The Wrong Side of Both Tracks
An autoethnographic story by Karla Scarff
This is what happens when you live on the wrong side of the tracks: you end up going to a new school full of kids from two different worlds. You are there with your thrift store clothes, and so are the kids who wear clothes with brand names you didn't even know existed. These kids go on vacation to faraway places and have shiny hair and different shoes for each day of the week.
There are kids who aren't white but aren't the same brown as you. There are kids who come from other countries besides Mexico, but they aren't poor like you. This is a bit strange, and you soon learn that the smartest kids are not the white kids. You learn that even with mostly A's, you are still not at the top of the class. It seems like most teachers are happy to be there, and no one seems to care about the color of your skin. You begin to think it does not matter. Your friends are like a United Colors of Benetton advertisement.
This is what happens: you can take classes like creative writing and photography with very nice teachers. Your best friend joins theater, so do you. You take French classes. And you live in an actual house for the first time since you left Mexico, and your family stays put even when the electricity and water get cut off. You can pretend to be like your friends until you get invited over to their houses, and they look like those on TV. Their houses smell like fancy perfume and not like Pine-Sol or tacos. Your friends have pools that aren't green like yours, and their dogs don't have ticks. Their kitchens are shiny and clean, and their furniture doesn't look used.
In Derek's house, there is a room for spoons that hang on the wall. Renee drives an old BMW, and she swears it's a piece of shit, but it has leather seats that use buttons. Francisco's mom sends him healthy lunches with almonds. Even Alicia, who lives near you, has an old Volvo that she drives to school, and she gives you a ride each day.
You can pretend to be like everyone else, but when the electricity gets shut off again, you know it is your friends who leave that cookie tin with money at your door. "For Karla's family," it says, and your mom is excited, and together you act like you won the lottery, but the money is for electricity, not for fun. But you pretend in the darkness that maybe you can take a vacation or maybe go to the movies.
You speak Spanish only at home, and maybe it doesn't matter that you are the wrong kind of brown. And maybe you do fit in, but sometimes you are reminded that you live too close to the wrong side of the tracks. Like that time when that kid, Aaron, who seemed nice, made fun of your favorite jeans because they are dirty, and you wear them too much. Never mind that he wears that same Pearl Jam t-shirt at least twice a week, but his shirt is clean. It has been washed on the gentle cycle by a maid who probably looks like you. He doesn't know that you don't have a washing machine that works, that your mom is a maid who works double shifts cleaning hospitals and can't drive you to the laundromat because she is sleeping. He doesn't know.
One day, in Mr. Shahan's history class, you are almost asleep when you hear something interesting. He is talking about Pancho Villa, and you remember that mustached hero from Mexican elementary school. You also remember the old photo album at your tia’s house with the man who wore a criss-cross bullet belt across his chest like a railroad crossing.
“He’s your great-grandfather,” said Tia Coca, running her hands across the sepia photograph. His sunken eyes stare back at you. That man who looked like Pancho Villa, who probably fought for the same things is your family, is your blood.
And now the teacher is calling Pancho a villain, and you raise your hand to tell him what you know. The teacher stops momentarily and seems surprised because you always seem so bored. He makes some lame comment and moves on. And you realize that history has two sides, that the train tracks have two sides too, and that you are on the wrong side of both.
And when you wear your thrift store prom dress and dance with your best friends, it is the end of an era. They all go to fancy colleges in places you didn't know existed, and no one sticks around. Some of them travel down to Mexico to Chiapas on a humanitarian mission to help the dispossessed. And they invite you to come along, but you tell no one that your parents have lost their home. And you tell no one when you lose your full-ride scholarship because your family is homeless. It seems silly to help the dispossessed when you are one. Your friends have no jobs waiting in Mexico, but they have credit cards and parents who don't clean hospitals at 2 am.
So, you stay behind. And you know that you are different. Not the good kind of different, but the kind who hardly knows where she belongs. Because up until now, you thought you were like everyone else, but now they are gone, and all you have left is you, and you are not sure who you are.
But here you are. You get a Pell Grant. You get a degree. You get two degrees then three. No amount of books will teach you who you are when you live on the wrong side of both tracks. This is what happens.
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