"The first day" Reflection

 The short story of "The first day" by Edward Jones is about a small girl reminiscing her first day to school. When I first started reading the short story, I did not know what to make of it. I did not know If it was going to be a sad story or a happy story since the author tone in the book was nonchalant. However, I felt like the story was going to be interesting when the author wrote, "On an unremarkable September morning, long before I learned to be ashamed of my mother . .(Jones, page 11) " I kept looking for clues to explain why the author thought  of her mother that way but I started getting the sense of who her mother was when she mentioned her father was out of the picture. I even started realizing that the story was about a black american girl and mother when the little girl said a word that made her mother hit her and never said the word again, "When I say the word in fun of to one of my sisters, my mother slaps me and the word is lost for years and years...(Jones, page 12)" The word must have been "Nigger" and that's when I knew the mother have struggled with a lot of racism. As the narrator went on, my sympathies grew stronger for the mother, when I learned she could not read or write, it broke my heart. She needed help to fill out the forms to enroll her daughter into school, and the person who helped her turns out to be the teacher of her daughter. It was a smack in the face for the mother. I could now understand why the narrator previously wrote about how she was ashamed of her mother, yet I couldn't understand why would the narrator be ashamed of her own mother, a woman who obviously struggled but made sure her daughter get an education, even if it wasn't the best and top education she would've liked her daughter to have, nonetheless, it was still an education. I wonder If the little girl understood that as she got older or did she ends up despising her mother. In the end of the story, I reflected back on personal experiences, since I'm the first in my family to graduate from HS and enroll in college. I understood some of the shame and embarrassment the narrator has but I hope the narrator realizes its not always about If your parents are educated or where your family is from, it's about knowing where you are going in life, regardless of where you come from.

Rochman, Hazel and McCambell, Darlene. 1997. "Leaving Home: Stories".
USA. HarperCollins.