"I'm tired of being called a terrorist!"

Thus said a young 7th grader as he walked into the classroom I had this afternoon. He was a gifted child, and quite a handsome and polite young man. His name was Hassan and he had the prettiest deep eyes and thick eye lashes I've seen on anyone.

I asked him what made him say that as he walked in. "There's this kid who's always teasing me because I'm an Iraqi" he said.

"You should complain about him. I know if I had seen him tease you I would have sent him to the front office with a referral. I have zero tolerance toward any people who tease, harass or bully others simply because they aren't like them."

I then shared with the class my own experiences in Highland, IN; a child of a German mother 15 years after World War II ended, in a neighborhood dominated by Protestant Anglos or Catholic eastern Europeans. Most of my classmates in elementary school had fathers who worked in the local steel mills around southern Lake Michigan. Many of the last names were Croatian, Serbian, Czech, Polish, or Greek.

"I was called a Nazi Girl and I didn't even know what a Nazi was!" I said. Hassan seemed to understand. We had formed a silent understanding.

The rest of the period went uneventfully. The students were busy researching for their National History Day projects, projects that only gifted students have the privilege of working on. I later talked to Hassan some more: his parents fled Iraq before Desert Storm and were refugees in Syria.

"How ironic. My own mother was also a war refugee. I was born in Chicagoland."

Hassan was born in this country and speaks American English like all his other classmates. If you looked at him without knowing his name, you may even think he was Hispanic, as so many other children here are. That is the ironic part.

"You just wait, Hassan, you'll get your As and a college scholarship and will be all the better off than the rest of them!" He smiled back in agreement, as he pulled out his iPod and called his parents. The final school bell rang out, the kids ran toward the buses or their waiting parents, and Hassan sprinted out into the wet winter day.

I hope I see him again. He was a breath of fresh air.

(Edit: The next day I was back at the school and Hassan proudly told me that the kid who was harassing him finally got suspended and now wants to be his friend.

"I don't think I want to be his friend" said Hassan.
"I wouldn't want to be his friend, either!" I reassured him.)