Revisiting the Tale of the Tea Set
I’m moving. Which means I’m sorting through all the sentimental things I’ve collected over the years. And once again, I uncovered the little girl’s tea set I featured in a column exactly a year ago recalling my experience in a multi-cultural school serving a predominantly low-income community.
Since then, we’ve re-elected a president determined to deport people from south of the border, backed by a wave of racist hysteria among his supporters. With the tea set in hand, I reviewed what I wrote and decided it’s apropos now. Here’s an excerpt:
…What makes this find spectacular is that I received this tea set when I was in third grade—a present from a boy in my class. Armando. He was a Latino flamenco dancer. Really! He could dance—percussive fancy footwork with arms in the air. And he wanted me to be his girl.
This happened in 1962. At Westminster Elementary School in Venice, California. My year at Westminster set me back, academically. My formal education thus far had been at a Chicago public school where in second grade math, we’d been calculating simple division problems. But in Venice, the third graders were just learning to add single and double digit numbers. And they were reading at a much lower level than I had been…
Lunchtime was as depressing as the academics. Students sat on outdoor benches with no backs and no table—shaded from the sun only by the time of day, as the building behind us cast a much-needed shadow. We silently ate sack lunches we’d brought from home (I envied my friend her oleo and sugar sandwiches, having no idea they were a symptom of poverty) while teachers patrolled the courtyard looking for talkers. Those who violated the “no-talking” rule were forced to sit in the sun…
The student body at my old school in Chicago was all white and middle class. Westminster’s student population was composed primarily of poor kids, a high percentage of whom were people of color. It was my first experience with non-white classmates.
It would take me decades to figure out that the reason for the lag in academics, and likely the lack of freedom during lunch, was because impoverished communities are not provided the same educational resources as middleclass schools. Some folks in power look down on certain neighborhoods much as our former president regards ‘sh#t-hole countries.’
But I did absorb an important lesson at Westminster. It was not mandated by a school board or incorporated into a lesson plan. It’s what I intuited, even as a youngster: Humanity has nothing to do with skin tone, hair texture, nationality, first language, or what kind of sandwiches one’s parents can afford.
But here we are, more than sixty years later, with a presidential candidate ranting about his inability to determine his opponent’s race. I wish he’d had the benefit of a Westminster elementary education circa 1962…”
Our populace, of course, elected this guy again. His perpetual message that non-white immigrants are criminals and his public determination to oust them all, come hell or high water, creates a tidal wave of fear among targeted communities. This is, in fact, a form a terrorism.
I’m keeping the tea set. And I put a copy of my original ESI column in the box with the tiny dishes—so if any of my offspring should uncover it after my demise, it might bear greater significance than merely an old lady’s sentiment. It’s hard to fathom that in sixty-two years, our nation still hasn’t come to terms with the notion that humanity is colorless, and unrelated to income.