"Miss, are children in America like us?" The question caught
me off guard. I looked at the sea of dark faces staring intently
at me and paused, knowing that the subject had to be broached
carefully. The last thing I wanted to do was reinforce their negative
views. Influenced by the biased British media and the negative
attitudes in their homes, my students had great difficulty reconciling
what they thought they knew about Americans with the American
that stood in front of them every day. Normal me. Neither valley
girl nor warmonger, I was beyond perplexing.
A year earlier, living naively in the shadow of Notre Dame's
campus, I had imagined that my sixth-grade students in London
would have milky-pale skin, dress in plaid uniforms and speak
with upper-class accents -- the Harry Potter gang. I was a little
off; 95 percent of my students at my state (public) school in
east London were ethnic minorities. I'm not sure where they were
hiding that 5 percent majority. Indeed, the only milky-pale skin
in that classroom was my own. All my students were either born
in Bangladesh or were the children of Bangladeshi parents; all
but one were Muslim.
Are the children in America like you, I thought, scanning the
class. No. Most of these girls wore head scarves to show their
modesty, their lunches contained Indian delicacies I had neither
tasted nor heard of, and they jabbered in English and Bengali
without realizing they were mixing the languages.
Their differences, and my ignorance, brought unexpected challenges
that would never have arisen in an American classroom. A portrait
assignment in art class produced 30 drawings with Xs instead of
eyes. Drawing a face with eyes, I was later informed, was Islamic
taboo.
But I soon learned that even in their differences these children
were not different at all. The boys loved all things football
(American soccer). Before school, recess, lunch time, after school
-- their days were a series of competitive matches broken up by
educational interludes. They worshiped the sport's heroes like
my American students had revered Michael Jordan.
Similarly, a papier-mache project screeched to a halt when the
handsome face of a male celebrity was nearly slathered in glue
and pasted to a balloon. My girls rescued the precious image of
Abhishek Bachchan, heartthrob of Indian cinema. The picture was
carefully clipped and taped to the front of a notebook, reminding
me of the Justin Timberlake photos that adorned some of my American
pupils' books.
Not all similarities were so endearing. Indeed, their misconceptions
about each other were the most disheartening to me. Following
the attacks of September 11th, a white student in my U.S. classroom
had suggested, "We should take all the Arabs and put them in one
place so we can keep an eye on them." I reminded myself that this
child did not come up with a such an idea on his own.
I remembered this incident a year later when a British Muslim
child commented, "Osama bin Laden didn't do anything wrong. He's
just an old man. What could he do to hurt anybody?" Wanting to
cite his videotape confession and continued threats on America,
I bit my tongue and ended the appalling discussion promptly. Children,
I realized sadly, spout the ignorance of their parents on both
sides of the ocean, regardless of religion.
I also wondered how the British public, regardless of age, race
or religion, could have any feelings but ill towards Americans.
The underlying theme of all the recent media coverage was that
we were bloodthirsty, arrogant and self-obsessed. Could I blame
my students for their bias? Truthfully, no. There was no reason
for them not to believe what they saw daily on the news and what
their parents firmly believed: Americans hated them.
Thank goodness the U.S. press isn't so terribly biased, I thought.
Then I thought again. As a resident of South Bend, Indiana, I
had seen only one type of Muslim: the militant fundamentalist
on the news, swearing vengeance on all Americans in his videotaped
suicide message. Of course I knew all Muslims were not like this.
I just didn't know any personally. How could children, then, believe
anything but this negative image? Muslims hated them.
Standing in front of my class that day in London, I wondered
if I had the power to reverse this mutual animosity. If only they
could see how similar they were, I thought. I wanted to hold up
a mirror and show them exactly what American children were like.
How they failed tests, got crushes, broke legs, passed notes,
told jokes.
"Yes," I answered, staring directly at my inquisitive students.
"American children are a lot like you are." Ignoring their dubious
expressions, I proceeded to tell them. And as I spoke, I prayed
that they would believe me.
Jessica Low Martinez lives in Miami, Florida, where she is
a professional violinist and freelance writer.
(October 2004)
