Rainbowe Kilborn. “But…I Am Not White”

As usual, I waited for the bell to ring so everyone could go to their class. It was then that I could roam the long, cold, and unfriendly hallway. Once the halls were empty, I walked. As usual, it took me 10 minutes to arrive at his office. Luckily, his front door was already open, so I stepped in. I tried not to make noise with my crutches; I gripped them to avoid causing friction in the floor.

As he saw me, he said “Good morning, Lorea. Please take a seat.” As I sat down, I kept looking at the images he had on top of his desk. Among the motivational phrases, one, in particular, stood out to me: ‘If I were to remain silent, I’d be guilty of complicity,’ written by Albert Einstein. As usual, his desk was piled up with papers, probably from work he hadn’t done in a while. Judging by his clothes, he looked like he hadn’t done laundry in a while. Before he began talking, he took a sip of his Diet Coke.

Then he said, “So, you are in the 12th grade now. You will be graduating soon. Have you thought about what you are going to do with your life?” He wanted to talk about my future, and I wasn’t expecting that, so I said, “Not really.” Then he took a long hard look at me in the eyes. I felt intimated, so I quickly looked down. Then he said, “Listen, don’t think your disability is an impediment to do and be whoever you want to be. Your limitation is only physical, not mental. You understand that, don’t you?” Still looking down, I said, “Well, I haven’t taught about my future much.” As I said those words, his face immediately changed color. His face got red as if he had swallowed one of those red peppers my mom uses to make Salsa Habanera, and now, in anger, he was about to scream all that fire he had inside into my face. Luckily for me, he only gripped his pen and said, “You know, there are a lot of famous disabled people in the world who have gone out to do marvelous things. Take, for example, Joni Eareckson Tada or Stephen Hawking.” Hearing him made me angry. Now I looked as if I was the one who had swallowed the Chile Habanero. So, I raised my head and said, “Yes, but I am not white.”

I said that because I didn’t know who I was. All I knew was I was not white. When I looked in the mirror, I just saw a brown-skinned, brown-eyed, and brown-haired person starring back at me. All I knew about my race and culture came from Chicano movies such as American Me, Blood in Blood Out, and Mi Familia. The way Mexicans were portrayed in these films was not positive, most of the time they were gang members, killers, and the human roaches of this country. So, I did not want to be Mexican. That was why I preferred non-violent-white TV and radio shows like Friends, Dawson’s Creek, or General Hospital.

 Leaving the school psychologist’s office was relieving. It was probably the second highlight of my week. I didn’t even know why I had to go see him once a week, but my counselor requested it. I’m pretty sure every time I left his office, he would fall asleep on his desk as I walked towards 6th period-Home Economics, once I was sure the hallways were empty. That didn’t bother me because I had time to admire the empty hallways while waiting for that darn bell to ring. I liked to think of that bell as a white flag of surrender. A flag that told me it was safe to roam again for the beast had surrendered in the battlefield, a territory of conquering, leaving the weak and the fragile behind, the ones that would never win a battle.