10. No grass skirts on the beach

Welcome to the 11th installment of Misfortune Cookie

In the sixth grade, I had a crush on Mark Inouye, but he liked Christy Calabrese, that adorable squeaky toy that I wanted to punch in the bread basket for no other reason than she being the object of my desire’s affections. I couldn’t compete with her doll-like statue despite not being tall myself, but because I was all legs, folks thought I was taller than I was. Christy was also popular, hung out with a gaggle of girls, and wore better clothes while I slunked around with my only best friend Janet Craig and wore a knockoff Member’s Only jacket.

I blame myself though. I was the one who asked Mark who he liked. We sat next to each other until Mrs. Kunakau moved me, probably for harassing him too much. Maybe Mark complained. It doesn’t matter. I don’t like him in that way anymore.

After he confessed it was Christy. I would not shut up about it. “You like Christy Calabrese? What? Does she know? You like Christy Calabrese!”

Every opportunity I got I’d whisper, sing-song her name, create monologues and performances, all because I was hurt and immature, and this was the best my 12 year old mind could come up with. Pathetic. Naturally, the day arrived when he finally shouted back, “Stop it! I don’t like her anymore, okay?”

Oddly, I didn’t feel any better. Sure, I thought I felt better because I got what I wanted, but I didn’t, really. I was shocked by his reaction and felt as if I had ruined a friendship. So it was probably a good thing that Mrs. K moved me to the front with a new boy. It was a fresh start, and I never spoke to Mark again.

May Day at Mililani Waena Elementary School [circa 1985]

Someone once asked me in a letter, if recess in Hawaii was on the beach. They even drew a little seaside picture of stick-figures in grass skirts. I chuckled as this was just one of many interesting ideas of what Mainlanders thought about my life in Hawaii. Apparently, Auntie Karen was asked if Hawaii had electricity, but the question was so incredulous that I’m going to assume she was exaggerating, or the person was seriously inebriated.

When I lived on the Mainland, a common response upon learning I was from Hawaii was, “So what brought you to the States?” I’d give a generous pause to allow the person time to realize their faux pas. However, if their synapses were under-firing that day, I’d gently remind them that Hawaii is a state, the 50th, remember?

Public school, as far as we could tell, was fine. I never brought food from home. All those Fresh Off the Boat Asians who complain about having to bring embarrassing Asian dishes for lunch probably would have had their pancit stolen in Hawaii by some bratty kid who didn’t want to eat their square school lunch.

The idea of my mom lovingly or even hurriedly making a PB and J for us with a Ziploc baggie of pretzels is something out of The Twilight Zone. Now, watching her deep fry over 100 handmade egg rolls for Larry’s class party is another thing…Breakfast during the school week was equally a DIY affair: Hostess Twinkies, Ding Dongs and HoHo’s, sweet cereals like Fruit Loops, Golden Grahams (my favorite), and lots of Life cereals (for Mom’s new boyfriend. Oh yeah, she had a few).

Another characteristic of schools in Hawaii is they’re outside ~ no enclosed hallways kind of thing.

Mililani Waena Elementary School was your average primary school for Hawaii. All one level, no stairs, a great big field out back for recess, hopscotch, and four-square painted on the sidewalks, red dirt everywhere making everything feel like a similar hue. Same grade classrooms partitioned off by thin walls, two per desk, and having to face the wall when we got into trouble. Usually Japanese teachers, mostly Asian students, and one Vice Principal, Mr. Matsui, who was the kindest, nicest man you'd ever meet, knew all our names, and always joked with us while we waited in the school lunch line.

There was a time when Mom wanted me to go to a private school, before she actually got me into one, probably because someone told her private schools were better. But her attempt at putting herself into serious debt and getting me some sort of fantasy education was thwarted when I was placed into a testing room at quite possibly one of the most prestigious schools on Oahu, Punahou.

Unlike regular Asians, whoever those are, I suck at standardization, I panic during tests, and Mom didn’t even tell me what was going on, so I was further panicked by the cold environment and unfamiliarity of it all. Surprise! You’re taking a test! I’m sure when they called her back to tell her I was a below average kid, okay, simply average, and not the genius in waiting, she was disappointed, but I hope she was relieved, too. I think it would have simply created a lot of stress for all of us.

I’m no model minority. I didn’t even know I was supposed to be one until I read about it somewhere as an adult. I was simply one of many Asian kids in Hawaii fighting, teasing, and playing throughout school. I guess it wasn’t until high school that I realized I wasn’t as bright as other kids. I mean, in a book learnin’ way. You could say, I under-excelled. Part of the problem was once I got into high school I thought it was a colossal waste of time, and I wanted to hurry up, and get to college so I could learn stuff that mattered.

It’s not that I didn’t like school, I did. It’s just I got in unreasonable trouble when I was in grade school and that turned me off to taking it seriously. At least, that’s what I think happened. My English teacher in the sixth grade yelled at me for my penmanship and kept yelling at me while I stood at the front of the classroom until I was a sobbing mess. After that, I checked out, focusing instead on the art of passing notes to my bestie. We tried to see who could string together more swear words than the other. Janet always won.

Anyway, that year the teachers decided to initiate “happy grams” and “sad grams” to send home weekly to let our parents know how we were doing. Happy grams were on pink paper with a smiley face, and sad grams were on blue with a big sad face on it along with explanations as to why we were getting the particular gram.

When I started to get sad grams, I panicked because these notes required us to get our parents' signatures on them to indicate that they had indeed received them. I couldn’t slide a piece of paper under my mom’s unsuspecting nose and have her sign it anymore, not with a large sad face sitting on it. It would have been easier if they had branded us.

So I decided to learn how to forge her signature. Her checkbook gave me all the signatures I needed to practice my feat.

And I thought I was golden, until at a parent teacher meeting, my teacher brought out all the sad grams with my forgeries, fanned them out and asked Mom, “Mrs. Cox, is this your handwriting?”

Silence.

My heart started to race. I’m sure I wore my guilt like the criminal I was.

Mom looked at me, the sad grams, and back again like Dark Vader did in Return of the Jedi, from the Emperor to his son Luke, as he decided what to do.

“Yes, yes, they are.”

“Are you sure, Mrs. Cox?”

Tight-lipped, she answered, “Yes.”

Damnnn. Asian families sticking together one forgery at a time. Actually, she probably was too embarrassed to admit that her daughter pulled a few over on her. Maybe it was easier to go along with the lie. She’s rather good at it. I learned from her. Or maybe in that split second she couldn’t remember or not if she had signed them. After all, it’s not like we talked about school or anything.

She drilled into us that school was important, but she couldn’t help us with our homework or projects. She enrolled me in a reading program near First Hawaiian Bank and asked a neighborhood teen to help tutor Larry.

Like many children of immigrants, we were asked by Mom to help her with her homework—bills, bank statements, junk mail, tax forms, and other letters that went over our heads. At least Larry had an older sister, I was on my own, and groaned every time teachers announced, “have your parents help you.”

Mom did, in her way. Nothing school related, but I learned.