Mrs. June likes to start each morning by having us do yoga. She says it’s calming and helps us focus. I try to take it seriously, but it’s hard. I don’t like sticking my butt in the air and looking between my legs at my classmates. I try to keep my eyes closed so I don’t giggle. But most of the time, somebody loses it.
“That’s enough, Marcus!” Mrs. June warned. Marcus was the worst. He didn’t take anything seriously. He always set off other kids in the class. I tried to never be around Marcus during yoga time. “Breathe in and out. Slowly, take a full, deep, cleansing breath.” Mrs. June really believed in this stuff. I kind of liked the feeling of the blood rushing into my head and how I felt when I finally stood upright again. It did clear my mind. I wouldn’t have admitted that though, because we were all supposed to be of the opinion that this morning yoga was stupid.
After some more stretching, Mrs. June asked us to settle into our desks and said, “Because next month is Heritage Month, we will be starting a new unit on family today. We’re going to be spending a lot of time on this unit over the next few weeks, so I hope that you are ready to talk to your family and learn about the country or countries or part of the world where you and your family are from. We are going to the library to start some preliminary research. I’m not asking you to do a family tree, I’m just asking that you explore your background in some way. Canada is mostly made up of immigrants, after all. My parents came from Hungary, and that’s where I was born. I want you to learn about where you come from.” She started passing out sheets of paper with information about our projects.
I groaned. Oh great, I get to be the Korean ambassador to my school. People will ask me stuff like, “How do you say fart in Korean?” and think it’s hilarious. Well, actually I do know how to say it in Korean, bangu, but don’t be fooled into thinking that I know any more than that. We just don’t speak Korean in my house. My parents speak English to each other. Grandma speaks Korean to my dad, but I honestly don’t think he understands much of what she’s saying because she just ends up switching to English anyway. The only time my mom speaks Korean is when she’s saying the names of Korean dishes in a restaurant. My dad on the other hand, doesn’t even try to say the names in Korean. He just points to pictures or says the number next to the dish on the menu.
“Mrs. June!” shouted Emma. “This is not fair. I am quarter Chinese, quarter Malaysian, quarter German, and quarter Czech. I have to do way more work than somebody like…Krista!”
I mean really, is it my fault that both my parents are Korean? Geez, Emma needs to relax. She is one of those girls I never spend any time with and I really don’t care what she thinks anyway, but why point me out?
“Yeah!” seconded Evan. “My parents told me once that I was like the human version of a mutt. I’m from so many different countries! Do I have to research all of them?”
Mrs. June stopped moving and looked very serious. She remained dead calm in the face of all this rebellion. She said, “Class. You are the sum of all your parts. You must know what it means to be all those parts of you. If you need to explore eight or twelve countries, ethnic groups, or religions, it doesn’t matter. Which one would you leave out? Which part of you will you be too lazy to discover? That grandmother whose eyes you have? Will you forget her? Or that great-grandfather who nearly died traveling to this country whose last name you still carry? Will you say, ‘No, he’s too much work’?”
We all got very quiet. Nobody was complaining anymore. There was lots of paper shuffling, downcast eyes, and shoes scraping the floor. “What makes you you? That is the point of this project. You will see from the description that it is quite open-ended. I do not want a list of facts and figures about a country. Too easy, too boring. I want you to tell me how this country or countries have impacted you and your life. Start with big ideas and then, if you want to, go small. This may be quite challenging for some of you, but I am confident that if you talk to your parents or grandparents or cousins or aunts or uncles, you will find something that you can use to tell an interesting and unique story.”
Jason looked at me from across the room with his scared face. Mrs. June had only been our teacher for a couple of weeks, and so far she had been pretty easy going. But today she was presenting us with a pretty difficult project and we had upset her. I knew exactly how Jason felt. Even though I want my independence for most things, I’m still a kid, and I like to be told what to do for school projects.
Nobody said anything negative for the rest of the morning as we settled down to tables in the library and Mrs. Germaine, the librarian, gave us the “talk”—the talk you get every time you do a research project—about plagiarism and copying and using your own words. We all listened politely. I don’t think anybody was stupid enough to say anything sassy right now, what with the mood Mrs. June was in.
When the bell rang for recess, we ran back to our class, grabbed our jackets, and headed outside to brave the downpour. Our school has a rain-or-shine policy—we are never allowed to stay inside during recess and
