Lulu
Head-Royce School
10th Grade
1.How do you identify? Have you always felt comfortable in this identity? Interpret this question however you'd like, whether it be your gender, ethnicity or nationality.
I identify as a mixed, middle class, lutheran christian, female. My mother is mostly German and my father is full Eritrean. I have always known I identified with the gender I was assigned with at birth and throughout the years I’ve lived so far, have not questioned it. This also applies to my religion in that I’ve never questioned what my family's always followed and therefore, I follow the practice as well. Being mixed has always been something I was proud of. To be quite honest, I frankly enjoy identifying more with my African heritage because it gives me a sense of culture and individuality in terms of Head-Royce. My socio economic background however, is something I’ve always struggled with, particularly with my years at Head-Royce. Because I am surrounded by very fortunate, and often times wealthy people, I began to find myself acting in manerism that were ones I could not afford to given my economic background. Not to say I am not fortunate for the opportunity to be at such an amazing academic school such as Head-Royce, but it did surround me with many people who were in fact apart of the 1% and was not an accurate representation of society and money as a whole.
2. Talk about the environments and communities you've been a part of and the ways in which they've affected the formation of your identity. Tell your story!
I genuinely think Head-Royce has made me much more of a spoiled brat. Not to say that kids at Head-Royce all act spoiled, but we do get privileges that many schools do not and a lot of us carry ourselves to this standard that we are above many other schools. Yes, our school is indeed a lot stronger than many other schools, but no that does not make us better than any of the kids that attend schools other than Head-Royce. As much as I’d like to say I’ve avoided this behavior myself, I have found that is inevitable for me to carry some of this underlying bias. Although this trait in particular is something I wish was nonexistent in the formation of my identity, Head-Royce has also given me a lot of good attributes, such as a stronger work ethic and a deeper understanding of many things and situations. Just in saying I go to Head-Royce forms a presumption of my identity before I have even opened my mouth.
I feel like it is my obligation to speak up for the minorities or tell the story of those who are colored, since there are so few to do so. Head-Royce wants me at their school for my diversity, and for that I feel it is something I must be constantly parading.
As an economic minority, I feel like I always should have a leg up on everyone to earn my place at Head-Royce. Although this shouldn’t be the case, it’s something I have definitely struggled with through the years, especially because by no means am I a student to be top of many of my classes. As a racial minority, I feel like it's the exact opposite. Head-Royce needs my diversity and for that I don’t need to go above and beyond. As long as I am African American and I have brown skin, I’ll be fine. Now the mix between these two leaves me in a fairly uncomfortable middle ground, one of which I still haven’t quite gained a hold on. I tend to lean more to the overcompensation side of the scale just because I am only half black, and Head-Royce pays for an extremely large portion of my tuition. I am constantly feeling like I have to prove myself in order to show my worthiness to attend Head-Royce.
My father's Eritrean community has definitely been a huge factor in my life for as long as I can remember. My father is very much involved in his community, and we recently took a family trip back to Eritrea this summer. This experience was if anything, humbling to say the least. Eritrea is the 5th poorest country in the world, so spending our 2 month summer holiday there was no vacation. It definitely made me appreciate what I have back in the states a great deal more. Although I am in the lower middle class here in America, we still have it 100 times better than anybody back where my father is from. There was no running water or electricity most of the time. Basic necessities were things they just aren’t provided with. I’ve grown up my whole life going to events for the culture locally, so to go back for real was a complete honor and total culture shock. However, as great as the experience was and as much time as I spent immersed in the culture, I still don’t always feel like I fully belong in my father's culture either. It is extremely abnormal to marry out of the culture, let alone a white woman from Chicago. Often times I am asked if I am even Eritrean at these events because of the lighter coloring of my skin. Although my father's culture in many ways has provided me with a sense of identity, it has also made me question a lot of who I am as well.
3.Where do you feel most safe as a racial minority at Head-Royce?
Probably in dance class or my language class. Madame Bordet is always very interested about my heritage and most of the minorities heritages in my class. Dance last year made me feel safe for reasons that aren’t necessarily the best. I was assumed to be a good cultural dancer because I am of color. Although I do consider myself to be a good dancer and this in turn made me feel safe in the class, this same situation can easily make another student of minority uncomfortable. Dance this year however ruined this safe feeling, due to the lack of culture in the class. All we ever do now is modern and I personally hate it. It’s extremely boring and after countless efforts to get more diverse styles of dance into the class, I was still left with a dispisement of the class this year and would not retake it.
4. Do you think you've ever been treated differently in the classroom because you are a minority. If so, talk about your experience.
I would like to hope that most of the treatment I was given due to my race was out of caution and hope to not insult me in some way or another. I feel I experience a difference the most in my history classes. When topics such as slavery come up, I can’t help, but notice that some of my peers feel that they are walking on eggshells around me. I had a peer once tell me he felt bad for being a white male in my class because he was essentially my families and others alike, oppressor. Now certainly this isn’t the case, but there is an undertone of guilt in my class for something they themselves had nothing to do with.
5. How has being a minority student at a school like HRS affected the way you view yourself?
Head-Royce, although a fairly remarkable school, has definitely changed my perception of myself towards the negative. I have always felt inferior to my peers economically and academically. This is something I still feel today and is something I doubt I will alter my perception of.
6. Do you feel as though individuals of your race are properly represented at HRS. Whether this is through the literature that we read, members of of our staff etc…
Not at all. Frankly it really aggravates me that we are a school that says we pride ourselves on diversity when in actuality this is the very thing we have the least of. If you were a student looking for diversity in a school, you will not find that at Head-Royce, but it is impossible for a new student to know that because Head-Royce makes more of an effort to front they have diversity than to actually have it. At one point this year I was on the website's cover pages slide show four times in a row. This is only because I am one of the few kids of African skin color so therefore they advertise me as much as possible. When you click on the “Hrs at a glance” tab on our “About us” section on the website , one of the first things you see is the statistic “students of color make up more than 52% of the student body.” This statistic honestly just makes me laugh. In trying to say you are diverse, you are also admitting that 48% of your student body identifies as caucasian. That is saying that almost half our school is white. On top of this, there is a reason Head-Royce did not include an ethnic breakdown within that 52%. Within that 52%, more than half of that is of Japanese and Asian descent at Head-Royce. This leaves a very minimal amount of the student body to be any other race besides these two. In terms of members in our staff, the only people of color I ever see are mainly the language teachers and the janitorial and kitchen staff. None of my teachers identify as my race. In all my years at Head-Royce I’ve had two black teachers, one of which was “let go” and another who no longer works at the school. So no I do not feel my race is represented at Head-Royce at all, and the only time when it vaguely is, is when it is being used to Head-Royce’s advantage.
7. If you came back to visit HRS in 10 years, what would you have liked to see changed?
Definitely the amount of black students in particular in the Head-Royce community. Yes the amount of racial diversity in general needs to increase, but specifically I would love to see my own race more largely represented at Head-Royce.
8. Tell me about a time when you felt proud of your race!
In 8th grade we had our Africa unit in history. This was one of my favorite portions of the year because I was finally being represented in our curriculum in a way I could relate to. Often times we talk about slavery, but besides being of African decent, I have never had a strong personal story that tied along with that curriculum, so this unit greatly excited me. My most proud moment of my heritage was when all of my friends remembered Eritrea because it was where I was from. This was extremely important to me because many people have never even heard of Eritrea, let alone known it was an African country. I finally felt recognized as an Eritrean rather than the token black student.