Javier Morillo

Later that same school year, Ms.

Robinson pulled out a big map, and we're all army brats, and she helped us point out where everyone was from originally in their home states.

And on that particular map, Puerto Rico was this tiny little speck, and so all the other kids made fun of me for being from such a small place.

When I told Mommy later, she was dismissive.

Don't pay attention to those kids.

You know more than they do.

You speak two languages.

You have two cultures.

They have one.

And it was that lesson that really stayed with me forever, and I think maybe why I have such vivid memories of this period of my childhood, because my mother always did everything she could to ensure that I felt not just that we had enough, but there was a sense of abundance, and whether it was arguing with grocers to have all the right ingredients to prepare a feast,

or ensuring that I never felt that just because I was different from my classmates that I was less than, in fact, that I was more than.

It was that sense of abundance, not, you know, Santa or the three kings that added magic to my childhood.

Thank you.

I think I'd say thank you for, in the end, being a good sport about it all.

Not long after that parent-teacher conference, I remember Ms.

Robinson taught us all in a class lesson how to pronounce the letter J. And before I could even raise my hand to correct her, she added that sometimes a J can sound like the letter H. And she admitted to the whole class that she had been mispronouncing my name.

My victory was complete.