Growing up my parents always told me that having an education was the only way that people would take me seriously and that that’s how I’d never be stepped on. One particular moment In my life that changed my view on education was in second grade and even if it was 12 years ago,I still remember it as if it was yesterday. Second grade is a grade where it’s not hard, there isn’t a lot of challenges, but for me I’d say it was the hardest year and I still say it now, which is crazy because college and high school should be the most difficult, not elementary school. I was 7 years old and I had been in the United States for only 4 years so the language was new to me still and my parents only spoke Spanish in the house so I only learned Spanish my whole life until I started going to school.

When I started the second grade, I was so excited to make new friends and to meet my new teacher mainly because first grade went really well for me I had a good teacher who didn’t care about anything but making us feel comfortable but everything changed so quickly. I spoke a little bit of English but it was ‘’broken’’ and you could still hear my accent. Besides the fact that I was embarrassed about the way I spoke, I was the only Hispanic in my class, so that made me feel even more uncomfortable. Every night I would go home and read book after book after book hoping that the words would stick to my brain and I could say them the right way. My mom and dad were my biggest supporters, they always reminded me that I was really brave for being in a class where everyone spoke English for instance I would read in front of the class at times and I would go up to the board to solve math problems and even if I felt uncomfortable my parents gave me hope. The first few days school were good, the teacher seemed nice but I had Barley spoken to her so I didn’t know how she really was. She was Tall she had glasses and she had black hair and always had her hair up in a ponytail. One day everyone is class was taking turns reading a book and boy was I nervous, when it came to my turn the teacher told me ‘’Denise get up here and read ‘’she had her hair up and she had a black dress she also had red lipstick on which for a reason made me feel more scared I don’t really know why and boy ’was I so nervous that I was shaking and even more because I was the only one-who was told to go up while everyone was allowed to read sitting down from their desks. I began to read and I was clearly struggling so the kids began to laugh and my teacher said ‘’ alright It’s useless you’re making the kids get confused’’ and I felt so disappointed and useless. That night I went home and I told my parents, and they said that maybe she didn’t mean it, maybe she just didn’t want the rest of the kids to get confused by the way I was saying the words so I kind of felt better because I thought my parents were probably right. During the rest of the year the teacher continued to make feel less of a person because I didn’t speak English, she would get in trouble if I didn’t pronounce a word right or if I didn’t answer I a question correctly. She would also tell me ‘’you should’ve stayed in your country, you would’ve done better there’’ It was up to a point where I didn’t want to go to school anymore because I felt useless, and I thought school wasn’t for me. I thought I would never be able to overcome the challenge of not being able to speak English. . The school year eventually came to an end and it was time for report cards, I was so happy becauseI could finally move on to third grade and get another teacher, but that wasn’t the situation. I got left back I remember coming out of school I had a dress on and My mom has brought me a small bouquet of flowers to show her support and when I was in the corner of the school opening my report card I was in shock, my parents were in shock I was crying and they were upset with me which was what hurt me the most. My parents came up to the school and tried to explain to the teacher that I tried really hard and that I didn’t deserve to get left back but the teacher wasn’t having it. We even tried to show her my cousins report card and mine because it was exactly the same, our grades were so similar and she had passed, and so that’s how we knew it wasn’t my grades, it was the teacher. She told my mom that I didn’t deserve to pass, that I wasn’t putting effort into learning and that it was useless if she passed me to third grade. I had lost hope. Some people might think it wasn’t that bad and I should’ve just ignored it but especially when you’re just a child those kinds of hurtful words stuck to you and she said to me has always impacted me.

Something has to be done about problems like this, someone’s race should not have to interfere with someone’s education especially a child. People like politicians have to speak up about it because they are high authority and they can use their platform to portray these issues and maybe people will start to see what’s wrong and they will try to fix it. I do realize that even if someone with power says something it’s within the person to understand and do better and it’s the way these people were raised that makes these problems but hopefully we can get the message across somehow. I want everyone to know, immigrants, non immigrants, people who have gotten verbally abused by teachers because of their race or just anything that these issues do get better they may not change but you do learn how to defend yourself and you do learn to confront these issues. I want you to do better and I want you to not give up even if it may be seem like it’s not getting better. I see myself now and I feel really proud of myself and how far I’ve come and when I think back I just laugh and I feel really bad for the teacher because if I were her I would feel really embarrassed.