This was Multicultural Week at my school -- a celebration of culture and identity and community. Yesterday, specifically, we focused on our school culture: sharing what we love, what makes us proud to belong there. And then we widened the discussion to include our city community as well.
I teach kids who are used to hearing their community deprecated, belittled, called "ghetto."
I've heard plenty of that myself. I've heard this from my friends. Some of them wonder why in the world I'd choose to live here, or friends of friends ask them why they'd want to visit. Really? There? Why?
A few years ago, one of my colleagues even asked if I planned to send my children to "better" schools.
"Better than the school I teach in?" I asked. "Better than the best teachers I know have to offer?"
(Look, we know what this person meant by "better," right?)
(He told me I was being too sensitive, that he only had my "best interests" at heart. He also no longer works at my school.)
Shame on anyone, anywhere, who denigrates the communities they claim to serve. You may choose not to live there, people can live wherever they want, for all kinds of reasons, but own what you're really saying. Also, how dare you?
Anyway, I didn't grow up in the city I call home now, so I have no nostalgia for the "good old days," like the folks on the local community watch groups (toxic groups I left a long time ago; there is no such thing as a good "community" or neighborhood group on social media). I chose my community, I claim it as my home, and I am proud to do so.
Last month, I attended the Rainier Educators of Color Network Equity Conference (thank you, thank you forever, Tara, for inviting me -- I can't wait to invite more folks next year) and I wrote pages and pages in my journal that weekend. In our conversations with students this morning, I thought specifically about a few takeaways from that conference: that all of our students need to know that they are beautiful, and that we need to encourage them to celebrate the neighborhoods in which they live. That resonated with me.
*
I will never forget the moment, years ago, when a white student asked me why I would actually choose to live here. His dad thought the neighborhood was "going downhill."
And I will never forget the moment, years ago, when a Black student asked me, Are there any Black people in Montana?
How could I respond? This student knew I loved her and wondered how I could love a place in which she couldn't see herself.
*
I've been thinking ever since about what it means to call a place home. Or, to be honest, I've been grappling with that since the first night I spent alone in my own apartment overlooking Pacific Highway, listening to the traffic on the street and the airplanes roaring overhead -- I lived in the flight path of the SeaTac airport in those days. I hadn't yet put down roots here, but I suspected I might. My best teacher once told me I would put down deep roots everywhere I went.
Yesterday I said to my students, "I chose to move here, and I choose to stay. I'm not stuck here. You might not have a choice of where you live right now, but know this: you are assets to our community, and our community is worth celebrating. And I'm here for it."
*
I am senselessly privileged, and I know this. We actually can choose to stay or go, but we choose to stay.
No one ever asks someone in Bozeman, Montana why in the world they'd want to end up there. I remember my student asking what I loved about my hometown, and I remember telling her that I loved the mountain air, the way I could fall asleep to the sound of the creek on quiet nights, and the view of Bozeman and the Bridger Mountains from Kirk Hill. The sunsets light the entire sky on fire. I love camping. I love the way the air smells. I told her that it was really just where my soul goes home.
I meant everything I said, and I still do. I was raised to love my roots. But home means something different to me now.
*
I love so many things about where we live, in our cozy rambler in our ordinary little neighborhood. I can walk from our front door and down a steep, quiet street to the shore of Puget Sound. I love the way the fog hangs heavy over the huge trees in our neighborhood, the silence so thick the air seems almost textured with it, so thick you can almost pull it down with your fingers. I love the quiet in the late afternoons and evenings, lovely in the summers when we spend so much time in our backyard, eating lunch on the patio, the kids running through the sprinkler. I can drive for less than five minutes to the boardwalk along the waterfront, where I like to jog, and where I walked my pug every day after school to clear my head during my first year of teaching.
But it’s not just the trees, the water, the quiet in my corner of town—a corner of town where the neighbors haven’t changed much in nearly twenty years and other folks seem as rooted as I am. I love my city beyond the streets of my neighborhood. This is my community. Folks driving through will see the uninteresting chain restaurants, but people living in Seattle admit to sneaking into my city for the best Salvadorean food, the best Korean food. My son loves our local Indian and Thai restaurants, and I know where to get the best pho on Sunday afternoons. I have to drive a little farther to get to the independent coffeehouses, and we don’t have fancy cupcake shops nearby, but there are public schools in which we are deeply invested (and where we are proud to send our kids), teachers who work hard for all of their students, people who will leave food and groceries on my doorstep when my children have the flu, and a church that welcomes hungry or homeless folks.
I became a teacher because it seemed to be the best way to combine my passion for using words to connect with other human beings and my belief that we are called to serve our neighbors. And who is my neighbor?
I think of my students.
I think of the neighborhood mom who told me she thought our elementary school was going downhill (just like my white student's father) and of her discomfort when I asked her what she meant—knowing that nearby apartments and brown skin represented a fear she couldn’t bring herself to name. I thought of a friend posting on Facebook that she was ready to move, and her friend’s response: Get out while you can! There are some beautiful new homes in my subdivision! The commute is worth it!
I think of my students.
I do have the privilege of choice, and the stupid luck of landing exactly where we did without realizing, back when we bought our little house all those years ago, what a gift it would turn out to be. I'm not leaving. I'm not interested in "upgrading."
I think of my students. So many of them have deep roots in other places, too, but I hope they can find a way to celebrate where they are right now, without apology. And I hope all the folks who claim to care about them can honor that.
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