Delinquent

​I was separated from my parents and younger brother in order to study with my older sister in the United States. Coming from South Korea, my sister and I had to live in a practical household in Rhode Island with our aunt and uncle. There, I went to E.T. Wyman Elementary, located near Providence, the capital of Rhode Island. Adapting to this foreign country did not take much effort, because it wasn’t foreign to me at all, since I was born in America. The 16 kids in my class didn’t look at me very differently, partly because Providence was generally a non-segregated location. Everyone, for the most part, had an open mind, at least, that’s how it felt from my experiences. 

​In comparison to my past, my fifth grade went by swimmingly. I improved in terms of grades and more importantly, I was in an environment where no one judged me based upon my hobbies. Probably because I never shared these hobbies with anyone. I missed my video games though. Before I moved here, my aunt and uncle banned me from playing any games. I went to school relying on making friends. 

​My sixth year in school would begin shortly, and we had a lot of new students introduced. Among these new faces was a kid named Chris, a short, chunky kid, with quite an attitude at that. He looked quite intimidating. I didn’t think much until about a week into the school year, when I realized that this kid was probably insane. Every day he didn’t do his homework, he wouldn’t pay attention in class, and he wasn’t the compassionate type. Our classmates tended to be what one would consider “good students,” so I was foreign to the idea of trouble students, or problem children. The idea was almost unheard of.

​One day during lunch, Chris came up to me and cut in front of me in the lunch line. How bold of him, I was pretty hungry too. I wasn’t about to be pushed around like some tool, so I tapped him in the shoulder and asked, “What’s up?” with an intrusive attitude. He ignored me the first time. The second time, I was a bit more assertive and tapped him again. “Oi, why’d you cut in front of me? Get to the back, like everyone else.” He turned around with this nasty look on his face, I thought it was the end of me. 

​“Alright you Chinese nutsack,” He spat out, “you leave me alone, or I’ll bring a gun and blow your head off, you hear?” He turned around with that same nasty look. Dumbfounded, my innocent self was exposed to a slice of my first threat in school, a discriminative one at that. The rest of the day, I kept a traumatic look on my face until my teacher came up to ask what was wrong. Apparently some kids around us heard what he said, and reported it to the teacher.  I told her exactly what happened. The next thing I knew, the principal called me and Chris to the office. I stood up, and gear towards the door, Chris following up closely behind me. I was walking faster than Chris, who seemed quite jittery. He looks up to me and asks, “Hey, Sam, I didn’t mean anything I said, just tell the principle I lied okay?” I wasn’t ready to get my head brown off, so I reluctantly agreed. He better have a good excuse.

​Upon arrival, the principal had a scary look on her face. She wasn’t about to beat around the bush, she threw the words straight at us. Chris tried to cover himself up by replacing “gun” with “gum.” Come to the school with gum to blow my head off? You’d have to be an idiot with a 12 inch thick skull to fall for that! I thought. It was hopeless, I knew Chris was going home. I couldn’t help him with that kind of excuse. The principal tells Chris to pack his things. He was going home. I was afraid to go back to the classroom alone with Chris, so I let him go a few meters after me. He disrupted the entire class with this rustling, causing the teacher to tell him to lower it. He then cussed at the teacher, threw a chair out the window, gave me a disgustingly chilling look, and left. That was my first encounter with a delinquent.