in HER words
A Product of My Upbringing BY TIAN N A SPEARS
T
he story was told to me years ago. My father says he couldn’t see me. Where were his shoes that were supposed to be next to the bed, his extra pair of clothes, his glasses? Did the stairs that separated my parents’ bedroom and my bedroom collapse? What about glass? Gas lines? As the Earth moved violently, my mother tried to get me. I have always thought of the scar on her right shin from where she tripped over the TV as a love letter to me. The neighborhood in Inglewood that my mother and father loved crumbled to pieces. Two years prior, in 1992, my mother stood on our balcony, watching the smoke dance with our angels. Buildings burned to the ground. “Please make sure you arrive home before curfew.” She went inside. The Rodney King Riots began on April 29 that year. I was born 29 days later. That 6.7 magnitude Northridge earthquake rocked our lives in 1994. The car was packed, a U-Haul, rented; the storage space was wiped clean, and my parents’ businesses were closed. A small city called Groton, Connecticut, became our home. In 1997, my little brother was born, and just a few years later, on New Year’s Day in 2002, we moved again to Durham, North Carolina, where my father was raised as a child. This beautiful city would become our home. I was educated at Fayetteville Street Lab School. Mrs. Maureen McKenna taught us
O RI G I N A L LY FR OM LO S A N G E L E S,
T H E AUT H O R WAS
RA I S E D I N D U R HAM. S H E H A S WRI TTEN F O R A M E R ICA N DIPLO M ACY ,
LO S A NGE L E S
T IM E S, M ATA DOR N E T WO RK A ND PO L IT ICO, A N D
WA S F E AT URED O N A B C N E WS,
B US I N E S S I N SI DER , C N N , N P R, P RI ’ S
T H E WO RL D A ND
I N T H E NE W YO R K T IM E S. T I A N NA I S
T H E F O UN D E R OF A STO RY T E L L I NG CO L L E CT I V E
WE B S I T E CA L LED
T I A N N A’ S C RE ATI VE A N D C RE ATO R OF
T H E B LO G “ WHAT’ S UP WI T H T I A N NA.”
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durhammag.com
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october/novembeR 2021
Black and brown kids how to read and write in fourth grade. She taught us cursive handwriting. Five of my first-generation Latino classmates learned English for the first time. Mrs. McKenna informed the parents and students that we were not going to have recess that school year. Instead, we were going to learn. I sobbed that night in front of my mom, who, along with my dad, would drop me off at school on Saturday mornings. She rallied in a hard-pressed and resource-limited school district at the time. In May 2002, every single student in my class passed their end-of-grade tests with flying colors. We threw the biggest party. I attended Pearsontown Elementary School for fifth grade. My brother’s classroom was on the other side of the building. We met our childhood friends. At Rogers-Herr Middle School, an always cheerful Mr. Lance Scott said, “Good morning” with a smile. In sixth grade, I had my first Black teacher, Mrs. Emmanuel Scott, followed by my eighth grade social studies teacher, Mrs. Latonya Smith Hinton. She showed me the world, and thanks to her lessons in geography, I became fascinated with travel and adventuring around the globe. I started learning Spanish at C.E. Jordan High School when I was 14 years old, and I sat next to my childhood friends who I met in fifth grade. I received a basketball scholarship in 11th grade and transferred to Ravenscroft, a private high school in Raleigh. That same year I met my first Black male teacher, Mr. Steve McGill. He played music and shared stories of his mother and of his lifetime spent in Philly with our creative writing class. He read us poetry, wrote pieces and embedded his own memories so deeply within our own minds thanks to his talent for the written word. Mr. Steve McGill crossed out entire pages of my stories with a bright red marker. “You can do better, Tianna,” he’d write. “Try again.” Almost 12 years later, he still reads my blog.