This is a story about the worst thing I've ever done. Surprisingly, I was in kindergarten at the time. School was not especially fun for me. The first day I wore a beautiful dress my grandmother had made me it was blue dress a white apron my grandmother had made and a fellow classmate ran up to me. Naturally, I thought she was going to compliment me on this clearly Alice in Wonderland influenced piece but instead she asked, "What are you supposed to be, the maid?" We did not continue talking after this exchange.
The next day another girl asked me my favorite color. When I answered that it was green she replied that that,” Green was a boy color and I was stupid.”
"12 more years of this, great," I thought to myself.
School was a disappointment but I didn't want my father to know so every day I lied and said how much fun I had and how many new friends I was making. I didn’t want my dad to know I was the weird poor kid whose grandma made her clothes, as if he didn’t know.
I should have been suspicious when Ming, a girl in my class had given me her address to have a play date. Ming was beautiful. Her hair was always perfectly braided and it seemed like she only wore new clothes. She wore a white rabbit fur jacket. I know it was kindergarten, but there's still a hierarchy and Ming was a power bitch.
The day of our play date came and when my dad and I pulled up to Ming's house my heart sank. Ming's family had money, they owned a business, and this house... Well, it looked a lot closer to my house than the beautiful palace I imagined Ming to live in. When I knocked on the door a woman who was not Ming's mom answered.
It was not Ming's house.
It was a different Hmong family's home and I realized the trick Ming had played on me. The woman who answered the door didn't speak English and we kind of went back and forth a few times and it became apparent this woman didn't understand what I was saying.
“Is Ming here?”
“Uhm, …”
“Ming, we go to school together at Langlade, is she here?”
Blank stare.
Then out of nowhere a girl my age peeked out from behind the woman’s hip. At that exact same moment my dad walked up to see what was taking so long.
Now this is the point where I should have told my dad everything, starting with, "This is not Ming," but through a combination of white privilege and shame I said nothing. I let my father think this was Ming.
My dad tried to explain the play date to the woman. He pointed at the girl and said, "Take Ming," over and over again. To which the woman's eyes got very big. This poor woman had escaped a war torn country and brought her family to a new strange place and now her daughter was going to be whisked away by some mustachioed guy in a Van Halen Tshirt?
(The mustachioed culprit)
More of this girl’s family were on the porch with us now and everyone was very nervous. I was desperately trying to send psychic messages to this girl to "just be cool" and "please pretend to be my friend."
*Side note: the Catholic Diocese worked to bring the Hmong to Green Bay, Wisconsin as political refugees because they were our allies in Vietnam. I'm not sure who planned this but when one thinks cultural diversity and acceptance Green Bay doesn't exactly jump to the top of the list.
Back to our story, we somehow ended up leaving with "Ming" and we sat together in the back seat. “Ming” started to cry a little and I patted her knee trying to reassure her that everything would be ok, that I just really needed to show my dad I had a friend. She cried until we pulled up to Bay Beach, the local amusement park. When she saw where we were she laughed and wiped her tears away.
(The Scrambler was just one of the many awesome rides at the park.)
We rode the ponies, the giant slide, and the swings. It was a great day. Granted there was a language barrier but what do 6 year olds really have to talk about that can't be summed up in a high five? We ended up having a wonderful day together that ended with a trip to Dairy Queen.
We dropped "Ming" off to a very relieved mom who had been in the yard gardening. We watched them hug with a tenacity you didn’t see very often. My father turned to me and said, "She was quiet, but really nice."
And much too quickly I replied, "Yeah, she WAS really nice!" in a way that made my father realize what had really happened that day and that he had in fact accidentally kidnapped someone for me to have a friend.
While this story ended happily, I am afraid that my dad and I created an unrealistic precedent for dealing with strangers for this young girl. Later I imagined her talking to her friends, "No, if a stranger asks you to go with them- GO! It was so fun! Seriously we went to the park AND got ice cream!"
Long story short, I want to apologize for all the kidnappings my dad and I may have helped facilitate in the 80's in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
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