Gifts of Passage / Santha Rama Rau
Word Count: 258
Parker Greene
Gifts of Passage / Santha Rama Rau
" Premila said, 'We had our test today, and She made me and the other Indians sit at the back of the room, with a desk between each one.' Mother said, 'Why was that, darling?' 'She said it was because Indians cheat,' Premila added. 'So I don't think we should go back to that school.' " (pg. 676)
Santha Rama Rau first talks about her childhood some in her narrative and she talks about her struggles she had to face. The quote above is of an encounter with Santha Rama Rau, her sister Premila, and her Mother where we see that they are being treated a certain way just based off of their race. Santha Rama Rau has to understand that this it the kind of world that she is living in from a very young age. She saw this even at school before this incident had happened. " The enormous black eyes of the little Indian girl from my class looked at my food longingly, so I offered her some. But she only shook her head and plowed her way solemnly through her sandwiches. " (pg. 673). Santha Rama Rau seeing how a fellow Indian classmate wanted to have Indian food for her lunch was looking at Santha's lunch, but had to turn down her offer of some because of the way Indian students were treated at the school. Santha Rama Rau might've not thought much of this at the time, she must have understood not long after with not liking the circumstances.
It was super sad to see how Rau was treated at such a young age. Starting with her having to change her name and then seeing her sister being profiled because of her race was awful. I did appreciate, however, that their mother was understanding and supportive of their decisions to not go back to the school. I think as a woman she had to of understood the things they were going through, at least on some level, and didn't want to see them struggle- but rather create their own life and journey through their own unique forms of education!
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