Feb. 5, 2017: Portfolio 3--Being the "Other"

Today I went to Mass in Spanish. 

St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church, Orem, Utah, just after 3:00pm Mass on Sunday, Feb. 5 2017.

Page 1 in the Mass Book for Feb. 5, 2017

Page 2 in the Mass Book for Feb. 5, 2017

               This was the first time I'd ever been to Mass. I've heard about it, naturally, but I've never actually been, and the fact that it was in Spanish meant that I was the only white person there, and, being 5 ft. 11 in. means that I was the tallest person in the entire congregation. 

My observations:

1. I was woefully unaware of social cues, and they noticed. I'm sure they assumed because I was white that I would be unaware, and so they were very helpful and kind. but I was still totally unaware. I didn't know that we were supposed to "give peace" to our neighbors, so that took me by surprise when everyone wanted to shake my hand halfway through the service. I almost dropped the tithing basket because I didn't know how to hold it and pass it down the row. I brought my water bottle but nobody else had one, so I felt awkward in drinking out of it during the service, unsure if it would be disrespectful or not. 

2. I was unable to respond the correct way at the service. Mass, as you may know, has parts where the priest will say something and the congregation will respond. Everyone knew what to say, and I did not, even though we had a book with the recitations and lessons there word for word. There were parts that weren't in the book, or times when we would kneel or stand and I was completely unprepared for them. I didn't know the words to the songs and I wasn't sure if it was just my imagination or if this really happened, but it seemed to me that the man standing next to me was listening to see if I was singing along. It seemed like everyone near me was hyper-aware that they were standing next to a tall, English-speaking white girl who only partially understood Spanish because she could speak Portuguese. At some parts of the service, we were supposed to raise uplifted hands and keep them extended, and I didn't know the cues for when we were supposed to do that, what it actually meant that we did it, and when we were supposed to stop doing it. 

3. People actually did notice me but most of them were totally polite and pretended like I knew what I was doing. However, there were quite a few kids who kept looking back at me and one who kept poking me from behind (which was adorable) and that definitely heightened my self-consciousness, especially when the parents apologized to me in English, not Spanish. While it was not, albeit, a very diverse congregation, I could have been from Argentina or something, and that kind of assumption that because I was white meant I didn't understand Spanish would have been a little insulting if I did know Spanish, or if I was from Argentina or even Spain. But this feeling of self-consciousness is pretty ironic, considering I just automatically assumed that because everyone there looked Latin American meant that they spoke Spanish, and they automatically assumed that I spoke English. 

I can understand how alienating it would be to be in a place where you are different from every other person, maybe in the language you speak or in the color of your skin, or in what you believe. It would be hard especially in an environment where you are attempting to gain an education--to learn something, It's hard enough to try to learn in a place where you feel comfortable, but when you try to focus on something that's not the self-conscious feelings that accompany being the odd-person out, then the difficulty is multiplied. This gives me the responsibility to make all my students feel like my classroom is a safe space for them. I have to endeavor to help my students feel comfortable in their identity and culture and feel like they can both be themselves and learn from me. I have to learn their individual needs and provide equity in what I can. I have to be able to enable my students to learn what they want to learn--to provide the resources dependent upon their needs and  let them tell me what their needs are instead of assuming or engaging in deficit thinking. I have to try to get to know individual needs in addition to common needs among my students.