The premise of this short story is communicated from the consciousness of a young girl in high school to provide a more personal first-hand account of the perception of an individual who is endowed with an internalized aversion towards her own dialect due to her being taught in a different environment than the rest of her peers.

The Decision

I stood behind the corner of the wall near the hallway. It was the only place that I could get my eye on the both of them. My father was pacing around the living room, scraping the carpet with each step and inching the rug from its symmetrical dwelling.

"Zoya is growin' up and she needs ta' be surrounded by people like her. Black people,", he said full of what he probably felt to be intent, but the only words that fled his mouth were full of anger.

However, my mother, with her hair wrapped up tight in her bonnet and dashiki partially folded on her lap, next to the rest of the laundry calmly responded "Tha' a' otha' black people at a' school. Pencey Prep gives a' a betta' chance at life."

"A better life?"

"Yes!" my mother exclaimed, losing her composure. "A betta' life than a thug fwom the ood like a' fatha' o' an Afwican wefugee like a' motha'!"

The core of my body shook. I had never seen my mother this angry. Her African accent was stronger when she was like this. Her r's transformed into w's, and her words became condensed.

My father's face churned at her remarks, that was the last straw.

"I can count all'a tha black people at Pencey on half of my hand. St.Joseph's High School is more diverse n' full of color and culture than that place will ev'a be. For god's sake Asha, she acts n' even speaks like a white girl. Ya know what she said to me yesta'day? She said I speak like I was raised in th'a ghetto. She don't even know where she from?" he said, fixing his hands on his hips.

There was a long pause between the both of them. "I- I just think that she needs t'a be, ya know, with her people rather than some preppy whi-"

"I want to go!" I yelled. I didn't mean to raise my voice. He was right. I knew that my mother wanted a better life for me that she had back in Africa or that he had when he was younger in the projects, but ultimately…

He was right.

Arrival

It was like a modern jungle. Animals were running rapid around the school. Tigers dressed in wife beaters and pants that sagged showing their underwear. Monkeys that rapidly swarmed the halls yelling and cursing at the top of their lungs, disregarding all around them. Leopards that walked with a crooked grace in their assortments of what my grandmother would call "skimpy." There was no uniform like at Pencey, whether it be for the clothes or behavioral wise. I could hear my mother now.

"Look at em.' Acting as if they don't ave no home twaining," she would say.

I hate to say it, but she would be right. They didn't seem like they had any home training. Talking as if they had only learned English from listening through muffled headphones. I walked briskly through the halls towards my first class. All I need to do is keep my head up and my shoulders back. If I just mind my business, they will mind theirs.

Fitting In

I took a seat in the back of the class. The board in the front read the layout of the period. I pulled my schedule from my pocket and glanced at the teacher's name. The door in the corner opened and revealed a woman behind it. Throwing my schedule in my bag, I quickly turned to the front and laid my head on the desk. "Hello, class. My name is Mrs. Scott," she said. I thought I was being discreet, but apparently, that just made me more of a target. I made eye contact with the teacher for not even a quarter of a second.

"Girl in tha' back wit the red t-shirt, would ya like ta' be the first to introduce yourself to the class?" said Mrs.Scott.

"Dang it" I whispered. I stumbled from my seat and spoke. "Hi. My name is Zoya, and I'm new to this school."

A silence to over the classroom. Everyone was quiet, but the glares of their eyes on me spoke well enough. My body slumped back into my seat, and my head hung low. A girl in a black hoodie with big gold earring hoops turned towards me.

"You got a black name, but you ain't black," she said, with her eyebrow raised.

"Last time I checked I was black," I replied.

"I mean yeah, but you ain't black black."

"What is that supposed mean?" I asked.

"See! You look like a black girl, but you'on talk like it."

I put my head be down on my desk. I didn't know what to say. It's not like I didn't want to speak like the rest of them, or that I thought that I was better than them, I just couldn't. I had been at Pencey for a majority of my life, so the way that I spoke became an acquired taste, so to speak.

At Pencey Prep, everything was orderly and proper. Anyone that spoke incorrectly or spoke like these kids did were immediately corrected. Everyone articulated their words, but here they didn't even think twice before speaking. There was no "ain't" or "nah" at Pencey, and there certainly wasn't anyone running around the halls or cursing after every other word in their sentence. Their words were constricting and grey, but here, the words word free-flowing and colorful.

I had two choices, be grey and have a "betta life" like my mother wanted and be outcasted from the people most like myself or be colorful and in touch with my culture like my father wanted, but be deprived of that "betta life" that the grey way of speaking promised.

I had to do both.

But the truth is that I didn't know how to do both.