So my name is Christina Soontornvat. The Tryout, the beginning of it, you know, you see the first day of school for seventh grade. And so you see Christina going through all of these different classes and the teachers in every class are mispronouncing her or my name are making a little joke about it or saying, I’m not even going to try to pronounce that one. And what I wanted to do with that is show readers right away. First of all, give them a sense of the time period. I think this would be hopefully less acceptable now to treat students like this. Though I know it happens all the time. And also just showing that I was different. I had always had a name that stood out and that people made comments about, but also that for each of those teachers, they thought they were making a funny joke.
And that was the only time that happened to them that day. But I had seven classes that day and it happened every single class. So I think you’d kind of get to see that, okay, these little microaggressions, which is what sometimes they get called, they add up and they accumulate. So it was a good way in the graphic novel to show that. And then you see a flashback where my third grade teacher approaches it very differently. I’m going to try to say your name and I’m sorry if I don’t get it right, but I really want to try. And that was also a way to show that there were people in this small town who were just so inclusive, so kind, so open. And she, I’m going to guarantee I’m the first Thai person she ever met, and that was the first Thai name she ever tried to pronounce. But just how much you can impact someone and make a difference in their life by being kind to them. And that also happened all the time too. So really the book as there was a lot that was challenging. There was a lot of racism, prejudice in the school. But I also really wanted to show how much kindness there was because there’s that too. And that’s the totality of the story, is that all of that existed together.
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