National Teen Storyteller Contest: Stereotypes
2 min
Tryouts
Elliot Cunningham
Joseph Chen woke up that morning and lazily rolled out of bed. The sound of his mother banging pots and dishes downstairs had dragged him out of a deep sleep and he made his way down the hallway to their small kitchen. The day had finally come for him to start high school in a new city a long way from where he had grown up.
A new beginning with a new Joseph.
He had planned it out the night before, mapping out the next four years - star athlete, great academics, and Harvard knocking on his door.
And so he could barely contain his pride and excitement, bouncing down the street to get to school.
But then it hit him as he entered the auditorium. The hundreds of freshmen who were gathered there like him, waiting for classes to start, all seemed to know each one another. Unlike the others, he was a nobody. He had no friends, no-one to talk to and he suddenly felt very alone.
Everyone fell into a certain category, he noticed. The Asian kids hung out with other Asians, while white kids knocked around with other white kids, but he didn't know which group he fitted into.
Not many people noticed Joseph's Asian features until his last name came barreling towards them like a bolt of lightning, the realization striking them completely.
Joseph's last name originated from his dad's family who - unlike most people in his new hometown in Indiana - hailed from Shanghai in China.
There had never been an issue like this back in New York, Joseph thought to himself, as he had lived in a diverse part of Brooklyn. Whether a kid's name was Chen, Clark, or Cortez, it was understood and respected that everyone had their own culture.
The trouble came with his mother's side of the family in Quebec, who resented the fact that they had been forced to accept a Chen into their family 16 years ago.
Even though he didn't exactly take after his father's family in looks, his Chinese relatives still treated him fairly and he felt he was a part of them.
Yet on his mother's side, something was always off. Although nobody had ever said anything to him directly, he had never been welcomed with open arms.
Such troubling thoughts were on Joseph's mind when he suddenly stumbled upon a flyer in the auditorium. He did a double take and his eyes lit up as he read it : Freshman Basketball Tryouts.
Basketball was Joseph's happy place and one of the only sports in which he thought he had any real talent. He hadn't played once since his family moved out of the Big Apple, yet it was never far from his mind.
That summer, when he was doing all the unpacking and settling into his new home, he dreamt of playing again. This was his chance, he thought, as he tied up his laces and prepared to enter the court. He could finally be relevant and popular in his new school.
Ignoring the stares and whispers from his new classmates, he warmed up and took on the new challenge. He had been told countless times that he couldn't play basketball - and that he should stick to the math team instead.
Yet as he felt the leather ball in his hands, each dribble coming back to him, he felt free. Free from all expectations and doubts of who he was. Where he came from didn't define who he wanted to be nor who he would become.
He might not have been the Harvard-bound robot his parents wanted, but in choosing another path, he was choosing himself and accepting who he was.
He watched his hand bounce the ball up and down, his mind barely thinking about it, his subconscious taking over. He heard the squeak of the ball on the wooden floor, his fingers controlling the leather.
As he jumped up and watched the ball leave his hand and heard the sweet sound of the ball in the net, he knew this was where he belonged, this was who he was.
By Elliot Cunningham
This was an entry for a writing contest held in conjunction with Center for Fiction and The Decameron Project
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