Advanced Essay #1 Spork

Introduction This is about me growing up with a Liberian mom and dad from Atlanta. I struggled my whole life being apart of these two cultures. I have always loved and embraced them separately and struggled when they were introduced to each other. I talk about being with my aunts who are Liberian and how I was around them and the same for my cousins in Atlanta. SPORK The mystical blue fire dances beneath the large metal pot. It’s filled with old familiar smells that can only be bought at the local West African market. I watch as large red bubbles rise and pop. The house is still. The little ones are sound asleep. The men have long since joined them. So here we sit. Round the grey marble island in the middle of the kitchen. My aunt standing tall over the pot, with a pink robe and a wide smile. We sit, skin glowing from the candle light and I listen, to stories thousands of miles off shore. They speak in soothing Liberian accents describing childhoods spent under mango trees in colorful lapa suites. When the meal is done we all get a bowl. Everyone fills it with rice and soup. My aunt pours us each a glass of juice. I eat the soup and feel the heat trickle down my throat and into my chest. I try to hold my composure while my tongue pulses and sweat builds up on my forehead. For nothing brings out my American more than pepper can. I glance around the table and watch everyone easily take bite after bite. They continue on with conversation.I slowly go for the drink, attempting to appear thirsty rather than ablaze. The fire extinguishing sip would not be enough. Neither would downing the whole glass. I filled up another quietly as the conversation stirred. On my way back to the table I noticed the fork in my bowl and saw everyone carrying the rice and soup on spoons. I had forgotten to use spoons! My mom glances over and smiles. Shaking her head. I feel this country on my skin, American in West African households is not something to be proud of. In fact most of my friends with families from other countries adhere to the same response. They laugh at the forks, obsession with time, and capitalism. They teach their American born children that their first country is where the family is from. I grew up saying I was Liberian not American. I took pride in the one lapa suite sitting in the back of my closet and in my beautiful mother’s accent and values. Yet I also grew up with a southern father. In Rutledge Georgia off of exit 32 down a long winding gravel road sits Cha CHa’s house. I spent most of my summers and Christmases chasing my cousins around the large green field surrounding the house. We would go on adventures in the woods nearby and return caked in rich red clay and thick southern sweat. My grandmother would have the a plate of collards and fried chicken ready for us. Every once and awhile my grandfather would come in and give us a long lecture on common sense. I loved how his accent drew out each sound with purpose. He was country with a small straw hat and toothpick embedded in his gapped smile. I payed attention to his stories and laughed at his satire. My cousins often tuned him out. “Zoey here knows..knows what I’m talkin about!” he would chuckle with those sagging hazel eyes. “Right that came on the news yesterday!” I would excitedly respond.MY cousins would roll their eyes disapprovingly. When he and I finished discussing the current news and had ended our political spiral he’d leave the room. I would then be confronted with lingering questions. “Why you talk so white?” One would ask. “Isn’t your mom white?” another would say. I would feel the weight of my tongue in those moments. I would hate it for betraying me. Just as I had traded time for tom and Atlanta for Atlanta it was never enough. Here I had to prove my blackness and hide whatever constituted as white to not be other. Ironically often the conversations that brought out my “whiteness” concerned how to combat white systems. I rarely found the courage after those conversations to meet their rolled eyes with a proud response. I cringe at my fork at the table with southern spoons. I am a spork. Not fork enough for southern ham hocks not spoon enough for Liberian peanut soup. MY tongue cannot hold pepper the way my grandfather’s does every morning. I can translate but not converse. My tongue trips over the words i once so confidently spoke because at the African table i am the american. The laughing stock. At the southern table I am the city girl, the philly girl, with the west african mom-“So that’s why she says ashe”-and white grandma- “no wonder she talks so proper”. I'm told i'm inconsistent by some and they ask… “How do you do that.” Speak Philly to my friends and southern when I'm passionate and a hint of palm butter in my tone at home or amongst other africans...code switching to proper english once around my superiors. I grew up learning this quickly. Saw my mom do it in the blink of an eye without stuttering with the answer of a phone call conversing with those back home. Watched as Puerto Rican poured from dad’s lips amongst family friends, said Sunday when in atlanta and spoke precociously around his whiter baby. Aaah maybe this is what it is to be me. Black. Well read...taught and practiced being well spoken. Liberian. In west philadelphia born and raised. And yes I’ve mastered the merengue too! Woops. Remind me again though...why that bothers you. I’ll admit at times it bother me too. I cringe and hear myself speak and wonder. If it's really me. sInce at the end of the day no matter which word I end with when I pray or with whichever company I share the meal with. I still stick out. Never fully mastered one I am the jack of all tongues.