Excerpts:
When Nina is ready for real school, the choices in our neighborhood don’t thrill me either. Because of the dominant immigrant population, many have a heavy focus on learning English. While I understand that need, I can’t pretend I don’t worry that my daughter’s education will be slowed while she waits for other kids to learn her native language. Plenty of Caucasian parents in my neighborhood have chosen them, are determined to advocate for better education by keeping their kids there instead of fleeing south. I admire them, truly. But at the end of the day, I’m just not ready to make that leap of faith where my daughter’s concerned. I’m not proud of this, but I’ve accepted it as my parental right.
Motherhood is constantly realizing that so much of her life will be out of my control. So is it so terrible for me to see that one of her cultures maybe edges out the other? Just a teeny, tiny bit? If Latinos ruled the world, maybe I’d push things to go the other way, but political correctness and cultural diversity aside, I want her doing well in life — money, success, respect, opportunities, and, most of all, safety. Not gonna apologize for that, though I wish it could be otherwise. I also wish that there weren’t so many boxes to check — and that the only alternative to choosing one is to write on the blank line “Other.”
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