Diversity

The summer school program with which I work draws students from schools and neighborhoods throughout St. Louis. In their ceaseless campaigning for students, the volunteers at the summer school gained for us the first bit of diversity I have seen at a school this year : We have a Vietnamese boy.

I had a moment of well-concealed shock the day I looked across the courtyard and saw him, startlingly Asian among a sea of African American faces. He made one or two comments at first about being the "only one;" I can imagine it came as a quite a surprise to him. The other kids, in turn, call him "Chinese," which he politely ignores.

Other than outward appearances, he doesn't stick out at all, just another little boy wriggling around, kicking soccer balls on the playground. I can't imagine but that he's going to learn and change a lot this summer, though I have no idea what his home life is like, so that could be an erroneous assumption. His father does stand out; when he comes to pick up his son, I see him walking down the stairs, and he, unlike other parents, will make eye contact with me and smile, genuinely happy.