Friday, October 26, 2018

We Are the Vessels of Our Stories: Recording My Grandma's Stories So They May Exist Outside of Her

I felt very lucky tonight. My mom, daughter, and I all went to visit my grandma whose health has been declining more once again, and this time it sounds dire. She has endured a series of incidences for years now, most recently suffering a stroke, which has limited her ability to eat, drink, and speak well. But, tonight, while garbled, she was in a talking mood.

My grandma is the relative I've always felt most like. We joke in my family that, while we come from a strong line of women, the aspect of "girliness" skips generations. My mom always seemed disappointed that I didn't want to wear dresses and makeup; but, she at last found good company with my daughter who shares her interest in fashion.

For me, I've always felt an affinity for basic styles like my grandma. I feel like we share a love for simplicity and practicality. Tonight, she told us how her mom, my great-grandma, used to think she was too much of a tomboy. Her mom was concerned about looks and would do things like shave my grandma's arms and legs since she was a hairy child. This once again supports the theory about beauty-obsession skipping generations!

Regarding her tomboyishness, though, my grandma says she couldn't help it because she was sandwiched between two older brothers and two younger brothers before another girl was born. She would hang out with her brothers and they would let her tag along as long as she promised not to cry.

These memories of her childhood, they come from the period before her whole family was sent away to Poston. As a child, my grandma grew up with her family on a farm in El Centro in the Central Valley. Tonight, she shared how her brothers would go swimming in a canal and her job was to keep watch since they weren't supposed to swim in the water meant for drinking. If she spotted someone coming, she would yell, "The man is coming!" and her brothers would get out of the water before getting caught.

The whole concept of water during this time period is so hard for me to imagine given the privileged plumbing I enjoy. At their home, my grandma explained that there was a pond they used for water for things like washing clothes and drinking. The pond would run out, though, and so her mom would order more water "by the foot" and it would get delivered to refill the pond. Apparently, my great-grandma used to wash clothes by hand until her hands bled. For drinking, there was some sort of filtering system, and as far as toilets, it was just an outhouse.

Life on the farm was hard work, but happy memories my grandma shares seem to often center around animals. As long as I've known my grandma, she has been both a dog lover and the most loved by all dogs. In the past, my grandma talked about her family's mules, but tonight she spoke mostly of the dogs. She told the story about how she once fell asleep under her house. Her family was worried when they couldn't find her and looked all over when she was right underneath them all that time, sleeping snuggled up with a puppy.

When it came to going to school, it was a dog once again that was always by my grandma's side. Every morning, she says that their German Shepherd would walk her to the bus stop, a distance she estimates was about a half-mile. After seeing her off, the dog would return home. But, it would go back every afternoon on its own to meet her at the same bus stop to accompany her home. She would give the dog a piece of bread when they arrived at the house and it would be so happy.

The dog was so loyal that, even when they were sent to the incarceration camps and had to give it away to a neighbor, it would apparently go looking for them at their old home. It is a story similar to the mules returning to their stalls and so I tried to confirm that all of these animals - the dog and the mules - were really returning in search of their old home and family. I started to wonder if my grandma's memories could be getting jumbled together; although, there is no way she could have even known back then since it would have all been secondhand stories reported to her from neighbors.

Fortunately, it does seem like my grandma's family had some neighbors who extended kindness during the War. For instance, there were people who stored some of the family's belongings and supposedly kept them safe during the forced incarceration. The article of proof we have of this safekeeping is my grandma's Ochigo headpiece, which my own daughter got to wear just a couple of years ago.

Another gesture of kindness that my grandma recalls is when the library staff in Poston gave her a birthday cake for her 18th birthday. (Yes, it turns out my grandma had worked in a library like me!) She was so excited to share it with her family that she ran to show her parents, only to learn that her father was in the camp hospital. He had suffered a heart attack and ended up dying on her birthday, the reason why she never enjoyed celebrating her birthday moving forward.

My grandma has said in the past that maybe her father's heart attack was caused by stress over losing the farm since he died so soon after they had been forced from their home and livelihood. The one thing that seems certain is that he adored her, just as her mom did, too. She explains that she was her mom's "puppy," and given my grandma's love for dogs, this is a treasured role. Of course, she justifies that her parents depended on her and that she always said yes and never said no to them. She was loyal, indeed just like a puppy.

Compliance, however, seems to have limited her in other ways. She remarked how her own mom got to go back to Japan two times to visit. But, having been born in the United States, she never got to go once. I can tell my mom is saddened by this trip that my grandma will never get to go on, and she tells my grandma how she would have certainly taken her if she had known that she wanted to go. Why didn't my grandma voice this desire? I guess my grandma did have plans at one time to travel to Japan with her sister Kik, but those plans fell through when her husband, my grandpa, got diagnosed with cancer. After he died, she says she just didn't care anymore.

As my mom, my daughter, and I all sat next to my grandma tonight - four generations of women spanning in age from 95 to 8 years old - all I could feel was gratitude for getting to hear these stories. Some of them I've heard before and forgotten to different degrees. Some were brand new to me. Still, I can't help but wonder how many other stories remain that I will never get to hear.

Before we said goodbye for the night, my grandma remarked with a sense of wonder something along the lines of, "I guess this old lady has been through some difficult times." She explained how she made it through growing up on the farm and going to camp. A specific memory surfaced about having to wait in long lines in the unbearable heat for food. It was so hot that she thought they would die while standing, carrying a plate, a fork, a knife, and a spoon. The worst part was, when they finally got their food, it was - and she paused a bit indicating her disappointment - "corned beef and cabbage."

