{"id":18247,"date":"2014-01-22T22:21:04","date_gmt":"2014-01-22T22:21:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/at-the-start-of-a-new-semester-i-walk-into-a-math\/"},"modified":"2014-01-22T22:21:04","modified_gmt":"2014-01-22T22:21:04","slug":"at-the-start-of-a-new-semester-i-walk-into-a-math","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/at-the-start-of-a-new-semester-i-walk-into-a-math\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote>\n<p>At the start of a new semester, I walk into a math class. My teacher is blond and blue-eyed. I don\u2019t remember his name. When he comes to mine on the roll call, he takes the requisite pause. I hold my breath.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow do I pronounce your name?\u201d he asks.<\/p>\n<p>I say, \u201cJust call me Tess.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs that how it\u2019s pronounced?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I say, \u201cNo one\u2019s ever been able to pronounce it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s probably because they didn\u2019t want to try,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat is your name?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When I say my name, it feels like redemption. I have never said it this way before. Tasbeeh. He repeats it back to me several times until he\u2019s got it. It is difficult for his American tongue. His has none of the strength, none of the force of my mother\u2019s. But he gets it, eventually, and it sounds beautiful. I have never heard it sound so beautiful. I have never felt so deserving of a name. My name feels like a crown.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div class='attribution'>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/the-toast.net\/2014\/01\/15\/the-names-they-gave-me\/\">The Names They Gave Me<\/a><\/p>\n<p>so beautiful (and so glad I got an Arab name that it\u2019s easy to pronounce, though the downside is that it\u2019s easier to whitewash)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At the start of a new semester, I walk into a math class. My teacher is blond and blue-eyed. I don\u2019t remember his name. When he comes to mine on the roll call, he takes the requisite pause. I hold my breath. \u201cHow do I pronounce your name?\u201d he asks. I say, \u201cJust call me [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-quote","hentry","category-words","post_format-post-format-quote"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6PWot-4Kj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}