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ESL a/s/l?

a WIP multimedia project

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JOY LUCK CLUB



I attended Pumpkin Hollow from Grades 1 - 4. It was a brick-walled building built in a Colonial and Georgian Revival style and operated as an elementary school between 1908 and 1992. Its size made it somewhat cute — with just four classrooms at around 20 kids each, it totaled about 80 students in the entire schoolhouse. We’d play in the backyard-like area and grassy knoll to the side of the building during recess. 

I spent a lot of time feeling isolated during these years, though as an adult, I have different loneliness problems, and looking different is no longer the issue. Being one of the only non-white students, my classmates would tease me based on physical and perceived language differences. Even my cavities were different as I was reminded through the playground choir of children’s voices, taunting me in a singsong melody. 

Choir: HA-HA! You have a CHINESE cavity!

Then, more taunting. 

Choir: (Accompanied by index fingers on outer eyes stretched outwards to create stereotyped Asian slant eyes.) I am Siameeese, look at meeeee!

Though when pushed to my limits, I’d fight back. One morning on the school bus in 6th grade, my classmate Justin, who had brown hair, a thin build, and a lot of sass teased me and I motioned kicking him into the corner between our seats until he cowered and stopped bullying me. “JUSTIN! Leave her alone,” our (likely retired) bus driver Bob demanded. Yes, the same Justin who ran to our guidance counselor to report my mom makes a cameo appearance here. In hindsight, most of the bullying I’d experienced as a kid came from an innocent place — children teasing me without realizing what they were really saying. I’m on good terms with my childhood classmates now and still get occasional Likes, friendly post comments, and direct messages on social media — Justin included.

The playground was different for my brother and sister. Two years apart in age, they had each other in school for support though my sister said kids left her alone. She was the smart one. Instead, the bullies and didn’t-know-any-better children focused their ridicule on a scrappy-looking boy whose family didn’t have a lot of money and another girl who was cognitively disabled.

I didn’t fit in or want to assimilate or become more American. My classmates weren’t necessarily cool — no envy there. I just wanted them to stop being mean to me. I wanted friends. I was concerned with winning their affection so I tried to buy their friendship with the only currency I had at the time: DIY paper cakes and friendship bracelets!

I’d make 3-dimensional custom paper cakes attached to classic picnic plates with the scallop shell-like rim. I wrote each girl’s name in cursive on top and finished the “cakes” off with decorative crayoned and markered “icing.” I also made friendship bracelets out of pastel-colored yarns and handed them out at recess to each girl I wanted to like me:

  1. Liz
  2. Jessie
  3. Regina 
  4. Heather
  5. Jamie
  6. Wendy
  7. Amanda
  8. Theresa

The leader of the pack was Liz Johnson, who acted like she was Hot Sh*t, but without actual merit. She was high maintenance and not very pretty. Regina was Filipino — a different kind of Asian and had a darker complexion than me. She was part of a kleptomaniac family and once “borrowed and lost” a VHS tape of ‘The Joy Luck Club’ I loaned her so it didn’t feel like I had her support either. Yet irrationally, I still wanted her to like me. I must not have cared that much though because I told my mom about the petty theft and she got Regina and her parents on the phone. This was when we had landlines so I could listen in on another receiver in our house.

Mom: When you borrow something from people, you have responsibility to return! If you lose the movie, you buy us new copy of ‘Joy Luck Club!’

“YEAH! GO MOM, GO!!” I exclaimed (in my head). Both of us have an edge and get along in that sense. A few days later, we got a brand new, cellophane-wrapped copy of the ‘The Joy Luck Club.’