Stereotypes: A Short Story

Lux stands there motionless. Mallory and Anastasia run over embracing her. Walking her over to the couch to sit down.

The past was best left in the past. Forgotten and ignored, buried in oblivion, and omitted from the present. That’s how one survives. That’s how one gets from day to day without breaking down in a puddle of mush. It didn’t work to face the problem, to confront it head on with the conception that you could overcome. That was just a fantasy, like fairy tale stories it was unrealistic. I learned the way to survive is by stuffing the invasion of feelings that surface when the bloodcurdling past threatens to suffocate you. If PHDs were awarded for perfecting this talent I would be first on the list to receive one. At least I thought so, at least up until this point it was my greatest ally and friend. But looking into the mirror now trying to focus

I spent the five years competing to acquire skills and experience. I trained five days a week for ten months leading up to the tryouts. I filmed my practices to analyze my techniques. Tryouts consisted of a morning skills session, the competition, an interview, and a written test. I felt like my morning skills and the written test did not go well; however, the interview and the competition went incredibly well. Unfortunately, when they announced the nominees for the national team, I was not chosen. My dream that I trained so long for had been crushed and there were no second chances. I kept thinking if I had trained harder, studied more, that there was more I could have done.

It was a hot, Texas summer afternoon. All of the family was sitting together, enjoying each others company. We were watching TV. We joked and laughed with each other. When my grandpa arrives from work, he rushes upstairs to get ready for guitar classes, and says he will be back for dinner. For us, it was a normal Wednesday. Afterward, my grandpa comes down, and sits at the table. He was dressed casually, and is ready to eat. He gets settled and tells me he has something exciting to tell me. We are eating at the table, each of us are enjoying the meal. While we are eating, I notice my grandpa getting in a position as if he were going to say something. He looks at me, along with my mother. He says,"Karmin, would you like to go to guitar classes?"

I loathe math. Numbers are extraordinarily dull. They don't have any depth. In high school, math felt irrelevant. When am I going to need logarithms? When am I going to say to myself “I sure am glad that I had to memorize the unit circle, I use that so often”? But as much as I detest numbers, they explain who we are. Numbers can’t lie, so who better to tell us who we are.

The low rumble reverberated through its victims’ ears. Like statues, everyone stayed still; too frightened to deliberate on what may happen if they dared move a muscle. Looks were shared from across the small courtyard, everyone wide eyed and shaken. In between the madness I heard a sparse bellowing sound from close by.

“I won’t publish this. It’s absolutely rubbish; even a toddler might write this! I order you only essential information. No opinions here, Norah! Can’t you understand? You don’t have permission to express your fucking judgment. You can’t write an issue with this impact on our society!”

I have thought of a social experiment that to me would be interesting to test out. I dream of having racial extremists from multiple ethnic groups write letters to one another or engage in an internet chat session. They would then talk to each other about things like the food they like, movies, television, books, and just other things that would not give away who they really are as far as race goes. If they ask who they are talking to, I would say someone of their race and that this dialect is not to be about race for this session. At the end, they would be told or shown who they were actually communicating with and would essentially prove that their racist attitudes are irrational and blind. We can all get along with each other just fine if

Once upon a time a beautiful young girl by the name of Anastasia lived in a small village in England with her family. Anastasia was 20 years young and she blossomed with creativity. Anastasia’s physical appearance was very attention getting. She had long, blonde, wavy hair. She had beautiful blue eyes that were as blue as a robins egg. Sometimes when she would walk in town men would stop and stare at her. One time when she was walking to the farmer’s market, a boy on a bicycle was watching her and he ran into a telephone pole! Anastasia did not look for attention but a lot of it was drawn towards her because of her beauty. People would pay close attention to her when she was out and about, but when she was in her hometown people would talk

I was especially bored. I knew it would happen again. Addison was competing in a Glamour Girl pageant, but I had to go. I knew she would win and I was proud of her, but I had to practice the clarinet in my school band. Suddenly the announcer calls out my identical sister, Addison Hand, onstage. She had won $500 plus a 6” tall trophy. Addison and I are exact opposites except for our faces. She is an extrovert and popular and I am an introvert and nerdy. She came off stage acting so surprised that she won. “Great job Addi!” I said running up to her. She ran right past me into the arms of her boyfriend, Brady Anderson. Brady is a cute high school stereotype boy, plays football, gets bs and has the cutest girls in school being his girlfriends.

At age 16, I have a lot of expectations to meet and stereotypes to battle. I am a hard working student who has the grades to show for it. I am the calculus team member who goes to every competition. I am the animal lover that aspires to be a marine biologist. But I am also the math team president who would grab a novel over a book full of problem-solving techniques. I am the introvert who likes to talk in class. I am the perfect debater online who gets too worked up face-to-face to ever engage anyone in person. I am the scholar that wants summer to last forever.

My story begins with short lived relationship, that left my mother pregnant. Other family members decided that she was not fit to be a parent, because she was not finically stable, emotionally stable, had a lot of bad habits, and had many unstable relationships. They also deemed my father as being unfit to parent because they did not know him well enough, was finically not stable, was part of a gang, had many bad habits and, though I believe my family will not admit it, is Hmong. Leading me to be raised by my grandmother and great aunt, both Caucasian. This led to 18+ years of an identity crisis. Although I present as Asian, my actions do not fit the stereotypes of “Asians” or “Whites”. Never did I know who to be, as I grew up as being one

Thesis Element 1: things I tend to say when I’m not interested on the matter

When I was only a little girl, I had been told that true beauty came from within. Yet as I grew up, I noticed that looks mattered. From their attractiveness, race, age, or gender, anyone’s image was always up for scrutiny. Under those circumstances, I grew up thinking that if people were to judge me based on my appearance, that I should judge them the same way. Though, as I became older, I at some point learned that how a person looked wasn’t always in their range of control. A person simply isn’t born with the choice of picking what they look like, nor are they born with the choice of having a genetic disorder or disease. In that case, I believe that nobody should be defined purely based on what they look like.

As I walked out of my nine-story apartment complex, I saw an interesting array of faces. Mixed genders, some male, some female, all very different deep down inside. I study their faces, wondering what it'd be like to walk a day in their shoes. Some people are like open books, you can look at their facial expression and instantly guess what their emotions are, yet others are like locked diaries. You can't tell what they're thinking and you'll probably never know. I shake the thought out of my head as I rummage through my pathetic excuse of a handbag, pulling out my most recent bank statement. Thirty-two cents to my name. How do I live like this? My train of thought is lost as my mind ponders elsewhere. Do you think people can tell I'm a broke