Slanty Eyes

“Sabrina will be the father, Allison will be the daughter, and I will be the mother,” Kelly said as she allotted the playground roles for the day.

“What will Celine be?” Sabrina asked.

“She can’t play with us because she has slanty eyes.” Kelly was the leader, and Kelly had decided: I would not play house with them because my eyes did not match theirs. I did not look like them so I could not be a part of their family.

I was 8-years-old, and for the first time in my life, I realized that I was different. Unlike their sandy blonde hair, blue-green eyes, and fair skin, my hair was thick and brown, my dark eyes were the shape of almonds, and my skin held a golden hue. I recall that day with such vivid clarity because it was the day that the reality of race hit me at full force.

My mother did my hair every morning because she was obsessed with keeping my appearance as neat and clean as possible. “You will never be that little girl with her hair in her face,” she used to say. As she braided my hair, my mother noticed that the button on the left flap of my dress was coming undone. Because my parochial school uniforms were so expensive, she insisted on sewing and hemming my dresses on her own. A loose button was no exception to my mother’s capabilities.

“Do not run around today,” she warned me as she finished braiding my pigtails. She did not want me to lose that button. “I will sew this back on tonight.”

My mother was the assistant to the president of a prominent university, and in my eyes she could do anything. However, others viewed her simply as a clerk who worked behind a desk. She did not have a degree, but she did have children who could do everything she could not. Because of this, my mother sent my siblings and me to private school. We would receive the education she did not have. But this education came with a price: I was surrounded by people of a different race and of a higher socioeconomic status. I was the outsider, and my world would forever be changed with the realization of my slanty eyes.

While the three little girls ran around, I sat by myself and watched as their blonde hair glistened in the sun. The dirty turquoise benches became my friends that day. I spent that recess picking the paint off of the table where I sat, and little chips became large chunks revealing a rich brown wood underneath the once thick layer of paint.

That night, I looked into the eyes that mirrored my own and asked my mother why I had ‘slanty eyes,’ and why my friends did not want to play with me. My mother simply told me, “Put your uniform in my room.” I crept down my stairs that night and watched my mother cry as she sewed my checkered dress.

By Celine Rae Aguilar