The Wildling Story Booth

"What I love about being a Black girl is that we have good food, good culture, good music. We can wear braids and beads and our our beads click clacking down the street." - Brianna, 4th grade

"When I get my hair done and I get some weave in my hair, people will ask me if I dyed my hair in our hate that when people ask me that because people look at me weird." - Fhrrah, 4th grade

"Some kids came up to me and said, You shouldn't be playing with these black kids come play with us. And I said, these are my friends, I'm going to play with whoever I want to play with." - Dahalia, 4th grade

"I feel like getting angry when somebody says the N word to me." - Jibril, 4th grade

"I'm an Asian girl that gets compared to a lot of other Asian girls. They assume that I'm a Korean girl, a Chinese girls, a lot of other girls, I'm just a Burmese girl." - Leah, 4th grade

"How I feel about racist people is that it makes me upset and curious." - Rain, 4th grade

"One day me and my friend were at the park. Another kid came up to us and said, 'What's your color?'.'" - Tarodji, 4th grade

"I was at the Mall of America and there were a lot of Somalian people. And this kid that came with us, called them monkeys. I know that's not right." - Tierney, 4th grade

"I was outraged that the teacher did not do anything. It was a racial slur." - Gabe, 4th grade

"One kid blurted out, that's not your mom, you're adopted. And I remember I couldn't even breathe. All the kids started laughing. And I just remember running out crying." - Sumer, Ozone Creations

"I am Black. And my school marks me under African American. But nobody in my family is African at all." - Genesis, 8th grade

"I think that the hardest part about growing up in this Hispanic culture and being a first generation, Mexican American is just being independent. Especially being a girl in Hispanic culture." - Quetzali

"Every moment is precious and every moment could be our last." - Paul (Ch!nwe), Ozone Creations

"I was born on May 25th. And if that day sounds familiar, it's the same day George Floyd was killed." - Jasper, 11th grade

"I'm proud of being myself. I love my language. I'm connected with my mom by singing and dancing to Mexican music." - Declan, 4th grade

"I told her that she was racist. And then I had to go to the office. It made me  and it made me very mad. Life isn't fair." - Makai, 4th grade

"It made me feel like why did he choose to pull us over out of all cars that he could have pulled  over?" -Mykah, 4th grade

"I will never be embarrassed of my culture, because that's what makes me different and unique." - Michelle, 4th grade

"When that boy said that about us, I feel kind of sad and mad a little, because that's really racist and that hurt my feelings." - Makieya & Iyannia

"Some people on the news, were chasing somebody, a black guy, and it made me upset." - Anthony, 4th grade

"He said the N word, which made me really mad. And then he apologized to the whole entire class but I felt like it didn't mean anything." - Ava & King, 4th grade

“As sad as it sounds, I went outside and played with trees. I was a big football kid. But what’s football without people to throw the ball to? So I used to throw the ball at trees, anything just to keep my mind off of the fact that I was alone.” - JoJo, 9th grade

“This is my story. It’s called The Year of Worry.” - Stellan, 3rd grade

“Everyone else was watching the sunset from some other world adjacent to the one I occupied where they couldn’t see me. I didn’t want a sunset, but the sky was putting on a show.” - Leigh, 11th grade

“I was jolted awake by my phone’s alarm clock—set to 10 minutes before class began, to maximize sleeping time. With a wonderful dream cut short by the misgivings of online school, I lay in bed with my eyes awake but still closed, desperate for just another wink of sleep.” - Jeffrey, 11th grade