Angry Asian Kid
For too long, Asians have sat in school corners, doing homework, acing tests, and getting straight A's. Asians used to talk funny--voices rising as though they are happy, then instantly falling as though they are sad, rising, falling, you knew they were all insane. But these Asians have no foreign accent at all. In fact, they use none of the memes. They even know the past tenses of verbs. But they don't use them; they rarely talk at all. You wonder if they've lost the ability to talk.
There's an Asian in my classroom. I showed him the dead snake we found out back; he knew the genus and species but refused to help us sneak it into Jenny's lunch box. Anil and I showed him the spit-wads we had made for this afternoon's war, but he wasn't interested. And when Officer Finnegan came to give his talk to the class about respecting the Crossing Guard, we passed notes to the Asian, but he wouldn't even read them.
There's only one explanation for this behavior. He must be mad at me. He must be an angry Asian kid.
His nationality
The angry Asian kid could be Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, or something like that. We don't know. Miss Griffin says it's not good to discuss their nationalities, or call them "Oriental" any more. "Orient" means East, she says, and it's self-centered to refer to people because of where they are in relation to us. Good children should just call them Asians. We spent a whole week last semester studying what to call black kids (though I'm going into College Prep next year and won't have to worry about that). So the angry Asian kid in my class is simply Asian. I guess all Asians are angry like that.
What to do about him
The direct approach
The direct approach doesn't work on angry Asian kids. I confronted this kid and asked him what I had ever done to make him angry at me. He wouldn't answer. I followed him down the hall, demanding that he answer, but he just pushed me away and told me I was stupid. Then I had to go to my next class.
The indirect approach
The indirect approach doesn't work either. I told Miss Griffin about all the things this Asian kid was doing to me. She got him taken down to the office, where they probably gave him some special tests and the Counselor talked to him (though he never does much talking, he just sits there and watches you play with some of his stupid collection of toys). When the angry Asian kid got back to class, he was no better. If anything, he was even madder at me!
Conclusion
I don't know how to make angry Asian kids like me, or even look up from their stupid schoolwork. Why did they even come here from Asia, if they're not going to fit in? I think we just need to ignore all of them.