Hope Nation

by Rose Brock (ed)

  Within months, my grandmother saw government soldiers take the homes and businesses my grandparents and so many others had worked hard to create. She witnessed the loss of friends and family as some turned against her, depending on where they stood politically. She saw the loss of future generations as teachers attempted to brainwash students into reporting on any antirevolutionary activities committed by parents or siblings. She experienced the loss of community as neighbors spied on each other with a false sense of duty to the government over all else.

  And yet, despite all the losses, my grandmother never lost hope.

  But she knew that hope also required action. Hope was that flicker of light when you were sitting alone in a dark room. But when you added action to the mix, then you could use that light to get up and guide you to something new and wonderful.

  When things in Cuba seemed the bleakest, when she believed that she could lose her children—physically and spiritually—my grandmother chose to act. She made the decision (along with the parents of more than fourteen thousand other Cuban children) to send her teenage daughter and young son to the United States, by themselves, through a secret mission called Operation Pedro Pan. At that moment, she did not know what would happen. She didn’t know if, or when, she would be reunited with her kids. But she had hope . . . and a plan of action.

  Months later, my grandmother was faced with another choice. A choice between her country and her children. To be with her kids and preserve the freedom they’d found in the United States, she had to give up her country. Leaving Cuba, never to return, was the only way to be a family again. And for her, family was everything.

  Over the years that followed, my grandmother kept her happy, infectious attitude. Through all the hard times of starting over in a new country, she focused on the positives of being together and the opportunities offered to them. It was no surprise that she and my grandfather eventually chose to move from Miami to a small southern town just so they could be close to my sister and me. They moved to a place where they had no friends and no one outside my family understood them. But in the end, it didn’t matter. My grandmother embraced it all. And through her actions (which included making delicious Cuban desserts, like flan or natilla, for the neighbors) she became everyone’s abuela.

  And so there we were at the church softball game, Abi grinning from ear to ear, shouting about pasta. She was beaming with pride, but I wanted to crawl under the bleachers and hide.

  “Abi, no.” I shook my head at her.

  She seemed confused by my reaction.

  A few people around her smiled and nodded. The crowd stood up and, as they shouted, “Let’s win it!” she shouted “Linguine!” for the second time.

  It was what she thought they were saying.

  And to be honest, between the southern accent of the fans and my grandmother’s Cuban accent, linguine and let’s win it did sound very similar.

  Abi looked at me with the kindest of eyes. In the end, she did speak the language of her American friends. They all understood something that I hadn’t. A common thread didn’t depend on having the same language, religion, race, or gender . . . It was something much greater. A belief in our neighbors, that we were all in this together, and that doing good things for each other made us all better.

  In later years, this singular moment ended up helping me through the hard times of having to move away from that small town to the big city of Miami. I was almost fifteen and had to face the fact that for the first time in my life, I had no friends. I was the new kid with a southern accent going to a school that had more people than my hometown. I had never felt so alone.

  But my grandmother’s example continued to shine ahead of me like a beacon, reminding me that there was light at the end of the tunnel. I found power in the knowledge that if my grandmother could make strangers her friends, then maybe I could do it too. Eventually, just like my grandmother, my adopted city became home.

  So in the end, perhaps it was fitting that although I always called my grandmother Abi, everyone else called her by her real name . . . Esperanza, the Spanish word for hope. Abi had always shown me love and kindness, but on that one particular summer evening, she taught me the importance of living in a nation of hope . . . even if it comes simply from believing in the power of baseball pasta.

  DAVID LEVITHAN LIBBA BRAY ANGIE THOMAS ALLY CONDIE MARIE LU JEFF ZENTNER NICOLA YOON KATE HART GAYLE FORMAN CHRISTINA DIAZ GONZALEZ ATIA ABAWI ALEX LONDON HOWARD BRYANT ALLY CARTER ROMINA GARBER RENÉE AHDIEH AISHA SAEED JENNY TORRES SANCHEZ NIC STONE JULIE MURPHY I. W. GREGORIO JAMES DASHNER JASON REYNOLDS BRENDAN KIELY

  ATIA ABAWI

  Don’t Listen to the A**holes

  IT WAS ONE OF MY last days of twelfth grade. The spring roses were in bloom, and I was high on life. High school was coming to an end, and the transition into the new, exciting journey of university life was about to begin. I was becoming an adult. Ready to start on a path that would lead to an unknown future with the pursuit of my admittedly far-fetched dreams. Going away to college was also going to give me a freedom I longed for after growing up in a household that was fairly strict, compared with those of my friends. This was going to be a journey into a new world, and I couldn’t wait to see what lay ahead.

  Nothing could get in the way of my happiness, or so I naively thought.

  I had already been accepted into the university I wanted to attend and had picked my major, whereas most of my friends were still undecided. Like most high school seniors who had received their college acceptance letters and begun the enrollment process, I let my schoolwork slide and gave priority to my social time. My last hurrah with my high school friends.

