Photos of My Friends in the Eighth Grade
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).
