Stop Four: Dupont Circle

“This station is Dupont Circle. Dupont Circle. Step back, doors opening. When boarding, please move to the center of the car."

My body instinctively lurched forward as the announcement played over the loudspeaker. Every day for three years, I had gotten off at Dupont Circle and made my way to the DC-Tenley Academy for Boys & Girls — the fancy private school I had attended beginning in tenth grade after my mom and I moved from Arizona to DC. Without fail, my body would prepare to exit the train every time it heard that announcement. Reclining back into my seat, I watched an avalanche of white students in the infamous green and gold uniforms of my alma mater make their way onto the train. I waited for just one student of color to walk in wearing green and gold, and was disappointed. Turning my attention to the obnoxiously loud students at the back of the train car, I was reminded of the first time I had exited the train and entered the hallowed halls of DCTA.

***

“Are you a scholarship student?”

I sat in shock for a moment and then scanned the room to see if anyone else had heard the words that had just come out of my teacher’s mouth. It seemed that no one else had. Disappointed, I raised my eyebrow and looked my English 10 teacher in the eyes before opening my mouth to respond,

“Excuse me?”

I must have heard him wrong, I told myself as I examined him, and the nonchalant way in which he conducted himself. His name was Dylan and he seemed to be about twenty-six or twenty-seven years old. He was white, and blonde, with a receding hairline that made it clear that there was not a drop of anything but Caucasian in his blood. I assumed he had grown up somewhere in Massachusetts, or perhaps Connecticut, and had attended a fancy prep school before disappointing his parents by attending some small, rural liberal arts college instead of their alma maters. He had probably coasted through college, I thought, using his white privilege as a cover for his mediocrity and lived the “struggling artist” lifestyle for a few years after graduation. Now, he was taking on an entry-level teaching position at DCTA while he worked on writing what he believed to be the next “great American novel” for which he lacked both the life experience and talent to produce.

“I asked if you’re a scholarship student. DCTA doesn’t get a lot of… umm students from your background.”

He smiled at me as if he was doing me some sort of favor. Someone must have heard him this time I reassured myself, scanning the room once more. But again, my peers’ eyes remained glued to their phone screens as they waited for class to begin. Suddenly, I found my gaze drifting towards the floor. I was the only Latinx person in the room.

He wasn’t wrong — I really was a first-generation student. But to assume that just because I was a Latino student from Southeast DC? What kind of nonsense was that?

“Um, yes,” I respond faintly, letting out an awkward laugh. Why wasn’t I calling him out for his racist assumptions? My eyes remained glued to the floor once more.

“Don’t worry,” he replied with encouragement, “I’ll make sure you keep up with your classmates.”

My blood-boiled at the faux-friendly tone of his voice.

“Where are you from?” I asked coldly.

“Rhode Island.”

Damn, I thought to myself, at least I hadn’t been too far off.

***

As the train came to a halt at my final destination, I found myself smiling at what had once been a very painful interaction. The rest of my three years DCTA had not gone as smoothly as I would have hoped, but overall I was grateful for the experience.

“This station is Woodley Park. Woodley Park. Step back, doors opening. When boarding, please move to the center of the car."

I felt a knot form in my stomach as I watched the train doors open and I prepared to exit the train car, but I forced myself to take a deep breathe so that it would untangle. Clutching the drawstrings of my backpack, I rose from my seat and crossed the threshold from the train car into Woodley Park Station. As I exited the subway, I turned my head to the crowd of white DCTA students and noted a single olive-toned face I must have previously missed. As our eyes met, the anxiety I felt inside me turned to courage.

—Contributing writer Á. Javier Cifuentes Monzón’s column, “Woodley Park Station,” is a serialized work of fiction exploring the concept of vulnerability as it intersects with queer, immigrant, and low-income identities.