  I wasn’t suffering from the stress of trying to decide what I wanted to study. I knew from a very young age I wanted to be a journalist. When I was seven, I even had a small notebook in which I would tape my classmates’ school pictures and write short news stories of the famous people they would become. The kids loved it as much as I did, and gave me more pictures to write more stories.

  Another driving force for my journalistic dream inadvertently came from home. I had grown up watching television network news every day. This was before cable news became a thing—cable was more of a luxury back then. We’d flip back and forth between the major networks’ nightly news programs in the hope of catching a glimpse of my parents’ homeland, which was falling apart. As much as they focused on shielding their children from the real world, they couldn’t, not really. Our mere existence made it difficult to do so. We were refugees of war. That meant my parents’ comfortable, happy lives had been ripped away from them in an instant and their existence had become that of pure survival—not so much for themselves as for their children.

  My family was originally from Afghanistan. My parents grew up in the bustling capital city of what was then a very peaceful country. They were always surrounded by family, love, and comfort. But all that changed in 1979, when the Soviet Union gained a foothold in the land and a deadly war began. The Communist parties took over and began their massacres that would last for a decade—the first of several gruesome wars that continue to devastate the country. It was 1981 when my parents were forced to leave. My brother was only two years old, and my mother was eight months pregnant with me. I was born in Germany, where we first arrived as political refugees, and was a year old when we were welcomed into the United States to begin our new lives.

  Assimilating into American life wasn’t always easy. But we were always grateful to a nation that allowed us to come in and start fresh while our Afghan countrymen continued to be slaughtered for thinking the wrong way and having the wrong last names and wrong political beliefs. Unlike many countries, the United States gave everyone the chance to work hard and achieve success. Some had to work harder than others, but the opportunities were there. We faced a lot of challenges and bumps along the way. Some roads even seemed blocked at times, but there was always another pat
h to take. And if I learned anything from my parents, it was that with hard work, the impossible becomes possible.

  But I digress. Back to my senior year.

  I had already experienced having teachers who disliked me merely because of my religion and race, which I always found confusing, because I was raised not to judge or hate, and to believe that our educators were above such ignorant convictions. There was the chemistry teacher who found out about my Afghan heritage, toward which she had a deep-seated hatred because of her own racial background—a feudal history I wasn’t even aware of, because I grew up in northern Virginia and not the Central and South Asia of sixty years earlier. There was also my US government teacher who hated Muslims, as evidenced by her snide and humiliating comments toward certain students, including me. And there were others who associated skin color with laziness and unworthiness, and students who were not worthy of their time. It was quite blatant at times.

  Although I had encountered a few of those bad apples, I thought Mr. W was unlike them. He wasn’t the most encouraging or the friendliest teacher I had had, but he was young and fresh and never really showed disdain toward me—at least I never interpreted it that way. I knew he was quieter around those of us who weren’t his obvious favorites. But I was okay with that. I had no desire to be a “favorite.” I just wanted to be graded and assessed for the work that I put in. I was by no means a perfect student, but I did pretty well grade-wise and tried to be as respectful as possible to those around me, especially faculty.

  On the final day of our Advanced Placement Journalism course, Mr. W rolled in a metal cart carrying a giant box TV and VCR. It was a sight that brought pure joy at the end of the school year—and a sign that the teachers were slacking off too. He said he wanted to talk about our future and how journalism would be a part of it before he popped the great American classic Citizen Kane into the VCR and then flicked off the lights.

  One by one Mr. W called my classmates by name, and each quietly walked to take the seat across from his desk. As I watched the movie, I peeked at the smiling faces of students sitting back down at their own seats after what I could only imagine was encouragement from Mr. W about their bright futures. My friend Alyssa bounced back to our table beaming. She was the type of person who had a smile that could brighten up a room, even more so after receiving good news.

  That’s when I heard my name.

  I still remember the nerves and excitement that permeated my body. I had always been apprehensive and nervous about sharing my dreams with anyone—afraid they would laugh in my face. Or that they’d have the same thoughts that played in my own head. You’re not pretty enough to be on TV. You’re not smart enough to report on such serious stories. You’re only a female. No one wants to hear the news from an “ethnic” girl. But I’d been a student of Mr. W’s for three years by then—starting with Journalism I, then Photojournalism (Yearbook), and now Advanced Placement Journalism. I received decent grades in all his courses—mostly As and Bs. And if he didn’t think I was good enough, it surely would have been expressed in my scores or in his treatment of me.

  So I decided he would be the first person outside my family with whom I shared my dreams. I figured he of all people would get it. And from all the smiles I saw around me, I knew he would encourage me. He was a professional; he was an educator of young minds. This was my moment to be vulnerable, because I was safe from rejection and ridicule. We were seniors about to head into our adult lives. If teachers didn’t encourage our dreams—who would?

  I sat in the seat in front of him, and he stared at me, inexpressive and serious. Mr. W was the type of man who could witness a litter of puppies rolling around in a box and keep a straight face while saying how majestic it was.

