In geography class, I’m in fourth grade, and we’re working on a project. We have one week to submit a folder with research and photographs on any country of our choice. I take my mother to the local travel agency to get a copy of the “Exotic India” brochure. I cut out tigers and sari-clad women and pasted them in the blank pages of my binder. I hand in my folder, proud of my work and eager to hear from my teacher. I’m looking forward to showing it off to my classmates.
My teacher returns the project the following week, and I see her comments:
“You did a good job, Lishai, but there are a lot of spelling errors and you didn’t explain why you chose India or what fascinates you about it.”
If this had been a university assignment, I would have gotten a C, maybe a C+, which is pretty much how I felt like an Indian: passing at best.
