Burdened

Burdened

By Ian McConnell

Nervous to conduct my first ever interview, I stepped out of my car and onto the gravel lot surrounding Aroma Café. The building was made entirely of cinderblocks painted grey, and it was obvious to me that the photos taken of the location were carefully selected to make it appear slightly more glamorous than it really is. Pebbles crunched under heavy black shoes close by as Esmeralda Lopez came around the back of a car parked close to my own. Black fishnets ran out from under her black jean shorts. A tan shirt with the phrase “good vibes” printed in a way to make it look hand-written was loosely tucked into the front of her shorts. Her silver padlock necklace rested against the shirt, perfectly matching the carabiner style earrings with small, thin chains dangling from them that she had on. I noticed she had even worn the glasses out of her two pairs that better matched her jewelry. Her hair fell over her shoulders and two thin strands were separated over her face. I felt completely outdone in my bright orange sweater.  

1. Esmeralda after the interview. Taken by Ian McConnell

I had been assigned to write this essay as part of the Profile Project for my class “Composition II”. The purpose of the assignment was to take a highly methodical approach to writing a profile essay. We began by interviewing a subject of our own choice while documenting it in as much detail as possible. We then completed several creative and scholarly exercises to piece the essay together. Eventually, we arrived at our completed profile essay. I came face-to-face with some very emotionally heavy topics while writing this essay. Truthfully, I was afraid to keep pursuing this topic at some points, but this is a topic that is all too often skirted around for that exact reason.

My name is Ian McConnell. I am a 23-year-old student at Kennesaw State University. I am pursuing a degree in Computer Game Design and Development. The interviewee, Esmeralda, is 20 years old. She is currently working in hopes of continuing her education. We met as coworkers at a retail clothing store and became fast friends. As her friend, I had some preexisting knowledge that I used to guide the interview. This essay was written with her full consent. Esmeralda was made aware of exactly what the essay would contain and how it would be used.

She grinned as she approached and simply said, “Hi.” in a small voice. She had clearly put thought into what she was wearing, carefully planning her outfit as I would later come to suspect is a part of her daily routine. We exchanged greetings and walked up the short flight of stairs to the front doors.

As soon as we got inside, we were met with the smell of smoke. Three hookahs sat in the corner. I realized why it was called Aroma Café. Three men sat in the close corner of the café on some of the simple black furniture that populated the space They were boasting about their latest videogame accomplishments. I noticed two of them glance at us as we walked past them on our way to the counter. I raised my voice so that the lone barista could hear me over the television playing ethnic music videos on the wall behind us. I got the impression he knew that I was aware of how out of place the two of us seemed in the café. I ordered us both an iced coffee and we stood awkwardly as we adjusted to the unexpected atmosphere of the café. I noticed Esmeralda abruptly walk from my left side to my right side as the barista finished making our drinks and brought them to us. I didn’t think much of it. I asked to pay, and the barista brought us a bill similarly to a waiter at a restaurant. Yet another unexpected aspect of our chosen location. I could not help but feel a little foolish because of how wildly different this setting was from what I had expected. We walked to the back patio to escape the smell of smoke and the loud music.

The porch looked new and was made of unpainted wood. The walls were spattered with half-red-half-yellow “X” s. Two dead trees were potted in the corners and the grey clouds overhead matched the cinderblock walls. Esmeralda wrung her hands idly as I got out my laptop and prepared to start the interview. She abruptly apologized for moving to the other side of me, catching me off guard as I pulled up the questions I had prepared in advance. She elaborated that she noticed one of the men inside was staring at her and not looking away, so she moved to escape his gaze. Being so forthcoming is not characteristic of Esmeralda but being overly apologetic is. I was ready to begin the interview at this point, so I asked Esmeralda the first question I had prepared for her.

“Are you nervous for your interview?” I asked knowingly.

She put her hand to her mouth in a futile attempt to conceal a smile and replied, “Yes. Very nervous.” just as I expected her to. I had planned ahead though, preparing a follow up question I thought would help put her at ease.

“If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you choose?” I asked in the most genuinely friendly voice I could muster. A brief look of thought flashed over Esmeralda’s face before she answered the lighter question.

“In the future I want to live somewhere little that no one knows about. Far away from people. I just really wanna be away from people.” She interrupts herself with a laugh. “I don’t know I like the idea of being alone and the quiet. I tend to picture myself by… myself.” Not quite the optimistic response I was expecting, but it did leave me with something to ponder. Why did she seem content with being alone? I moved past this, though. I did not want to give too much attention to serious subjects this early in the interview.

“Alright, that’s interesting.” I replied coolly. “Could you please tell me about yourself?” I knew that this would be a more difficult question for Esmeralda than it would be for most people.

“What do you want to know?” she asked, looking for some direction.

“Whatever comes to mind.” I countered.

After taking a good minute to ponder herself, she replied, “I think I’m a really quiet and calm person. But I also think I’m really awkward and weird in a way, I guess. More? Ummmm, I really like to paint or do anything artsy. I also like to make stuff and build stuff, but I don’t do it often.”

