Sbolch

Wikipedia tells me, “Marin County is renowned for its natural beauty, liberal politics, affluence and a strong New Age reputation.” Since I have been born and raised here I can vouch for that claim and have made it myself on numerous occasions. My mother enrolled me in ballet classes, martial arts, gymnastics, writing workshops, guitar lessons,and craft camps since before I can remember. But I am a first generation American, to an Iranian mother and an Italian father, and despite my perceived status as a “typical Marinite,” I have always felt that I am a guest actor playing the part.

I have always had interesting and helpful teachers, an excellent art program, and a well-read surrounding community that makes up for its lack of racial diversity by trying (sometimes too hard) to create an environment of cultural diversity. While there is a rising tally of soccer moms becoming practicing Buddhists and an innumerable display of my classmates’ essays about their community service trip to Costa Rica, I still feel ignorant about world politics, and often unable to convey my own ideas without a prompt. I don’t know if the divide I have felt is because I often have to remind my father that it is not proper grammar to say, “I goes to the market later, Chiara.” Or that my mother does not understand why the children I have grown up with still don’t make eye contact with adults. Or I am still unable to explain it to her, let alone understand it. I feel very much a part of the community I have grown up in, but I still don’t feel like I have learned as much from my formal education as I wish for. I want to feel able to express myself among people that have something new to say. I want to know I am more than literate; I want to know that my classroom discussion is not a syllabus for the textbook. And I want to tell my mother that my friends can maintain eye contact.