Shireen, Edward, and Courtney.
The creaking of our old wooden stair case wakes me up like clockwork. Enveloped in the 4:00 am darkness, my mother yells “mek hase” as my sister mumbles obscenities into my pillow case. A night’s worth of expectation and excitement left me with little sleep as I rub my eyes and make my way downstairs. Each step towards the kitchen is a practice in saying goodbye. Among mismatched suitcases and bags of microwaveable macaroni and cheese, my father is frying thick slices of queso frito and buttering a fresh tennis roll. My mother sucks her teeth at my disheveled appearance. “Yah nah ready yet?” she sighs, as she pulls me in to an unexpected hug. My voice cracks as I start to say it, but she interrupts me with another suck of her teeth and a mug of hot tea. I’ve never had to say goodbye before, and the words seem foreign on my millennial tongue. Our bellies full of unspoken “I love you”s and brown sugar, we packed our car for the three-hour trip to the University of Delaware. I looked at the fingerprint stained walls and gold framed pictures with new eyes and whispered “I’ll be home soon” to the memories I left behind in my bedroom. This would be my last morning waking up at home.
It felt meant to be, the moment I stepped foot on the University of Delaware’s campus; I would be the first in my entire family to go to college, to “Dare to Be First”. It was invigorating, donning blue and gold face paint while cheering for a sport I did not understand, the jingle of keys to my own residence hall room, and conquering the clumsiness of typing on the first computer I’ve ever owned. My cheeks ached from smiling as I perused the miles of library stacks and periodically checked the new weight of financial aid money in my pocket. It took two months for my smile to falter after losing track of the “where are you from”s and the corrections of the Guyanese Creole that peppered my speech. In those short weeks I learned that with every mispronunciation, my name sounds like an apology for the gifts my immigrant parents gave me.
With each semester, I would leave behind the comfort of Sundays spent on my grandmother’s stoop, Eid and Easter celebrations, and work twice as hard to be half as good. I would wear my father’s sweaters when I felt homesick, make waffles for the first time in dining halls, and learn to hide the aromatic luster of coconut oil on my skin. I felt the ache of loneliness, missed my sister's full-bodied hugs, and wondered if she felt abandoned with my absence. The realities of class and culture separated me from my peers; I feigned disinterest in the face of pricey student activities, declined restaurant meals, and practiced the art of shrinking myself when confronted with my first failing grades. I missed many phone calls from home, too ashamed to admit my growing loneliness and doubt. I longed for the one-bedroom apartment that smelled like my mother’s romance novels and the wood shavings on my father’s boots. I reminisced about the years we lived in Brooklyn, amidst my extended family- and my sister’s infectious laugh as we reenacted Bollywood films in our yard. My jaw became tense as I enunciated the embarrassment of my parents’ accents out of my words and furrowed my brow at my own reflection. It became effortless- to forget the proud and effervescent Afro-Caribbean woman that stepped foot on campus for the first time, ready to conquer the world.
I sought refuge in library stacks and in office hour appointments with professors who gifted me with more than they know. In their classrooms, I mastered gerunds and laid bare my insecurities in critiques of famed poets and novelists. I held hands with Janie in Their Eyes Were Watching God and learned that my story could be a song with melodies of love and freedom. My professors taught me about the new Americana through diction and lyrical syntax that seemed reminiscent of my father’s unhurried Spanglish. Their syllabi featured writings of women who looked like me and drained the wells of loneliness with each page of This Bridge Called My Back. The richness of womanist writing brought clarity to my fears- that perhaps I was meant to be on this campus, a bridge between the many spaces I left behind and was journeying back to reclaim. I realized that the scholars on my reading list did not include the knowledge producers on the streets of New York City who taught me that no one can take away my education and that my communities’ survival stories are woven into the fabric of my clothes. Literature brought me solace and served as my conduit to the world I said goodbye to years ago.
Leaving became easier, the second time. With a newly earned driver’s license I traversed 400 miles to Buffalo, New York and felt the familiar sense of fate when I attended my first graduate seminar. I am meant to be here; I am meant to be an educator. I reunited with floors of library stacks and enveloped myself in the embrace of Borderlands/La Frontera and felt the possibility of a left-handed world with my fingertips. I fervently described the constructs of power and privilege on late night phone calls with my mother scheduled after Jeopardy. I introduced myself with confidence, rolled the r’s in Contreras, and learned to answer “here” when asked where I am from; and to repeat “here” when asked “where are you really from”. I found absolution in theories of intersectionality and identity development, learned to recreate recipes of familiar meals with revolution on the menu, and lost myself in pages of James Baldwin’s poetry. My graduate study at the University at Buffalo helped me feel at home in a body that I had learned to shrink. In curriculum design, workshop facilitation, and presentations I sharpened my tongue atop the shoulders of my family, third world women, and histories I unearthed. I began to brush out the knotted worries of imposter syndrome and internalized –isms, and made braids of confidence atop my once perpetually down-turned head.
Journeys home are now bittersweet. With each visit home, I hope to close the gap of class and privilege that exists between my two worlds. My mother will introduce herself excitement, bragging to the cashier at the grocery store, about her daughter with pursing a doctoral degree. We break bread over uncomfortable conversations on police brutality and the pressures of gender binaries while my family links the education they gave me to the one I am building today. I will compliment my sister’s cinnamon colored skin, remind her that she is limitless every time she questions her intelligence. I will study my father’s weathered hands – the same ones I use to type literature reviews and letters to myself. With unabashed pride, my he will tell anyone who will listen about the woman he raised me to be. I will remind my mother that her reflection is my own. My visits are filled with gratitude for the squeaky floorboards in the first home my parents struggled to purchase, reminders of the intellectual ecosystem that insists my immigrant parents cannot have brilliant minds, guilt for my expanding lexicon and privilege, as well as pride for all that we have overcome and conquered. Each visit is an affirmation that this journey is worth it- a chance for all of us, to one day be free.
