New Class, Same as the Old Class

New Class, Same as the Old Class

The summer ESOL class ended in August, and we took two weeks off. In that interim, I resumed classes and my assistantship at the university, observed Labor Day, and had the first of many nervous break-downs about my thesis project. On September 9th, my eighteenth wedding anniversary, we began the fall session of Basic Life Skills.

The traffic outside the International Institute was a little more hectic than it had been over the summer; yellow school zone lights flashed in front of Findley Elementary school, slowing my progress up the hill of Tallmadge Avenue. It was a mild summer, but now humid air lies thick and heavy over Akron, swelling wooden door frames, frizzing hair, and shortening people's fuzes. My walk down the basement stairs of the Institute today is a welcome descent into chilled, curry-scented respite.

We have twenty students today from our summer class, and I remember all but one of their names--Ratna did not come every day, so I was never really solid on her anyway. Only one new student joins us, Malati, who comes in a little late with Buddha Rani. Malati is short and heavy-set with deep-set eyes and a sunny smile.

Chandra almost immediately beckons me to come look at his notebook. He has been working on the citizenship question, as per his usual. Today he asks about question #84: What movement tried to end racial discrimination? Answer: The Civil Rights Movement.

"Is it right?" He asks me. "Yes," I tell him. "That's a big word for you: discrimination. Do you know what that means?"

He goes blank for a minute, tries to pronounce it and stumbles. "De-crimi...de-scree-mee-nation. No? What it means?"

I pause for a minute, wondering exactly how I can simplify this complex term to convey the basics of it for him without condescending too much. Chandra is a smart guy; he may be the most intelligent student in the class. It's just that he's not fluent enough yet for these kinds of discussions in English.

"Well, race is about skin color," I begin, knowing full well that Tika and Jay, on either side of Chandra are listening closely, as are probably many others. "So you're brown and I'm white, but we are the same, really." Here I put my arm against his to highlight our differing skin tones. "Discrimination is when someone says that black people or brown people should have different rights than white people."

Both Chandra and Tika look at me with completely blank expressions, and I know I have failed to explain sufficiently. I want to try again, but just then Susan comes in, and Chandra wants to pay attention to the beginning of class.

On Wednesday, Chandra calls me over again, and again he asks me about question #84, as well as question #85, which is: What did Martin Luther King, Jr., do? The answer he has written is fought for civil rights and worked for equality for all Americans. Well, this will make the explanation of discrimination a little easier, I think to myself.

"Is right?" Chandra asks me.

"Yes, it's right!" I read the questions and answers out loud so he can hear what the words sounds like. Then I just continue with the explanation I had started on Monday.

"Equality for all Americans. So, that's what it means to end discrimination, right? So, whether you're black or brown or white," here I point at Chandra's darker skin and my lighter skin, " or yellow or green or whatever, it doesn't matter. We are all the same. Right?"

Tika and Chandra laugh a little, looking at me with big eyes, and I hear Bishnu, a few people over to my right, echo a few of my words: "some people are black or brown or yellow or green," then he giggles a little, too. They are not unkind laughs, just kind of reflexive laughs, almost of surprise or astonishment. I sally forth.

"So discrimination is treating people different for how they look, right?" Tika and Chandra nod, so I have to believe they are understanding me on some level. "But we have the same rights, no matter what color we are, right? We are all the same! Bori-bori! Right?" I make the sort of you're out motion with both hands that Karna made when he taught me that bori-bori means same in Nepali. "You understand?" Chandra holds up his thumb and index finger in the universal expression of a little bit and says, "little, little."

Susan has come in and is starting class, but I can't help but feel Chandra, at least, has understood this concept. There is a light of intelligence behind his eyes; he is inquisitive, always trying to go beyond what the class does, beyond what he is capable of. He never seems bored in class, even when we are going over the same old lesson that I know he knows by heart. He usually has the right answers quickly, but he is patient with the slower students and offers help to them kindly, without the judgmental tone a few of the women can produce. I wonder what his life was like in Bhutan, what kind of job he did. He seems less suited to agrarian life than many of the others in the class, more naturally inclined to Occidental garb and urban rhythms. And I wonder what his wife is like; she has never come to the Basic Life Skills class. Perhaps she stays home with their children.

But more than anything, I wonder what Chandra and Tika and all the others think of me, of this yellow-haired lady who smiles a lot and laughs at weird things and thanks them for coming to class and often scribbles in a notebook and is always eager to learn how to say things in Nepali and does the exercise breaks with them and brings them cookies on the last day of summer class and blushes when she mispronounces their names and tells them about discrimination and doesn't have any children. I'd love to know what they think of me.