We pride ourselves in our diversity. We claim that success can be ours regardless of our backgrounds, that we all are offered equal opportunities. We go by the names of “melting pot” and “refuge”, yet behind the gilded claim of tolerance is an ever-present sense of racial and cultural tension.
My earliest memory of realizing that I was somehow radically different from my peers occurred during my elementary school years. For lunch, my mother had packed one of my favorite foods, sushi. It was homemade and though simple, flavorful, with a combination of white rice, egg, and pickle tightly embraced by an outer layer of roasted seaweed. I had eagerly dove into a piece, until I heard a shrill voice beside me ask,
“What’s that?” The owner of the voice had her eyebrows scrunched together in disgust. “It looks weird.”
It was my friend, Jessie Smith, who was tightly holding a normal, peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
“It’s called sushi,” I replied hesitantly. “Want some?”
She leaned in closer, until her nose was almost grazing my container, and took a loud, disapproving whiff. “It smells a little funny too.”
I felt the immediate flush of my face as I agreed with her. “Yeah, I guess, kind of.”
With my concurrence, Jessie lost interest in my lunch and went back to chewing her own sandwich. I briefly watched her eat, for I had suddenly lost my appetite. Seconds before, I had smiled upon my lunch and the obvious care with which my mother had wrapped each sushi roll—but now, the pickles only seemed ugly and disfigured in all of their warty glory, and the odor of the eggs had become overwhelming and unbearable.
I came home from school that day starved and in a wholly irritable mood.
While I hungrily munched on some snacks in the kitchen, my mom began unpacking my lunch box.
“Why didn’t you eat any of your lunch?” my mother asked in a mixture of surprise and concern. She spoke to me English, as she had as of late, for she had been constantly practicing in an attempt to finally master the language.
“I don’t like sushi anymore,” I replied a little guiltily. “Can you pack me peanut butter and jelly sandwiches from now on?”
There was understanding in her eyes—as well as a flash of hurt—but even with a great pang of guilt, I nonetheless felt tremendously relieved when she agreed to pack sandwiches from then on.

My mother didn’t always follow through with her promise. She would occasionally pack lunches of sushi, Korean pan-fried noodles, or some other variety of Korean food. But, in my guilt, I never pressed for sandwiches again, but rather took to the habit of hiding my food. I would never eat these dishes with any sense of confidence, keeping the lid on top of the container as to prevent any curious stares. My fingers would quickly flit under the lid and grab at the food then I would surreptitiously take a bite. I managed to hide those little rolls that had marked be an outsider for a while.
It was one of those rarer days when my mother had not followed up with her promise. It had been a while since I had heard the disgust and curiosity of my peers, but today, Jessie had finally caught on to my suspicious behavior, and once again offered her poor review of my lunch.
When I came home that day, everything seemed a little unfamiliar to me. I was seeing the world through the eyes and ears of Jessie, and everything seemed vastly out of place and vastly different—vastly un-American.
“How was the school?” my mother asked in her broken English. “Did you like rolls? Should I make the sushi slightly longer next time?”
I didn’t reply.
Each word piercingly rang in my ears as I silently noted everything wrong with these three questions—the misuse of definite articles, the pronunciation of the letter “R”, the disjointed manner in which her words were strung together.
I compared my mother’s speech to that of my English teacher, Mrs. Ray. My teacher spoke extremely well, and though she yelled often, she would always speak with crispness to her consonants and smoothness to her vowels. Mrs. Ray would have been appalled at my mother’s English skills. Mrs. Ray would never have packed her kids sushi for lunch. How American Mrs. Ray and Jessie were—how lucky they were.
The words came out before I even knew what I was saying. “Mom, why are you so bad at English?”
With my mother’s look of hurt, the sense of shame seeped into my pores, but I tried to convince myself that I was in the right, that I had nothing to be sorry for. I stared defiantly back into my mother’s wide eyes, though their expression made me desire to crawl into a pitch-black hole of guilt.
In all of her broken English, my mother calmly said, “Can you read, speak, and write perfect in Korean? I know I’m not good at the English, but you are not perfect in Korean.”
“I’m still better at Korean than you are at English,” I said defensively. “You’ve been living in America for a while! Shouldn’t you be able to grasp the language by now? Aren’t you smart enough?”
My mother stared at me for a while before replying in her native Korean, “Your narrow-mindedness, your intolerance, is so much more indicative of a weak mind than my inability to master a second language.”
I was struck silent as the truth of her words took flight and rushed at me, making me feel so guilty, so sorry, and so stupid.
The only words I can manage are a tearful, quivering, “I’m so sorry.”

I chat animatedly with my friends as we walk down the hall to eat lunch. We settle down, and I take out my food, feeling starved. The container is of glass, and the dark green of seaweed is clearly visible through it.
Sushi.
I take the lid off of my container and carelessly toss it to the side—I have nothing to hide. As I dig in, one of my friends glance at my food with interest.
“Is that sushi?”
“Yeah,” I reply shortly. “Why?”
“I love sushi!” she exclaims, plucking a piece and stuffing her mouth.
I watch her chew the piece with relief and with wonder. Through the simplest of her actions, I discover what cultural diversity and acceptance really means.
We’ll be a melting pot yet.