𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕊𝕥𝕣𝕠𝕟𝕘 𝔾𝕚𝕣𝕝𝕤 ℂ𝕝𝕦𝕓 ☁︎☀

Li'l Story Time~Almendra

Hello all you amazing people! This is Almendra and today I want to talk about racism. And to do so, I have a li'l story time about one of my friends. I have decided to change the names of everyone except for a couple of friends and myself.

So, we had just gotten on the bus. Leslie was sitting next to Sayra. Arianna was two seats away from them. And I was two more seats away from Arianna.

*IMPORTANT: we are all Mexican*

It had been awhile since we had first gotten on the bus, but I noticed people were yelling in the back. I turned my head around and saw they were yelling at Leslie.

It was a girl and a boy, both in my grade. We'll call the girl Hannah (no offense to all those good Hannah's out there). And the boy will be called Max.

They were yelling Leslie to stop speaking Spanish. They were cussing and telling her to go back to Mexico. Leslie was getting nervous because we all knew Spanish as our first-language. Sayra yelled out to Arianna in Spanish saying, "Their yelling at Leslie telling her to stop speaking Spanish, it's really dumb!" Or at least something like that.

So Arianna tells me and we're just like, WHY?

Arianna starts to get all mad and she starts yelling at them. I'm just sitting there like, we're all human, why are they getting all worked up just cause three don't understand what we're saying.

I started to listen to what they were yelling about and I heard Hannah say, "I bet she's talking about us and saying a whole bunch of cuss words!" Max then started speaking gibberish, pretending to impersonate them. I personally hate it when people do that because what they're doing is acting as if they can speak Spanish.

To me it feels like their making fun of my language.

Max also said some cuss words, but in Spanish.

Then their older cousin, we'll call her, Angelica. Now note about her, she once threw me into a seat and call me a not-so- nice-words. Well, she was telling Hannah to shut up and stop bothering Leslie.

Hannah was not having it.

...

But neither were we.

After yelling at Leslie a little bit more. Hannah asks me if I was born 'here' (where I live).

I tentatively responded with, "why do you wanna know?" She just took that as I yes and told everyone on the bus, "See, she doesn't have to leave to Mexico, because she WAS born here." I was, very, confused.

I looked over to Leslie and shouted, in Spanish, "Hey! Leslie, weren't you born in Illinois?"

She, of course, responded with a yes.

This whole argument was pointless.

I looked over to Arianna and then told her we should let Leslie come with us, in other words away from Hannah.

I yelled out to Leslie who looked like she was nervous. I asked her, once again in Spanish, if she wanted to came sit next to me and Arianna. She quickly responded with a yes. The bus finally reached the first stop. Leslie and Sayra were the first to stand up. Once Leslie started to walk, Hannah kicked her, right in her leg.

She continued walking toward us, as if she hadn't just almost fallen. Sayra walked right after her.

After Hannah, Max, and Angelica, has gotten off the bus, Leslie, Sayra, Arianna, and myself were left with our thoughts. We started talking about why they were yelling at Leslie. It was then that I found out, Hannah had not only kicked her, but she had also slapped her arm.

*the next day*

It was first period and I had first period with Leslie. The class was just about to start, but we had decided to write an e-mail to the school counselor.

After that period, I was going to go to my next class but was stopped by the school counselor. She had gotten our e-mail, and was going to meet with us right before second period.

At that time, we were still looking for Arianna, but the counselor told us to go into her room. We sat there waiting for a while, just talking about what had happened yesterday.

Soon the counselor came in and went to the phone. She called Arianna's second period teacher requesting for her to go to her room. Soon enough, we had Arianna with us and we could begin. The school counselor gave us papers and told us to write down our side of the story.

After we were done we ended up missing our second period, so we had to go to our third period, even though that class was almost over too. In the end, Hannah couldn't ride the bus anymore, so we didn't have to worry. Plus I'm pretty sure she got suspended and had to go to another school. Max, on the other hand, he never really bothered us, so that was cool.

Welp that's all for today, I'll see you guys next Tuesday.

Love y'all ❤️