A private, predominately white high school. A random Thursday evening.
It’s “country project” night for the freshman class. DEE and MARI (two biracial girls) are in the gymnasium before the rest of their peers. DEE is frantically setting up her trifold board, and MARI is steaming her country’s flag for the fourth time tonight.
DEE: Do you have a glue stick?
MARI: Cutting it kind of close, huh? (surprised) Finland?
DEE: Yeah. My mom’s side.
MARI: Same. Which is exactly why my dad said I should do South Korea. There’s a lot of things my dad says I should do that I’m not gonna do, but this time I obliged.
(DEE cracks a smile)
Oh… (starts digging through her backpack)
DEE: I tried to tell my dad if we did one of those “23 and Me” things, I would do a country from his side, but he thinks if white supremacists take over, they’ll use our spit samples to enact their plans of mass genocide and human experimentation.
MARI: He might be onto something (holds up a bottle of rubber cement as an offering).
DEE: Thanks.
(a beat)
I don’t know why I procrastinated this shit so hard. Stupid-ass assignment.
MARI: Definitely questionable considering 90% of the school would have done presentations on England or Italy if we were only allowed to choose a country that matched our ethnicity.
DEE: …
MARI: Why didn’t you —
DEE: My dad always talks about our history and wants me to find ways to connect with my culture, but I don’t know. I feel awkward? I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by picking a random country, so I thought…
MARI: (finishing her sentence) Mom’s side might be easier?
DEE: Exactly. (sarcastically) You know, white folks deserve the spotlight every once in a while!
MARI: They really do!
DEE: Anyway, must’ve been fun - working on the project with your dad.
MARI: He definitely gave it his all! He was no help in the kitchen, but he did learn a traditional fan dance with me. Which will hopefully make up for the fact that I had to get Trader Joe’s tteokbokki for the potluck…
DEE: My dad was SO into the cooking part. He really put his foot in this Pulla bread.
MARI: They really do try.
DEE: They do.
MARI: My dad is always trying to get me to do stuff too. He even wrote a petition to have the school offer Korean as a language option.
DEE: It’s like…they have the best intentions, but we’re not the same. And we’re also not the same as our moms. We just…don’t fit in.
MARI: (jokingly emo) No one understands us.
DEE: (playing along) Yeah. We’re just not like other girls.
MARI: Literally. Kacie’s half-white, but her mom was born in Vietnam. Her presentation tonight is on a whole other level.
DEE: True. But your dad makes you different in an interesting way! Historically, white men have always gone after women of color, right? Your family is switchin it up - which is cool!
MARI: If by “gone after” you mean “tried to dominate,” then…sure? I guess that makes you cool too.
DEE: Nah, Black men marrying white women is way more common now than the other way around. Like, haven’t you noticed Rocky is the only mixed girl in our grade with a Black mom - and her dad isn’t even white!
MARI: Wait…
You’re right?!
DEE: Yup. So, that means not only do I not know how to do my hair…I’m also nothing special.
MARI: Okay / that’s not true.
DEE: I’m just saying! Sometimes, I feel like non-white daughters with non-white dads kiiiiinda get the short end of the stick. They say culture is passed down through the mother, you know.
MARI: I don’t know. I think dads can do it too.
(Offstage) DEE’S DAD: Deandra!! Get back here and help your mother with this big-ass
sauna thing.
DEE: I guess they have their ways.
If you made it this far, thanks for being here! Your reward is an embarrassing photo of high school emma and her (amazing) dad 👍🏼
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