My yearbook pic, Circa 1998
This Thanksgiving I was in a reflective mood. Of course the day says it all “Thanksgiving”. I’ve always been thankful, but for some reason this Thanksgiving took me on an interesting journey. I journeyed along paths that I hadn’t been on in years. Paths that made me realize now how blessed I am. Paths that had faded with life, concealed, colored sepia like old pictures.
It was the image of my high school’s Annual Award Ceremony that stuck with me. Images that were snapped over a decade ago. I was twelve, then thirteen, then fourteen, then fifteen, then sixteen. Five years of images. All superimposed. Prizes and certificates were given to the brightest and most talented students. Although this was Jamaica, I still knew then that it was America’s Thanksgiving Day because I sought escape in cable television. I watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade religiously every year as I ironed my school uniform. The Award Ceremony started at 2pm. I would get there early to line up with my class. All the girls giddy with excitement as if we were preparing for the Academy Awards and were nominated.
Dressed in my pressed uniform, my hair neatly combed, every strand in place, I would watch girls in my class and from different grades go up to take their prizes on stage. The prizes were Best Student, Most Improved, Service, Excellence, etc. None of which I was ever awarded. The girls who were awarded these prizes got to shake the principal’s hand and stood in place to have their pictures snapped. Their shoulder length hair bouncing, loose ironed curls cascading. I watched them happily bounce back to their assigned seating, certificate in hand, smiles on their faces. Their necks acquired a certain tilt, bending their heads backwards, noses up in the air. They were destined for college, destined for top scores on the CXC’s, the A-Levels. They were even destined for the coveted opportunity to take the American exam, the SAT’s where they could apply for colleges like Swarthmore, Wesleyan, Vassar, Middlebury.
"Only girls like that get to go somewhere," said Althea, a fellow average student who sat with me in the back. "We'll never be on their level, so get used to this," she said to me. She kissed her teeth and rolled her eyes. Her words were like a slap in the face. Tears stung my eyes when she said it in response to me telling her that I would love to receive a prize the following year. I had never felt so infuriated, so resentful, so angry, so defeated. Althea must have felt the same.
Of course, I sat at this Award Ceremony every year wondering if I would ever be nominated for a prize. How did the teachers choose the nominees? Year after year I would study hard and do well on exams, yet I never got nominated. Never got a chance to shake the principal’s hand. Never had my picture snapped. Yet, I always showed up. Always had my hair in place, uniform ironed, shoes polished as if I were nominated. It was mandatory that average students show up. It was mandatory that we pretend to show our support by being on our best behavior. It was mandatory that we have smiles pasted to our faces and applause handy for when a lucky classmate, always the same set of girls, gets her award. Maybe Althea was right after all. In the back of my mind I wondered if this was how life would be. Smiles and applause meant for others.
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade floated on one year and I was late for the Award Ceremony. By then I had come to the conclusion that I’d never mount to excellence in my school, in my home country for that matter. I’d always be considered average or not good enough. Like Althea I would begin to give up. Begin to accept my fate as a "dunce darky". The British system kicked my ass and my self-esteem to a pulp. I couldn’t even look in the mirror without feeling ugly, because I wasn’t light enough, my hair wasn’t long enough, my parents were working class, I wasn’t smart enough. Just average. So I was late on purpose. Got my first detention because of it. But I didn’t care. At least I got to see the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade in its entirety. America inspired me.
The day came when I decided not to show up to the Award Ceremony altogether. I was sixteen and fed up. Tired of seeing certain girls get prizes. Tired of being a good sport about it, because deep down something told me I’m great and just as worthy. To this day I can’t tell you where that voice came from, but it incited me to march to my mother and give her an ultimatum. Did I say I was only sixteen? “I will never make it if I stay in this damn country,” I said to her. She looked at me for what seemed like an eternity. I used the word “damn”. She hated when we swear. Yet, it was something else that silenced her. Something else that she saw rising within me. My growing frustration. “OK,” she said very slowly. “I’ll call your father.”
The next day I was called into my mother’s room. I learned that I would never be subjected to another Award Ceremony. I learned that day that I would be migrating to America in the summer to live with my father and start college. I learned that day that my mother had thought long and hard about this. I would finally get a chance to see the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in real life.
My freshman year of college I reveled in the opportunity of living in a country that doesn’t see me as “average”. My first semester in college I got straight A’s. My second semester I won an academic scholarship. My second year I made the Dean’s List. Four times. Little ‘ole me. The one who never once got nominated in high school for a piece of paper or a handshake that promised to validate my excellence. I was having a ball in college. In college I learned I’m a brilliant writer. Something that I was discouraged from in high school after an English teacher read my college essay and said it was crap. Said the Queen wouldn't be happy with such colloquial terms. Fuck the Queen, I thought. Uhm…excuse me miss, but I got into Cornell University with that letter. Thank you very much.
At my Cornell graduation my mother flew up from Jamaica. She had a certificate in hand. “What’s this?” I asked her. “I forgot to give this to you.” She presented it to me in a large brown envelop. I opened it and read the certificate out loud. “St. Andrew High School for Girls, class 6R, student nominated for academic excellence and service.” I couldn’t believe what I was reading. The certificate was issued a few months after I migrated in June, 1999. My graduation from college was in 2003. Four years had past. Had I gotten it years before when I was in high school, I would’ve probably not felt I needed to migrate to America to be validated. To have my gifts be recognized. But I did. And I’m glad I did. I didn't get a certificate then, yet I pushed forward. I achieved what I set out to achieve because deep down I knew I could. I learned in the process that no one or nothing can make me feel worthy but me. I may not have been nominated for excellence in high school, or felt I couldn't accomplish anything; but God worked it out that today, at this very moment, I am blessed. And have accomplished a lot. So far. For this I give thanks.
If Althea could see me now. I would give her a hug. I would say to her girl, thank you. "Only girls like that get to go somewhere," Althea had said to me then. But I would let her know now that she is worthy to succeed. That she has always been that girl. Worthy.
Me today, Circa November 24, 2011
Nicole
You know that girl who good things always happen to? Yeah, the one in high school who got voted prom queen and valedictorian? The one with the easy smile who had everyone kissing the ground she walked on?