  “So, what is it that you want to do with journalism in the future?” he asked.

  “Well,” I said, smiling, thrilled to finally have the courage to share my dream out loud, “I want to be a foreign television correspondent and maybe an anchor. I want to go out and see the stories myself and report on them for TV. I want—”

  “I’m going to stop you right there,” he cut me off. “You’re never going to make it. You don’t have it in you. Don’t even bother wasting your time.” His deadpan eyes now seared into mine. In hindsight, I realize his lack of communication and his inexpressiveness may have been limited to students like myself, the ones he didn’t believe in. Looking back, I see that he did go out of his way to ask his “favorites” to work on the school newspaper or work on special assignments—but that had never been directed toward me.

  I just froze, puzzled. It took a second before his words really registered, making my stomach drop and instantly shattering all the dreams I had built since I was a young girl. The silence was deafening as his unblinking brown eyes cued me to get up and walk away. He sat there unbothered as my own eyes dropped, taking with them any confidence I had left in my already insecure teenage soul.

  I instantly felt like a vulnerable little girl again, no longer a young woman on the verge of adulthood. Even now, decades later, I picture a seven-year-old with pigtails walking back to her seat—not a seventeen-year-old.

  So many thoughts scattered through my mind in that short walk back to my seat. How do I change my major? Everyone says it’s impossible to do so after you’ve declared it. Oh God, what should I study now? I was a fool to think I had a chance. Is he laughing in his head at how ridiculous I am?

  As I sat back down, Alyssa grinned at me, giving me a thumbs-up. All I could do was feign a smile back, pretending it had all gone fine. I didn’t want to go through the humiliation of telling someone else my foolish dream. If Mr. W, the head of the number one school newspaper in America, said I wasn’t good enough, then I knew too that I wasn’t good enough.

  Let me just remind you here that I grew up in a first-generation Afghan American family. My parents gave up everything they’d ever known for their children. They worked diligently in their new American lives, breaking their backs to ensure their children’s future. Their aspirations for my brother and me were for us to become either a doctor or a lawyer—in that order. Dreams were a luxury in a world where your life could be torn away from you in a second. What one needed in this world was stability with a steady foundation, not frivolous goals. And after years of telling me to give up on the silly idea of becoming a journalist, they were suddenly, and reluctantly, on board, and I didn’t have the heart (or maybe it was pride) to tell them that I finally agreed with them.

  The good news, although it didn’t feel that way at the time, was that it was difficult to change your major on such short notice. I also didn’t want to become an “undecided” as I went into my first year of college. So I started at Virginia Tech that following autumn and was assigned classes that coincided with my communications major. And despite having an adviser in my department telling me that I was a perfect candidate to be a television journalist, I didn’t believe him—his pervy nature didn’t help in making me trust him. I added electives that I thought would work for a more practical minor, which I could eventually change into a double major. I tried marketing, psychology, sociology, and economics before finally settling on international studies—which contained the only other classes that I found as interesting as my communications courses. At Virginia Tech I had instructors and professors who helped me recapture my interest in journalism. Two who really stick out to this day were Professors Dale Jenkins and Sam Riley. Professor Jenkins reinvigorated my interest in public speaking, and Professor Riley reminded me how versatile journalism could be—they made class compelling by allowing us to express ourselves and stories in unique and often fun ways. They never picked favorites, and even when you started slacking, they would find ways to reenergize and encourage each and every student. Their passion was infectious. I will always be grateful to these two men for reigniting my love for the industry.

  It was at Virginia Tech where I was introduced to TV production.
And during my junior year I decided to volunteer at Virginia Tech Television (VTTV). I didn’t take it as seriously as my student colleagues who had no doubt that their futures would be in television. In a way, I envied their confidence. Despite continuing with my journalism curriculum, deep down I felt it was something I would have to give up soon enough. Mr. W’s words continued to creep into the back of my mind whenever I even toyed with the idea of pursuing reporting.

  There was a problem, though. As the years progressed, so did my parents’ support for following through with my dream. My mother took particular interest and had me tape my VTTV clips and bring them home with me whenever I visited them for the holidays or a weekend. She would watch, smiling, and kiss me with pride—no matter how much I had stumbled on my words or gotten caught in a fit of giggles, forcing a commercial break.

  One day she called to tell me she had bumped into a woman in the fitting room of a clothing store in our area. My mother told me that the woman had approached her, asking what she thought of an outfit she was trying on. As they started to chat, my mother told this woman that she looked very familiar. The woman then introduced herself as Hillary Howard from the local CBS News station. My mother went on to tell her about me and my studies. That’s when my mom’s new acquaintance handed her a business card and told her to have me get in touch for a tour of the station.

  It was my senior year of college by then, and other events in my life had also contributed to my turning into an introvert and losing more confidence. I didn’t want to contact Ms. Howard—I was too nervous. I didn’t want someone in her position to laugh at me or ridicule me. I wasn’t in the mood for more rejection and feeling smaller. But my mother, being my mother, badgered me until I finally emailed her.