Photos of My Friends in the Eighth Grade

Something I used to dream of were photos of friends.

I remember when I was in eighth grade, I had a Kodak disposable camera and took pictures of friends that I regularly sat with during lunchtime. Since childhood, I’ve always been very particular about who I’m friends with. If someone were consistently nice, then I was likely to choose that person as a friend.

Friends were always hard to come by in the inner-city schools I attended so I felt content at the time to take the initiative to take photos of friends to keep for memories. The small group of girls I managed to somehow continue to hang out with (I say this because I’ve always been of a wandering loner) were always glad to see me and they were more than happy to smile for the camera I brought. I just wanted to be a typical thirteen-year-old girl with pictures of companions for once (this was what I thought out at the time).

After the photos were developed at CVS pharmacy that day, I brought them to show to my mother and her female cousin eighteen years younger that evening after dinner, and my mother yelled at my, asking me what were those ugly things. I was stunned because I didn’t expect that sort of reaction. I should’ve known my mother well enough at the time about how she felt towards people of color (people who weren’t Chinese basically but some people were better than others in her eyes based on how they looked).

Her cousin laughed at me and went along with what my mother said about those girls not looking so good.

“Why don’t you make friends with good-looking people!” my mother shouted, “How ridiculous you are! These girls are the ugliest, ugliest people. Look at how bad their skin is.”

“You need to learn a thing or two about how bad black people love,” my mother’s cousin added, “You’re still young so you have time to learn.”

“I want these out of this house!” my mother yelled.

My thirteen-year-old self against two adults. I’ve always kind of known that I’d always have to fight against what’s wrong.

Thinking about how kind those girls were to me and my mother’s and cousin’s horrible and toxic reactions (and keep in mind that they didn’t know those girls, just their faces in photos), had me feeling disappointed in the kind of family I grew up in.