot if I understood the readings. 

Microaggressions reinforce trauma of a larger prejudice and create behavioral changes in individuals from self-doubt and anxiety. Wendt's narrative character in Sons for the Return Home expressed similar reaction to racial microaggressions that him and his family experienced. Him and his fellow Samoans stood out from the other New Zealanders and began to only spend time with The main character withdrew from other classmates after his virginity experience, when he heard the girl bragging about it to her other white friends. I interpreted this as him feeling token-ized for his "other-ness" appearance. He took a sort of revenge on the white girls at his school, he detached himself from feelings unless he was making love to them, "To stop them from possessing him," as he put it on page 12. 

Wendt showed how there is a deep seeded bias underneath microaggressions through the instance of his parents in the principal's office. They spoke very little English and the principal did not try and communicate with them, including not even calling them by their names, as Wendt pointed out. The narrative character got angry with his parents for bringing themselves into that situation, even if it was supposed to be a congratulatory moment. "They humiliate you, ...we've been here for nearly thirteen years and they still treat us like strangers. As inferiors" (13). The main character reminds his parents about how that same principal that congratulated him for his academic success, affirmed the abusive classmates who beat up his older brother and called him a "brainless Islander" (14). I luckily never got beaten up for my speech impediments, but I did have authority figures treat me differently, even when they were trying to have a good heart, and have had a peer call me names sometimes. 

I know racial biases can cause more harm than what I have experienced with my speech. I can at least work on how I sound, when someone has a certain physical feature, they usually keep that feature for their entire life. But the pain and the behaviors as a result of that pain can be felt across racial boundaries. 

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