My Wilshire Bus

While reading about Wilshire Bus, it reminded me of a story I had myself. When I was in middle school, I was a part of the Wind Ensemble. In seventh grade, the Wind Ensemble took a week long trip to Florida. The Wind Ensemble itself was majority Asian so heading to a majority White area in a clustered group of Asians, many thought we were a tourist group. A lot of people went up to us and asked how to say hi in our language, and since they were so polite about it we just gave them the answer they wanted. However, we never really met much hostility until we went to Island of Adventures and boarded a ride with an elderly white lady with her husband and grandson. We went on the Spiderman ride, which was not that thrilling but being twelve/thirteen year old girls, of course we would scream at the sudden objects popping out or any random noises that seemed to shriek at us. My friends and I never really thought this was a problem because we just assumed it was normal to scream on rides that seemed fun. However, towards the end of the ride we realized that the woman felt differently. When we began to pull up toward the workers to get out of the ride, the woman began slamming her water bottle on the cart yelling, "IN AMERICA, WE DON'T SCREAM IN RIDES. IN AMERICA, WE RESECT OTHER PEOPLE. IN AMERICA, WE CALL THAT RUDE. I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE IN YOUR COUNTRY, BUT IN AMERICA THIS IS HOW WE DO THINGS!". My friends and I were so shocked. We didn't even know how to respond. Both us and the ride workers stood there is disbelief at what was happening. Her husband was grabbing onto her arm and laughing it off to try to pacify her while her grandson was shrinking away in embarrassment. The workers looked at us in pity as we left the ride and walked away from the woman's screaming at what it was to be "Americans". We felt ashamed. All of us were born in America and lived here all our lives, but suddenly we were being taught how to be Americans and not even recognized as on at that. I wished I could've spoken up for myself, but I couldn't because my parents always told me never to make a scene and do not talk back to adults because that is rude. Although my friends and I retold this story to our other friends as a funny story, I'd be lying saying it did not bother me. It was my first experience that I had to acknowledge the fact that I was indeed a minority and made me begin to become very conscious of my environment. It definitely was not my last experience, but it was the one that left the biggest impression.