Different

2/7/2025

Eve

2/7/2025 06:22:10 am

Tricia
In the 4th grade, I was cleaning the chalkboard since that was my classroom job for the week. 4 white kids were huddled in a corner staring at me- analyzing me, watching me, trying to figure me out. I was different.

In the 8th grade, as I was working on a project for my art class in the art studio, a perspective piece. I liked the idea of being an "artist" but lacked the patience, fortitude, and talent for visual arts. But at that time, I was so immersed in my project because I finally was doing something I liked- a view of the city through the eyes of a pigeon- one page was a birds eye-view of the city, and the other page, the view of a bird flying low through alleys and busy streets. I was working diligently, my paper filled with erasure shavings. I always made mistakes. When I finally looked up, I saw a group of girls starting at me- analyzing me, watching me, trying to figure me out. They were Black like me, but their glares told me otherwise. I was different.

Eve
@tricia I love the pairing of these two stories. Just putting them side-by-side does so much good work.

Rasha
Always half-belonging. Too American for Sudan. Too Black for the US. Not Black enough to be (viewed as) Black. Dominican-passing, but my Spanish is mediocre. Not Jewish enough to be viewed as Jewish (although those same people will tell me that I'm 100% Jewish because my mother is and that my father doesn't matter). Worst Muslim ever (though Muslims will tell me I am Muslim because my father was - except that he was really a communist), while being Jewish and not Jewish. All the things and none of them at the same time.

Eve
I think of you as all those things... and... I also think of you as a fellow NY-commie-Jew, a special little club that I'm always so happy to find members of. Our need, as humans, to belong, to be seen...

Rasha
Opposite of different - the moment I learned that there were people in my family who looked just like me.

Daniela
Two wiry brown girls playing in front yard of their Canarsie home, in the driveway next door three Hasidic children look on

Rasha
Appreciate this image.

John
Becoming a vegetarian at 13 before anyone in America seemingly ever heard of tofu.

David
Became a vegetarian at 39. Still get offered chicken at family gatherings because "it's not meat though" and then interrogated with "but how do you live? how is this healthy?"

Rasha
Reminded me of when I studied abroad in Morocco. My friend and I visited a family in the mountains. They slaughtered a goat for us. My friend was vegetarian. Cue me eating all the things she pretended to eat. I didn't mind. We eventually started explaining that she "doesn't eat meat like Muslims don't eat pork" and then everyone was fine with it.

David
Second grade in a catholic school. I'm 7. I used to get really happy and get butterflies in my stomach when I would see a boy in an older grade. That was my first crush on a boy! I immediately knew I had to keep it a secret from everyone.

Rasha
<3

Sarah
Sitting in the sterile room, light fragmented through the slats of the shades, realizing that what made me different in school would make me different in the world too.

Eve
Told, at 15, by the leader of a bike trip, that I couldn't really be Jewish because I didn't have horns...

Rasha
I think my mother told me a story about someone checking her for horns.

Different

Leave a Reply.