My first Experience with the Hate-Stare

     First, unlike certain other Latinos, who cross rivers and trek thousands of miles to the USA border, or else cross the Caribbean in rafts or boats to enter the USA, I was born an American Citizen and was legally brought to the USA by my parents, who were also born American citizens, at approx. age one. So I personally had absolutely nothing to do with being in the United States.

     I was also totally unaware of the seething anger that certain Americans felt by my presence here. It was during that total ignorance that I was introduced to what I later learned was called the Hate-Stare. Yep, the very infamous and intense belligerent look that some bigots and racists in the United States deploy against certain people to let them know that they are intensely hated, and totally unwelcomed in what they refer to as their country.

     Ironically, the person who introduced me to it at age ten, was none other than my third-grade female teacher while I was attending classes at McKinley Elementary School in Newark New Jersey. She was a Nordic-looking female who unbeknown to me, hated me with a passion for my being born in Puerto Rico, and my daring to reside in her country. So in order to get that very crucial message across very clearly, she would constantly scream at me in class for no reason that I could figure out. Strangely, she seemed triggered by some simple question, or by some trivial mistake. Or else, my not understanding English as well as others in her classroom would trigger an outburst..

     How did I understand this constant, seething rage? Well, I honestly didn't have a clue. At one point, her furious, and almost hysterical screaming, and aggressive body language, caused me to burst out sobbing in frustration and embarrassment in class out of a sense of humiliation. At that moment, she appeared very triumphant and maliciously the told this Irish kid Named Billy Reynolds, to comfort me in order to add a gender insult to my shame.

     Yet, despite her incessant irrational antics, I never felt any resentment. You see, for some quaint reason, I thought I was at fault in some roundabout, mysterious way. After all, why else would a homeroom, adult teacher, placed in charge of my education as a kid, be so angry?

    But my childish assumption was soon to be put permanently to rest in a very conclusive manner, so that there would be absolutely no doubt in my mind, what her real motives were. She accomplished that by doing something savagely unspeakable, which unfortunately, involved much more than just the Hate-Stare. It also involved the purposeful infliction of unnecessary and unimaginably intense physical agony by refusing to provide a merciful helping hand.

     It happened in the following way. We kids were in recess and playing in the schoolyard when the bell to resume classes went off. We all bolted for the school entrance located down the narrow steps leading to the school basement in order to make our way to our classrooms on the higher floors. I had reached the bottom and was about to enter, when suddenly some kids in the stairwell behind me began shoving those leading the way causing them to fall face first against the concrete floor.

     Unfortunately, and as fate would seem to have it, I was pinned with my pelvic-bone being crushed against the edge of a concrete step at the bottom and could not move. Then to my horror, kids began piling on behind adding their weight. I knew they were adding weight because the agony increased with every added body.

     At that moment, I literally thought I was in hell, and that escape was hopeless. Then suddenly, she, my female homeroom teacher, appeared standing just a few feet away. Of course, I was glad to see her. She was my salvation! So in my voiceless agony, and unable to audibly scream for God and mercy, but only silently grimace, I extended my hand for her to pull me out, and to my horror, she just stood there silently giving me the intense hate-look that she had never so openly shown before.

     Then, after being satisfied that I had definitely and totally understood her hate-filled message, she very casually turned her back on me, and very, very slowly, so that I could fully savor her intense cruelty, silently walked away.

     No, she didn't know, nor did she care, whether my testicles were being directly crushed. On hindsight, I would say that she was probably fervently hoping and praying that they were being crushed and that the damage would be maximum, and prevent me from breeding in Her precious Country.

     Me? As I said, I had absolutely no idea why I was being murderously hated. It was only much later in life after having been subjected to the same hatred in various other ways, that it finally dawned on me. It was because I was viewed as an undesirable foreigner in a country that I had so casually and confidently dared to consider home because it was the only country that I had ever known as home. That those involved didn’t really give rat’s fat ass on how such hatred would affect me. And that if it did affect me in a negative way by making feel unwelcomed then its mission or purpose had ben accomplished.

     Of course, I was forced to recite the pledge of allegiance with its liberty and justice for all every single school morning, and did so obediently. Never considered it to be hypocritical, since not everyone that I met harbored that kind of prejudice.

    However, the damage done during those crucial moments in which she could have easily pulled me free but chose not to, did have a very lasting impact on my life, and I often wonder how differently my life would have been had she been able to cast her hatred aside at that moment and pulled me out immediately. I guess I will never know.