American limbo

I am crying in the parking lot.

It is a couple weeks into my first year of law school. My mom is on the phone with me as I recount my first disaster of a cold call.

A year later, I do not remember many specifics about that cold call. I do not remember the case or the question or the professor or even the class. I only remember that it was shameful. I do not mean that my performance was shameful, although it certainly wasn’t great. I mean more that my moment of profound alienation, as discussed in Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams by Alfred Lubrano, occurred shortly after the professor called my name.

I did what I considered to be a terrible job. I stuttered my way through the questions and could hear the pounding of my heart in my ears. My voice shook and I remember feeling embarrassed for addressing the professor in an informal manner. The truth is, I don’t remember how I fumbled the question, but I walked out of class convinced that everyone thought I was an idiot.

My mom assured me that nobody cared and nobody would remember. She was right, of course.

Then she whispered, “Un día, cuando estaba en la escuela, la maestra me pidió que leyera en voz alta en clase. Estaba avergonzado porque tuve que admitir frente a todos mis compañeros que no sabía leer.”

Translation: “One day when I was in school, the teacher called on me to read aloud in class. I was extremely embarrassed because I had to admit in front of all my classmates that I did not know how to read.”

Her admission stopped my tears. My face and chest felt hot with shame. The bridge between us felt wide.

Lubrano asserts that education creates distance. He writes, “Rise that far in a single generation and you’re liable to feel hopelessly alienated from those who raised you.” While my mom’s confession had made me feel worlds away from her lived experiences, there was no hopelessness.

Lubrano may be right about the distance, but not about the problem.

To “rise” through education does not need to mean becoming unrecognizable. For me, the crux of the problem is shame. Shame for realizing I got caught up in a moment that did not matter in the grand scheme of things and shame for living in a world my family does not inhabit. If I allow it, the shame can further widen the gap between us.

So, I resist.

Once the shame subsided, the distance dissipated as well.

The brutality of education is associated with the proverbial distance intellectual awareness brings to our relationships. I think the real brutality of education is the false sense of absolute certainty and unwillingness to admit that, perhaps, the forest and the trees are indistinguishable to everyone. And that it is okay.

I have parents who crossed a whole country to get me to where I am now. I have no intention of leaning into the distance my education has created between us. I want nothing to do with the high horse elitism my JD will get me if it further removes me from the people I call home.

My mom can read now, and she went on to do two years of college in Mexico. Her life’s regret is that she had to drop out to work and help her family. I know she looks at me, on my way to becoming an attorney, and my sister, in her final year of her master’s program, and sees her dreams realized. I will not take this dream from her by becoming someone she cannot reach. I will stay soft in mind and heart, even if it creates some intellectual dissonance.

Perhaps this is how I choose to straddle my worlds. Only, there are no competing loyalties.