Chapter Six #2
“You know, Miss Chen, I’ve been looking at your transcripts.
It would really help if you had a cause to fight for,” he said without introducing himself or looking at her at all.
“The low-income students I’ve got into Ivy Leagues, the top tier, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale, they all had a cause to get passionate about, you know?
I mean, of course, CHA is a public school, so this is great for us in terms of quotas, but don’t take this the wrong way, Ms…
.” He paused to look up her name on her file. “Chen…Is that Chinese?”
She tried to answer, but he continued.
“Asian kids with good grades are a dime a dozen. I think this is a great opportunity for you to explore your own ethnicity and use your disadvantage to your advantage. If you don’t mind me saying so.”
She did mind.
“You must have faced some kind of racial discrimination in your time growing up here. We’re not an especially diverse community, here in Chestnut Hill.”
Sabrina stared at him as he spoke.
“It would be better, of course, if you were from a less affluent country like a Cambodia or a Vietnam, maybe. China is considered more developed and desirable now, but we can work with this. It helps, of course, that you are from a single-parent household,” he muttered as he flicked through her transcripts.
“Your grades are good—but that’s to be expected, under the circumstances.”
“The circumstances?”
He peered over his glasses to look at her and then pulled them off. His eyes narrowed and traveled over her in a way that made her feel like a meal he took a particular dislike to.
“Your circumstances. You are from a low-income family unlike many of your peers here. Based on my years advising our high school graduates, with your ethnic and cultural upbringing, I assume you are hardworking and high achieving. Don’t tell me Mrs. Chen isn’t on you at home to bring back excellence with every report card? ”
“Well,” Sabrina said. An almost whisper, “She has high expectations.”
“Yes, in my experience this is typical of lower-income Chinese culture parents.”
Mr. Jenkins pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.
Sabrina wanted to look away, but her eyes stayed on his nose.
Low income. Minority culture. Her mother would have sniffed at this and called it a duty.
Hard work is not a choice. These children in your school, they proudly say they go to this public school but treat it like a castle.
They don’t know what it is to have nothing.
To have no choices. They have something to fall back on.
They can indulge in arts, sports, music, and the theater because they have the money to.
Their parents will always give in to them, saying it’s letting the children have the freedom to choose for themselves, but this is only what you say when you have money.
You have a duty to me, your family. I gave you this chance.
You have to take it and do something with it.
Or you will work at a restaurant, a kiosk, like all the others. Like me.
“Ms. Eva Kim will be expecting you downtown at the Asian American Immigration Coalition for your summer internship. She helps the Asian immigrant community in Pennsylvania with civil rights issues, navigating financial aid, a lot of things that you might find yourself feeling passionate about…given your background. She has worked with some of our Asian American students before. She’s a…
” He paused. “A real character, shall we say. Okay, Ms. Chen. Goodbye.” He passed her a piece of paper and didn’t look up at her as he waved her toward the door.
“Don’t slam the door,” a gruff voice called out, a voice that sounded like it had been roughened by cigarettes and shouting.
Sabrina looked around, but she couldn’t see anybody in the poorly lit office. A small window looked out over the low-rise redbrick vista of the Temple University campus two blocks west. The bell tower loomed in the distance. Dust motes floated in the air in front of the window.
A woman came out of a back room; she was not who Sabrina had expected to meet.
A small, muscular body wearing a plain black dress with sleeves, her hair cut with a severe fringe that sat in a rigid straight line over her brows.
Her age was impossible to guess. Her eyes were bright behind her black-rimmed glasses, and for a moment Sabrina felt like the woman was looking right through her, as though she could see right into Sabrina’s thoughts.
“You’re here for the internship starting next month, right? Sit, sit…” She waved her hand to the chair in front of her desk. “I’ll be right with you.”
Sabrina sat on the edge of the seat, her knees pushed together, and she straightened the fabric of her blue cotton dress over her thighs.
She glanced at the college diplomas from Princeton and Penn State on the walls, which hung askew.
On the desk was a clear pink plastic Nalgene flask with brown tea leaves that floated in the water.
It had turned a murky tone that looked like a puddle of dirty water.
She wondered if it was the same chrysanthemum tea her mother drank for her digestion.
“That prick Jenkins sent you down to me, is that right? Asians fighting Asian causes? Did he say something like that to you?”
Sabrina tried to croak a response. Her breath was stuck on Mr. Jenkins, the prick .
“He’s a self-important dickhead, and no better place for him to reassert his misplaced beliefs than in the guidance counselor’s office in a high school in one of the whitest townships in Philadelphia.”
“I…”
“It’s okay, I know you agree. I can tell in your eyes you do. You have good transcripts, Chen. What brings you here?”
“Well, Mr. Jenkins suggested…”
“You don’t need to be sheepish. He might have suggested it, but you didn’t have to come all the way out here. Something in you compelled you to come down. What is it? Microracism in trig? Are you an outcast? What about your parents? Have you seen them endure Asian hate? Talk to me, girl.”
When Eva Kim spoke, the air in the room stood still and grew electric. Sabrina felt as though she were suddenly awake. After years of slumber in a dark cave, she finally saw there was an opening that she could walk through, and the light was blinding.
“I guess…”
“Go on.” Eva took her glasses off, sat down in her seat, and stared, but there was warmth in her eyes.
“I’m tired of being invisible.”
“You’re put aside, are you? In class? Socially?”
“Yes, people expect me to be a certain way and there’s a suffocating cloak over me, I can’t explain it.”
“You’re doing a good job of it so far. Keep trying. You seem like someone who’s good with words.” Nobody had said this to her before. Sabrina knew she was good with words too.
“I’m sick of being the smart Asian kid. Of being the girl most likely to be a math professor when I hate math. Maybe I want to explore the arts, or be an actress, a writer, to have a voice. I’m tired of sitting in the shadows. I’m tired of waiting. Because it’s all I do—politely, quietly, I wait.”
The silence in the air was charged.
“Good answer.”
“It was?”
“Sharpen those elbows, girl, I’m gonna teach you how to push your way to the front of the line this summer.”
Sabrina felt the edges of her mouth form a smile, and it came from her insides. Her heart prepared to take flight.
“But first I’m sending you out to get some coffee, and then I’m going to talk you through what we are going to do here.”
“Where’s the nearest coffee shop?” Sabrina said, standing. Her skirt was creased, and she knocked a pile of folders to the floor.
“You’ll find one,” Eva said with a hint of a smile and passed her a $10 bill.
Sabrina felt her feet carry her down the hallway fast. Her legs and body trotted confidently ahead while her head tried to catch up, like a child pulling a balloon. What had just happened in that small dusty room?