Last week I had the conversation about race I’ve come to expect with each of my young children around Martin Luther King Day. This time it was with my six year old daughter Lourdes. As we waited for her 8 year old brother to be let out of their almost completely Hispanic school, she talked about the dreaded bus.
“Mami, it used to be that when you got on the bus, you had to sit in different places, depending on the color of your skin,” she said in horror. I nodded, making a face of disgust. Then I waited for the inevitable. “Mami, our family would all be split up! We could never ride the bus. Nene and Mana (our red-headed 8 and 16 year olds), they could be in the front row with Papi. You and Lucas would have to sit WAY back in the last row. And Nico I think could sit in the middle.” And then her little face crumpled: “I don’t think they’d let me on the bus at all!”
