rioted. Her neighborhood and school friends were of an array of races and nationalities. She barely noticed this until she left.
Her father got his doctorate and went to teach at Brigham Young Universityâthe âY.â She was eight years old when she first went to school in Orem, Utah. All the children in her class were white, all of them were Mormon, and many of them were the same children she saw at church on Sunday. This was the fall of 1962, and the conversation among the children turned, eventually, to civil rights and Martin Luther King. Deeny was stunned to hear some of the other children speak of âniggers,â a word she had thought was like any other word written on wallsâone knew it existed but never said it where God could hear.
When they saw how upset Deeny was, they laughed, and some said things that were even nastierâthat all colored people stank and were stupid, that they all stole and carried razor blades. She furiously told them that it wasnât true, that her best friend Debbie in Los Angeles was colored and she was as smart as anybody and she didnât stink and the only kid who ever stole anything from them was a white boy. This made them angry. They said terrible things to her and shoved her and poked her and pinched her, and she came home from school in tears. Her parents reassured her that she was right, but she never forgot the ugly face of bigotry, and how angry the other children got when someone stood up against them.
It was no accident that when Step decided to go on for a doctorate in history, they didnât even apply to a school west of the Mississippi. DeAnne was determined that her children would not grow up in Utah, where everyone they knew would be Mormon and white, and where children could come to believe terrible lies about anyone who wasnât just like them. Step agreed with herâas he put it, they didnât want to raise their kids where Mormons were too thick on the ground.
That was fine in theory, but the reality was this depressingly dark family room in this shabby house in Steuben, North Carolina. And Stevie had to walk into class today as a complete stranger, with no sense of connection.
In Utah, Stevie would have known all these children already, from the neighborhood, from church. He would share in the same pattern of life, would know what to expect from them. Weâve given our children a wonderful variety of strangeness, just as we planned, thought DeAnne, but at the same time weâve deprived them of a sense of belonging where they live. Theyâre foreigners here. We are foreigners here.
I am a stranger, and this is a strange, strange land.
Robbie and Elizabeth were down for their naps. For Elizabeth that meant serious hard sleeping; for Robbie, it meant lying in bed reading the jokes and puzzles in his favorite volume of Childcraft. Enough, that they were pinned down and quiet. It gave her a chance to be alone, to empty the boxes, one by one . . . to brood about her life and whether she was a good mother and a good wife and a good Mormon and even a good person,, which she secretly knew she was not and never could be, no matter how she seemed to others, because none of them, not even Step, knew what she was really like inside. How weak she was, how frightened, how uncertain of everything in her life except the Churchâthat was the thing that did not change, the foundation of her life. Everything else was changeable. Even Stepâshe knew that she didnât really know him, that always there was the chance that someday he would surprise her, that she would turn to face her husband and find a stranger in his place, a stranger who didnât approve of her and didnât want her in his life anymore. DeAnne knew that to hold on to any good thing in her lifeâher husband, her childrenâshe had to do the right thing, every time. It was the selvage of the fabric of her life. If only she could be sure,
Her father got his doctorate and went to teach at Brigham Young Universityâthe âY.â She was eight years old when she first went to school in Orem, Utah. All the children in her class were white, all of them were Mormon, and many of them were the same children she saw at church on Sunday. This was the fall of 1962, and the conversation among the children turned, eventually, to civil rights and Martin Luther King. Deeny was stunned to hear some of the other children speak of âniggers,â a word she had thought was like any other word written on wallsâone knew it existed but never said it where God could hear.
When they saw how upset Deeny was, they laughed, and some said things that were even nastierâthat all colored people stank and were stupid, that they all stole and carried razor blades. She furiously told them that it wasnât true, that her best friend Debbie in Los Angeles was colored and she was as smart as anybody and she didnât stink and the only kid who ever stole anything from them was a white boy. This made them angry. They said terrible things to her and shoved her and poked her and pinched her, and she came home from school in tears. Her parents reassured her that she was right, but she never forgot the ugly face of bigotry, and how angry the other children got when someone stood up against them.
It was no accident that when Step decided to go on for a doctorate in history, they didnât even apply to a school west of the Mississippi. DeAnne was determined that her children would not grow up in Utah, where everyone they knew would be Mormon and white, and where children could come to believe terrible lies about anyone who wasnât just like them. Step agreed with herâas he put it, they didnât want to raise their kids where Mormons were too thick on the ground.
That was fine in theory, but the reality was this depressingly dark family room in this shabby house in Steuben, North Carolina. And Stevie had to walk into class today as a complete stranger, with no sense of connection.
In Utah, Stevie would have known all these children already, from the neighborhood, from church. He would share in the same pattern of life, would know what to expect from them. Weâve given our children a wonderful variety of strangeness, just as we planned, thought DeAnne, but at the same time weâve deprived them of a sense of belonging where they live. Theyâre foreigners here. We are foreigners here.
I am a stranger, and this is a strange, strange land.
Robbie and Elizabeth were down for their naps. For Elizabeth that meant serious hard sleeping; for Robbie, it meant lying in bed reading the jokes and puzzles in his favorite volume of Childcraft. Enough, that they were pinned down and quiet. It gave her a chance to be alone, to empty the boxes, one by one . . . to brood about her life and whether she was a good mother and a good wife and a good Mormon and even a good person,, which she secretly knew she was not and never could be, no matter how she seemed to others, because none of them, not even Step, knew what she was really like inside. How weak she was, how frightened, how uncertain of everything in her life except the Churchâthat was the thing that did not change, the foundation of her life. Everything else was changeable. Even Stepâshe knew that she didnât really know him, that always there was the chance that someday he would surprise her, that she would turn to face her husband and find a stranger in his place, a stranger who didnât approve of her and didnât want her in his life anymore. DeAnne knew that to hold on to any good thing in her lifeâher husband, her childrenâshe had to do the right thing, every time. It was the selvage of the fabric of her life. If only she could be sure,
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