A tale of two daughters: A True Story

Christy was 14 when I met her. She was the daughter of one of my close friends. A lively, attractive and smart girl, her parents were a typical attentive middle class family. Christy's best friend was Myra. Myra was the same age, went to the same public school. Myra was the daughter of first generation Mexican immigrants. Christy and Myra seemed so much alike that there was no question why they were best friends. When my friend would have parties at her house, which she often did, I would see Christy having fun with Myra and her friends, all of whom appeared to be hispanic or black. I thought nothing of it at the time. When I moved away for a new job, my friend held a going away dinner for me. I still have a picture of myself standing at the table with Christy on one side and Myra on the other side, smiling and making funny faces. They were just two sixteen year old girls, with a lifetime of opportunities ahead of them.


Six months later I was still getting adjusted to my new city and job when I got a call from my friend telling me that Christy was pregnant. It turns out that Christy had been pregnant several months earlier and had an abortion. She felt so much guilt that she intentionally got pregnant again, determined to have the baby. The father was one of the hispanic boys in her group of friends. He had dropped out of high school,was dabbling with local gangs and already had an arrest record. Pregnant and 17 years old now, Christy was able to stay in high school in a program designed for pregnant teens. There were apparently enough pregnant students to have an entire classroom devoted to them. I just could not understand how Christy had become so mixed up. She was a bright, attractive girl, from a nice middle class white family. She had a bright future ahead of her.

Time passed and Christy had a baby boy. She quit attending school after the baby was born and moved into an apartment with her new boyfriend, another hispanic, but not the father of her baby. My friend became a full-time baby sitter in addition to her full time job because she was afraid for her grandson. Christy and her new boyfriend were fighting constantly and my friend would get late night calls from Christy crying for help.  Finally Christy was convinced to move back home and live with her parents. Christy's friend Myra meanwhile, had graduated with honors from high school and was beginning college at the state university, determined to become an immigration lawyer. Myra and Christy were no longer hanging out together, but they stayed in touch occasionally.

Christy and her son were living at home with her parents when I stopped in for a visit. It was the first time I had seen her since I had left to live and work in another state. Christy was working at a grocery store part-time and continuing to go out partying and staying out late while her parents watched the baby boy. It was during this visit that I began to understand what had happened to Christy. I was playing with toy cowboys and Indians on the floor with her son when she said, "Make sure he knows the cowboys are the bad guys and the Indians are the good guys". She said this while looking at me for a reaction. I just rolled my eyes and continued playing with her son. She then launched into meandering speech about the evils of white people and what they had done to the poor defenseless Indians. It was at that moment that I realized what had happened to Christy. 

She had never been abused, she had never suffered hardships, never been neglected. What had happened is that she had been "educated" by a system that reinforced year after year, that her race, the white race, was responsible for all of the bad things that had ever happened in the world. She had been taught that all of the other races in the world were innocent bystanders who had been victimized by whites, and that the only sane solution to this horrible condition was to reject everything that was white, and embrace everything that was non-white. The picture was finally becoming clear to me how Christy had come to travel the path she had traveled. Unknown to me until that moment, Christy had been indoctrinated by public schools and the media to loath her own race to the point where she wanted to end her association with it. She was punishing herself for the sins of her race, for the sins of her ancestors, just as she had been programmed to do.


 A year later Christy become pregnant again, this time the father was a black soldier, back from Iraq, whom she had met on Myspace. She had traveled to meet him at the army base where he was stationed. The two spent a drunken weekend in a hotel room and she came home pregnant. She admitted to her mother that she had done it on purpose. Christy hired a lawyer to contact the soldier and negotiate financial support for the child. The soldiers wages were eventually garnished to pay child support, but he has had nothing to do with Christy or the child otherwise.


Let's fast forward one final time. Christy's second child was born, a girl. My friend is still wrapped up trying to care for her grandchildren and keep her daughter from any more self-destructive behavior. I visited one last time and only remember Christy sitting at the kitchen table texting someone on her phone, while impatiently spooning spinach into the baby's mouth. Myra meanwhile graduated from college and was enrolled into a top notch law school, well on her way to becoming a proud Latino immigration lawyer, destined to lead a productive and fruitful life in service of her self, her family and her race.