Hi, my name is Aisha, I am eleven years old and I feel rewarded and lucky. My story starts September during my fourth grade year. My mom took me to a new school. The school seemed to be in a forest in the middle of the city, so far so good. My Mom and I entered an inviting, brightly painted building. The art on the walls made my mom and I gasp. We are both artists so we were enchanted. Something else caught our eyes and wouldn’t let go. They were posters showing black people and the great deeds they performed. I had never heard of these people. I was super excited. We were invited into the office by a lady with locks and a warm welcoming voice. Hum. She asked me about my interest and she paid attention to what I was telling her. I wondered if all the teachers at this school would listen to me and call on me when I knew the answers. At my last school I felt ignored by my teachers and very few teachers or students looked like me. On the wall in the office I saw pictures of people who looked like me and the lady told me a few stories about these children; some who are now adults. I’m sold, sign me up. My mom and I had a good feeling about this school.

Summer drug on and on. September arrived and I’m off on a new adventure. I stayed at this school for three years. I met a lot of good, kind and funny teachers. I took some interesting classes: African Civilization, African dance, art, politics, tennis, swimming and choir. Of course we had the regular classes; math, reading and spelling. These classes were fun because a game was usually part of the learning. The reading books were exciting and full of children of many cultures. I was in a band and a performing arts program at this school. I don’t have a father, he died but, at my new school there are several men teachers who were great father figures. So you see at this school I was happy, excited, fulfilled and loving myself.

My teachers say it is time for their little bird to fledge. I am off to seventh grade at a new school with different teachers and new friends.

The summer went by fast because I went to two camps. Hello September and new things. This school is in a mansion and almost all the students and teachers are white. My old teachers told me about this and that people would make a lot of comments about my hair, skin and that I would hear lots of stereotypes about people of color. I’m glad that they warned me, but when I heard these hurtful words, they still came as a surprise and made me feel awful. The other children said that my locks look like crispy barbecued Cheetos and that my skin color was too dark. On the way to school on the bus, kids would talk to me however, when we arrived at school they disappeared for the rest of the day.

I felt that I could not identify or relate to the students or teachers at this school. At my old school it felt good to be a black person. At this new school, I felt out of place, sad, bored and that blackness was weird. One teacher told me that perhaps they would find some other colored people to enroll. I wanted to yell at her that we don’t call ourselves colored and neither should she.

I wear my earphones in class and lay my head down on my desk. I am starting to miss a lot of school and I have sad doomsday feelings. I constantly feel like an alien in a strange land.

What will happen to Aisha next? Stayed tuned for part two.