MAARS

When I attended my high school in Vancouver, Canada, I did not think it was “diverse” (specially, racially and ethnically diverse). About 25% of the students were white, about 50% were Canadian-Chinese or recent immigrants from China, about 20% were Canadian-Korean or recent immigrants from Korea, and the remaining 5% were mostly students of Japanese, Vietnamese, and Indian heritage. Despite the pretty big ethnic and racial diversity at my school, I (along with my friends who were mostly white) did not think of our school as diverse. This is pretty mind-boggling to me. It is hard for me to understand how I could have been so off in my conception of diversity. Looking back on it now, I see a possible reason for it.

            When I was seven years old, I began the second grade knowing only the English taught to me in my first grade immersion classroom; it wasn’t much, but at this point of my life it didn’t seem important. The first day of school, I remember waking up so excited to return to school that I jumped right out of bed put on my clothes, ate breakfast, and grabbed my backpack as I headed out the door. I was stopped by the fact that I was 20 minutes too early and my brother and sister hadn’t even woken up at this point, my mom had to drive us all together, so I waited 20 excruciating minutes. I made it to school and was so excited to start learning again. At the end of the day, something was odd.