In towns like ours, the "news" isn't just a concept...

It's what happens to you and your loved ones.

Heyo. Chuy here. Back and raring to go. For those that didn’t see it, I decided to take a lil’ break post-election. Not but a day after I posted about said break, I got a message from a parent in West Liberty. They let me know that something went down in one of their kid’s classes. They asked if they could send over an email they got from the Principal. Here’s how that email started:

Dear Families,

I am writing to inform you about a situation that occurred in your student’s classroom today. At the beginning of the day, some students began discussing last night’s election results, which led to inappropriate and disrespectful conversations directed towards classmates of Hispanic descent. Specifically, a few students asked classmates if they were born in Mexico, and then told them that “President Trump is sending Mexicans back to Mexico.” These comments were also directed at their teacher, ___ _______. As soon as we became aware of this, we intervened and addressed the situation…

I received word of this Thursday, Nov. 7, two days after the election. As noted in the email, the actual incident occurred the day after the election, when it became apparent that Trump would return as our next president. When it became apparent that those students could parrot their parents and snarl at their classmates. And oh yeah, a thing I didn’t mention…that this was in a class of 2nd graders. Out of the mouth of babes.

Mural in West Liberty.

The incident reminds me of a mural in downtown West Liberty. With a marker that reads YOU BELONG HERE. In italics it repeats, Tu Perteneces Aquí. It is a sweet sentiment, sprawled onto the wall of a building of a town where 7-8 year old kids, in no uncertain terms, are telling other 7-8 year old kids that they, in-fact, do not belong here. That their loved ones and the incoming President of the United States feel that they do not belong here. Dwell on the ramifications of that incident long enough and its enough to break your heart. Or drive you mad. Or cause you to slump into the nothingness one feels when faced with the inevitable consequences of hateful rhetoric echoed and amplified in news feeds and television screens.

Make no mistake this is not the first time that this trickle down of spite has dribbled down from the mouths of pundits and into our schools. In 2016 a high school basketball game in Des Moines made headlines after a predominately white school, rather simply, chanted Trump, at their more diverse counterpart. I remember reports of very similar things happening to West Liberty sports teams around that time. I attempted to search for news articles of those incidents but it was hard to parse out all the other incidents of angry chanting. I mean seriously, what does it mean when the simple utterance of a name becomes a weapon to wield, a signal to certain folk that they are lesser. That they don’t belong. It is streamlined messaging. Codified and simplified. So simple a seven year old could say it.

The beginning of my memoir is an incident involving me around that age and two high school kids. They were a couple. The boy hurled racist slurs at me as I walked home from school. The girl, in joking, playful tones, asked him to stop. “Come on, he’s just a kid.” The boy replied: No that’s when the fuck they need to hear it. They need to hear it young. I never forgot that. I will never forget that. It was a lesson. A cold, cruel lesson on the depths of hate born out of my hometown. The name of my memoir, is an extrapolation on that, and other incidents. We heard it when we were young. Those kids too, the day after the election, when their classmates echoed a rallying call that reverberated through ranks of their families and manifested out between the chattering of their teeth. Those kids heard it young too. I hope they learn that horrible lesson while, somehow, still being able to hear the other sentiments, that they do indeed belong here. But I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. If I can tell those kids, and tell myself the opposite. Do we belong? I fear the next few years will hold the answer.

-C