THE BEGINNING OF THE START

                                                 

I was born in Guatemala City, Guatemala. Pictures of the country that you’ll see glorify it as a beautiful place with a great culture. However, this isn’t necessarily true. It’s a very war torn, poor country. I can remember my parents telling me about their experience there when adopting me. The airports themselves were guarded with men & machine guns.

My birth mom was young when I was born. Being in a poor country, she didn’t have the money to support raising a child. She decided to put me up for adoption in the hopes of a better life for me and I am forever grateful that she did. I was adopted by a couple from Pennsylvania in the United States. Bill and Gina Clark are the two I have to thank for my better life, and I have them to thank for the consistent love and support.

I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania. I have two siblings, one who was also adopted. My family was white, but they never once treated me as different for being of color. My race was never a thing that was treated as different in my family. I was their child and sister and they loved me just as such.

Growing up at a young age I could tell the social dynamics of the people around me. I could see the stares people would give towards my family and I, almost as if they were questioning, “What’s the deal here?”. No one ever came out and directly said anything to us, but you could tell there were questions. 

As I got a little older and started attending school, there were never any real instances of racism between the other kids and I. When you’re kids, you don’t care about the color of peoples’ skin, or how rich or poor they are. You became friends with them based on who could run fastest on the playground or how high you could swing on the swings. We were young and innocent, with no idea what racism or racial injustice was. I remember in elementary school I was friends with this one girl in my class. She called me chocolate and she was vanilla. My guidance counselor pulled me aside one day and asked me, “Are you okay with being called that?”. I told him yes, as I saw no problems with it. We didn’t know that it was derogatory or anything of the kind. Sometimes, I wish I could go back to those times where no one cared what you look like.

My name’s Nataly Clark and these are my real stories of growing up in a predominately white town. These are my stories of racial injustice I went through all throughout my life within the school, work and social setting. So many people of color go through this every day of their lives’ and I just want them to realize they aren’t alone. For those who have never lived through these types of experiences, I hope this can open your eyes and realize how twisted and backwards our world is, even in today’s day in age.

                 This is the Line Between Black and White.

Happy Nataly as a child