UAF. 1998. English class.

Question: Mary, did you write this paper?

I'm giving the teacher a blank look, too shocked to answer. Instead of replying, defending, yelling, I start remembering.

My mom once told me a story. She is in elementary school, in the hallway. The teacher is retesting her because 'she just can't be that smart.' A full-blooded Iñupiaq, with beautifully tanned skin and a complicated language we wish would easily roll off our tongues. The teacher must have been blinded by her beauty.

Hesitating to remember this story cost me my credibility. The truth does not hesitate that long, does it? There goes my Guilty Native Complex, kicking into 5th gear, thinking too much of what everyone else might be thinking, already feeling guilty, guilty, guilty. Answer fast!

Yes, I wrote that paper. I wrote it the morning it was due. I woke up at 6 am after staying up late to read the book, wrote the paper quickly and went to class at 9 am. I am sorry I did not go to the English lab only because you track which students go there and your ego is larger than my uncle's last whale.

I don't need the lab. I am the greatest writer to walk the halls of this university! I am the smartest half-breed you will ever meet! But how will you ever know this if I am unable to permeate your concrete wall of stereotypes?

Rewrite it?

I'll sit in the hallway, next to my mom.