Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich

First full day of first grade began on a bright, sunny day. I was excited yet nervous to see Schroeder elementary and what it has to offer. The teacher was very inviting and I got to know some other kids. One thing I noticed was that I didn't look like most of the other students. A lot of them had blonde hair with blue eyes or brown hair with green eyes. I, on the other hand, had black hair and dark brown eyes. Some of those blue-eyed and green-eyed kids stared right at me. I wasn't quite sure at that time what it was their faces were saying. Everything else seemed to be alright, until lunch time came. I opened my bowl of rice and other Chinese foods. Instantly, I got glances from the people around me. They just glared at my food and me, then whispered silently among each other. I could feel their looks as I look down at my food. Then, I noticed a lot of the people around me grab out what I later realized was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It's a combination of peanut butter which was a sweet and salty mix, and jelly which is a very sweet jam of fruit. Not to offend those P&B sandwich lovers out there, but I never quite understood the greatness of that kind of sandwich. A big part of this is probably because of my background and what I was exposed to as a kid. This is parallel to The Bluest Eye's main character, Claudia's, trouble in understanding what is so lovable about dolls. She was confused by those "blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned" dolls, which apparently was deemed as beautiful and only for those "worthy" of them. She could not see past the "turned-up nose", "blue glassy eyeballs" and "yellow hair." What about those characteristics made the doll so beautiful? What about a sandwich with peanut butter and jelly together made it so great. So ideal...So normal...

I won't deny that I felt a wanting, a need, to be like the other kids. I didn't want to stick out so much. I wanted to have a lunch similar to them to seem normal, to end the weird looks. That was the me years back. I am now in a very diverse community. My high school is filled with so many different ethnicities and backgrounds. I was able to understand that it is okay to eat different foods. It is okay to be different. It is okay to look different. Everyone is different and it's the differences that make us special and make us human. I mean after all, a P&B sandwich does take two very different items and combines them to become such a masterpiece.