Growing Up As A Girl Child in America: Part 9
What did I do wrong? Was my Vice Principal really prejudiced or racist?
I was a good student, but I didn’t want any of my friends to know. I’d hide papers and tests with good grades on him. One time, I changed an “A” on a hard test to a “C” so my friends wouldn’t think I was egg-headed.
I didn’t get the same cute clothes other girls did. The best I could hope for was neat, trim, and preppy. Half my clothes were hand-me-downs from my Milwaukee cousins.
After my grandfather died, life became a struggle to stay out of trouble. Not at school. At home.
One time at my dad’s house, my stepmother commented, “You’re so manipulative.”
I’ve thought about this comment for years. I helped her many times — cleaning, cooking, health-wise, as she’d already begun to experience health problems. I’m not sure she understood that survival and “manipulation” were two different things.
All I thought about was getting by, making it through the day without being yelled at, put down, pushed or hit with an object. College was the last thing on my mind.
Even though my mother had gone to the University of Redlands, where she’d been the first female editor and publisher of the Bulldog newspaper, and her stepfather, my grandfather Bampy, had been a 6-year student, 4-letter athlete, and football star, I wasn’t raised in a house that emphasized higher education. By the time I was a junior in high school, my grandfather had been gone for more than three years. My grandmother never went to college, but always said she’d wanted to go to art school. My mother and aunt were the ones who had.
My father had two master’s degrees, an art school degree, and a PhD, but I didn’t know that when I was in high school.
I completed my junior year of high school and was entering my senior year when an avalanche of school brochures, invitations, portfolios, and letters began arriving at my house.
Nana put them in a large basket, similar to the one that held hundreds of matchbooks from her and Bampy’s travels.
Most of these packets contained scholarship offers, including one from Bennington, where my Milwaukee cousin Hilary had already completed her BA.
Where should I go? What should I do?
Nana told me that my mother had wanted to go to Scripps College in Claremont, which had a good art department, but she’d gone to the University of Redlands instead, where she had a scholarship.
Until I started getting these invitations, I’d planned on attending our local community college and becoming a secretary — hopefully for a nice male boss.
I was admitted to every school I applied to, including Stanford, Reed, Smith, Bryn Mawr, and Scripps College.
Then I began receiving scholarships from local organizations. One of them was from the Soroptimist Club. This was (and is) a women’s service club.
Four students had received scholarships from the Soroptimists, and mine was the most substantial, $2,500. Our Principal, Dr. Earp, told me and my grandmother that it was the biggest award they’d ever given, and I should feel very proud.
So, our school’s severe, forbidding Vice Principal, Mrs. S — , was assigned to take all of us to the Soroptimist scholarship award luncheon because it was her club. We rode in her station wagon. I knew none of the other three students. This might sound odd, but there were nearly 1,000 students in my graduating class and well over 3,500 in the school.
The scholarship luncheon was at a restaurant not far from the grove house where I grew up on Redlands’ North Side, the poor side of town. I could tell I was the only kid in the station wagon who knew where we were going. The house and orange grove I’d spent my earliest years in was now a giant mobile home park.
We sat next to each other at a long table and listened to the club do its business. We ate, and it came time for the awards to be given.
In order, Mrs. S — called each kid up to receive their scholarship check and plaque.
Fourth prize went to …
Third prize went to …
Second prize went to …
And no first prize. Nothing. Mrs. S — glared at me.
What did I do wrong? I thought. Was there some mistake, and the others won the prize? Maybe I really wasn’t —
The lunch was over. Everyone started leaving.
We left too. At the very last moment, a woman ran out of the restaurant and leaned into the station wagon, pushing an envelope into my hand.
My hands were shaking so badly, I could barely hold the envelope. Hot tears welled up and I bit my lip.
Mrs. S — glared at me and I knew: she’d done it on purpose.
But I didn’t know why. I thought I had done something wrong.
I went home and debated whether to say anything. I didn’t want to say much, because of my history with any trouble at school. If I was in trouble, it was my fault. My grandmother was certain to punish me far worse than anything the school could come up with.
I gave the unopened envelope to Nana and she asked me why I hadn’t opened it.
That was the end of my resolve. I started weeping and I couldn’t stop. I told Nana what had happened.
“I know her from the Contemporary Club,” Nana said, about Mrs. S — , “I have nothing good to say about that woman.”
There was a check for the scholarship amount in the envelope, but the letter was just a form letter — no name on it.
For the first, last, and only time, my grandmother went to school and spoke up on my behalf.
Later that day I got called to the office. Dr. Earp, our principal whom everyone loved, took me aside and told me I hadn’t done anything wrong.
But no one explained why Mrs. S — had done this. Mrs. S — herself never gave an excuse or an apology.
Over time, I started thinking about the incident and I realized: Mrs. S — regarded me as Jewish and this was her way of letting me know that in her opinion, I didn’t deserve a scholarship.
There were Jewish students at our high school, but I wasn’t one of them. My father was Jewish, not my mother, and this was her hometown, not his. The nearest Jewish temple was in San Bernardino.
Mrs. S — was judging me based on a bus bench: a bright blue one with a giant Star of David advertising my father’s cousin’s mortuary.
My cousins were well-known at Hollywood High. So was my brother Sam. Nearby Fairfax High was almost 100% brainiac Jewish students.
But I didn’t live in the city. I lived 60 miles east of Los Angeles in a small town where kids called me “Glassy Ass” and “Rubber Band.” In Redlands it was fine for high school history teachers to yell, “You! Glasband! What do you think about the Holocaust?” It was not a big problem for boys to set fire to girls’ lockers when they realized they weren’t blonde, blue-eyed Aryan princesses like they thought, but instead a Jew’s shikse daughter.
That incident was the only time I’d ever spoken to Mrs. S — .
Some kids at my school drew swastikas and hollered “Heil Hitler!”
Not popular kids, of course. But nobody ever said anything to the Young Hitlerians.
I’ll never know what Dr. Earp said to Mrs. S — an anti-Semite that my own anti-Semitic grandmother hated. For all I know, she got a bonus for making an abused girl doubt her sanity and cry her eyes out.
A couple of years ago, I started thinking about this incident. I couldn’t remember Mrs. S — ’s name, but I could remember her every rude, mean look and cruel gesture — and would never forget that day that everyone got to accept their check and plaque and make a speech except me —
I asked who remembered her on my hometown social media page. She was at the high school for years.
Dozens of people offered a story of how she’d stigmatized them, put them down, insulted them, or unfairly penalized them. Black people. Chicano people. Asian people.
Others expressed shock and dismay that anyone would say anything bad about wonderful Mrs. S — .
I’m certain you can guess the types of surnames and appearances all of the people who thought she was so great had.
The same as “S — .”
From 1988 to 1990 I was President of the Redlands Sunrise Soroptimist Club and I gave out many scholarships. Every student received ample opportunity to speak about their experiences, hopes, and dreams. Their names were spelled correctly. They were treated fairly and equitably. Their parents were always invited.
Anti-Semitism is the most insidious form of prejudice, because, unlike most of the authors, it can easily take the form of milder protocol, as with Mrs. S's gesture.
people can be so cruel .. even to children .. what a world