Kaitlyn Cook,
Fairmont, MN.
When I was little I lived in an apartment building in a small town. I grew up roaming the halls and making friends with anyone and everyone. The Asian-American women on the first floor who let me help water her plants, the Native-American elderly couple on the second floor who loved jazz and doing puzzles, the hispanic family who lived across the hall and babysat me when my parents went out, and the African American teenagers who taught me how to play four-square and ride a bike. To me there was nothing differentiating these people. They were all my friends. Their skin color was insignificant to me and I had no idea that the rest of the world around me thought otherwise. This colorblind pattern followed me when I entered elementary school and made friends with the Vietnamese janitor and the Korean cafeteria lady. They treated me just the way everyone in my apartment building treated me: with respect. And in return I respected their different heritages. I listened to the stories of their family and their ancestors. And I respected that they came from different places, but that didn’t change who they were to me. I grew up not knowing about race. The idea of race was forced upon me by society. It’s society that creates race. Nothing more and nothing less.