My mom perked up to have caught another new detail escape from my grandma that she had never heard before. It is another story that I am grateful to know, one more piece of my grandma's past that helps me imagine her life and my history. We were so in the moment of listening that we did not record her words on our phones and we did not attempt to write. All of that activity would have likely made her self-conscious and taken away our attention as listeners, as well.

Of course, the moment that my mom, daughter, and I stepped outside my grandma's house, we all agreed that we needed to write down as much as possible before we forget. And so, this is my attempt to record the stories that my grandma shared tonight, so that they may survive outside of her and beyond us.

Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Why Don't They (Just) ____?: Dropping "Just" and Seeking to Understand

Asking As A Parent

With two school-age children of my own, I have often heard complaints among parents in the vein of "Why don't they just ____?," where "they" are the school, the teacher, the principal, etc. I myself have been guilty of these exasperations:
  • Why don't they just email us this information? 
  • Why don't they just put this on the school website? 
  • Why don't they just print this for us?
Working in a public school, though, I realize that the answers are often not so simple. It's not always a matter of "just."

Why don't they email? Probably time. Teachers don't have a whole marketing or communications department on their side. It is just them, doing it all, and chances are high that it's all alone and on top of all of their other core responsibilities.

Why don't they put this on the website? It could be time (see above). It could be that the school's web host was down. It could be a matter of who has editing access and if that person is available (see above regarding time).

Why don't they print out this form or that packet? It could be time (see above). There may be no paper allowance available or the toner is out and there is no budget for more. Or, the machine could be broken... yet again.

Is there room for improvement and should educators strive to improve? Of course! Always! But, as a parent, I try to regularly replace "just" with a little understanding.

Asking As An Educator

Parents aren't the only ones guilty of asking "just" questions. Working at a school, I will hear staff members similarly question, "Why don't they just ____?" about students and parents. For instance, while managing Chromebooks for our district's 1:1 implementation, questions arise such as the following:
  • Why don't they just charge their Chromebook at night?
  • Why don't they just write a better explanation about how they broke their Chromebook?
  • Why don't they just buy Chromebook insurance on the website?
Over the past four years of helping with Chromebooks, though, I have encountered circumstances that convince me that it is similarly not always a matter of "just." In fact, my recent experience with a parent crystallized this for me.

To provide some context, managing Chromebooks is a lot of work. Helping students and parents with Chromebook insurance is just one element of management and it alone causes extra work at the beginning of the school year while the purchasing window is open. The recommended method for families to purchase insurance is online; but, even with this self-service process, parents often call or email for help figuring out what information they should enter on the online form.

Why don't they know what to put on the form? Obviously, they don't live and breathe Chromebooks like those of us who manage them, and so it makes sense. It's tedious, but it is understandable.

If families don't use the online option, there's another layer of frustration since the paper form process causes an extra burden of work. We must still help with figuring out what information should be entered on the paper form. In addition, we must make copies of forms for the parent and the school, add notes to our online circulation system, package and mail forms and checks to the district, and double-check that submissions have been received and processed. So...

Why don't they buy Chromebook insurance on the website? Some families may not have wifi access at home. Some families may not have the ability to make online payments. Or, my recent experience opened my eyes to another reason I had not considered.

Asking Because Of A Parent

It started off with a phone call from the front office. There was a parent who wanted to purchase insurance and needed help. It was after my official workday was over and I was tired out, but I took a deep breath and explained the process and the fact that payment needed to be made by check. The parent did not have their checkbook with them and so we resolved to connect the next day.

By the end of the next day, I had long forgotten about the parent until the library door opened and in they walked with a checkbook in hand. Spotting the checkbook, I knew right away why they were there and so I went to get the paper insurance form and printout with the student's Chromebook information that I had set aside the day before due to the phone call.

I handed the paperwork to the parent and then they leaned in and whispered, "I can't read or write." It must have been clear that the words didn't fully register with me upon the first utterance and so they repeated, "I can't read or write."

Why didn't they buy Chromebook insurance on the website? Because they're illiterate.

After processing what this meant in terms of completing the transaction, I quickly shifted gears to help fill out as many of the paper form fields as possible, all while explaining what I was writing: Chromebook model, serial number, and so forth. For fields that required personal information, the parent was able to write in the basics that they've surely mastered to memory over the years.

The point that really made me pause, though, was when it came to the parent writing a check for payment. I pointed out the payee so that they could copy it. I confirmed which plan they wanted and specified the corresponding payment amount required. They wrote the numbers in the box on the check, and then they unfolded a scrap of paper from their wallet with a handwritten reference chart for how to write out numbers in word form: twenty, thirty, forty, etc.

The parent found the words that matched with the corresponding numbers and then copied them to the check. They clearly had their system to navigate through the world, and any previous feelings of impatience I had slunk away. 

I finished up the transaction with the parent and wrote down my contact information in case they had any further questions. Of course, now it is my own questions that keep bubbling up.
  • How did the parent learn about the option to purchase insurance? It sounded like the child had perhaps told them. Although, the parent also mentioned that their child is "not always the most responsible" and so it is necessary to remind them about things a lot.
  • How challenging might it be to rely on a child for decoding the written world while still parenting that child?
  • How many times do I not consider barriers to entry that may exist? As often as they are outside of my own experience. In this case, it took the parent making themself vulnerable to expand my awareness.
As I filed away a copy of the insurance registration paper form, I noted the two sets of handwriting: mine and that of the parent. When it came to filling out the form, I was helping them. But, as I picture the juxtaposition, I am left thinking of how the parent helped me. 

They reminded me about the importance of striking "just" from my questions and truly pausing to ask, "Why don't they ____?" 

If I am open to the full explanations for these questions, then perhaps I can make changes so that "they will ____." Or, in the least, I might at least understand why not.