​The impact of a single question

An All Our Fullness story about cultural identity.
By Lia Rivamonte
 
I may have been five when skipping down the sidewalk of my street a girl on her bike suddenly blocked me with her front wheel. “What are you, anyway?” she asked. It was a taunt rather than a question motivated by curiosity. Cynthia was one of the Smith kids, known for being bullies. I guessed my answer would be subject to further mocking but I didn’t know how else to respond, ”I’m Filipino.” How I knew that’s what she meant is another question altogether. My parents must have prepared my sister and me for such interrogations. After all, they chose this spanking, brand-new, all-white suburb of San Francisco in which to settle—they must have expected some resistance to the presence of their brown-skinned family. “Haha,” Cynthia Smith laughed. “You’re a peanut!” She continued in a loud singsong voice as she swung her bike back into the street, “A peanut!”
 
As tame as it seems now, it was hurtful to my five-year old ego; I was shy and easily intimidated. I remember feeling such shame as I walked back up the street to our house, shaking, embarrassed. In that moment, I understood that me and my family were different from our neighbors and what it might mean to look different, eat different foods, and have grandparents that spoke a different language. Oddly, our parents seemed proud of these differences—almost boastful. And, to be frank, most of our neighbors were kind, even eager to befriend us. But it took just one little, ignorant girl and her simple question to awaken in me a feeling of inferiority, telling me I did not belong.

Lia is a longtime member of Unity. Currently, she serves on the Beloved Community Communications Team and sometimes facilitates Finding Yourself at Unity. She is a writer and artist and lives with her husband, Matt Brown, in the Little Bohemia neighborhood of St. Paul.