“What kind of stuff do you like to make?” I was genuinely intrigued because I did not already know this about Esmeralda.

“Anything.” she said followed with a self-aware laugh. “I can’t think. I like listening to sad music apparently. People tell me I have sad music. So, like… emo rap, I guess.” She begins laughing at her description of her music.

“Who’s your favorite artist?”

“Lil Peep is up there. I would probably say it’s Melanie Martinez. I’ve been listening to alternative Spanish music lately”.

The next question I had for Esmeralda was one which had much more emotional weight than the previous questions.

I swallowed my nerves and asked her, “What was it like growing up?”. I could feel a much heavier mood settle over the conversation as she allowed her usual slight smile to drop to a slight frown and for her eyes slide to downwards to stare at the table.

She looked very uneasy as she asked, “What do you mean? How was my childhood?”. She had shaken of the brief discomfort. I confirmed that this was what I was asking, and she replied, “I don’t think I had the best childhood, but it wasn’t all bad either. How much detail should I go into? Would it be bad if I talked about stuff?” Knowing what she meant, I told her to say as much or as little as she felt comfortable sharing. “I grew up kinda with boys because it was me and my brothers for a while and it was a lot of us. Six of us. So, we’re like, kind of poor. So, I remember growing up I had a lot of boy toys because they would buy toys for my brothers in packs and I would get one. Because that’s what they had. My parents’ relationship wasn’t the best, but it’s got better now. But back then it wasn’t the best. My uncles used to live with us also, so I was always around guys, so I grew up as kind of like a tom-boy… kind of.” Esmeralda furrowed her brow and paused for a long moment, trying to think of more details she could give about her childhood. She turned her phone over repeatedly in her hands as she thought before finally adding, “I used to play soccer as a kid a lot for a few years because of my brothers. Most of their friends were my friends.” She let out a short laugh as she said, “It would be so awkward if you were recording this.” She then pointed out a sticker on the back of my laptop of a Japanese symbol with a smiling face on it and called it cute. It seemed like she was trying to move away from the question, so I obliged.

Knowing that Esmeralda was keeping back to try to protect the tone of the essay, I later reached out to her and got her permission to share that her father was physically abusive when she and her siblings were younger. He would hit them and their mother for even the slightest deviation from his expectations. Esmeralda largely attributes her timidness and the difficulty she has talking about her emotions to this abuse and other traumatic experiences that I am not comfortable discussing in the context of this essay. The unfortunate reality is that nearly 700,000 children or almost 1% of all kids are abused in the U.S each year (National Children’s Alliance), making this type of trauma unfortunately common. Esmeralda has been damaged by the abuse she received, but she has also grown from it. She has an impressive ability to remain neutral when faced with difficult conditions. Never lying to herself about the situation she is in, but never bowing her knee to the opposition.  It has also sparked a desire to lift others up within her that she later goes on to discuss with me.

Sadly, the impacts of physical abuse run deep for Esmeralda. “They may stop trying to make friends or succeed at school or plan for the future.” (Peterson) A lack of desire to plan for the future is something Esmeralda made evident even just in the context of the interview. The depression that she battles, even being easily startled by people approaching her unexpectedly, are all symptoms that assail her. She is not alone in this, though. These symptoms arise more easily than we initially expected according to research. A study conducted concluded that the symptoms of corporal (physical) punishment and identifiable physical abuse have great overlap. “… the results of the present study provide preliminary indications that parents' physical punishment relates to some aspects of a child's emotional well‐being even without identified physical abuse.” (Rodriguez) Even without identifiable signs of physical abuse, children that received physical discipline were at greater risk for developing anxiety, depression, and aggressive behavior. This goes to show that it doesn’t take much to impact a child’s future with physical punishment. Although the abuse ended over four years ago now, the years of being hit by her own father has taken its toll. It makes me angry to see how someone else’s problem had such a negative impact on her. It simply isn’t fair. But can anything be done about it?

“It’s time to proceed with the rest of the interview,” I thought to myself. Temporarily pushing these morbid thoughts to the back of my mind for future dwelling, I refocused on the next question and asked Esmeralda what she does for work.

“Right now, I’m working at a warehouse. It’s not your typical warehouse!” She exclaimed in an imitation of their motto. “I’ve been there for like 3 days. It’s a second-hand clothing warehouse. Right now, my job is to check the clothing that people send us and make sure it meets the requirements. That’s kinda all I do…” she says rolling her eyes dramatically before laughing at her own antics. I was glad to see she was back to her usually playful self. I met Esmeralda while working at a retail clothing store before she began this new opportunity. Making this connection between her jobs reminded me of her interest in fashion.

“Do you plan on finishing your education at some point?”

Esmeralda jumped at the question. “Yes!”, she exclaimed. “I don’t know when, but hopefully soon. I really hope it’s soon.”, she continued pleadingly.

Curious of why she wanted to continue with school, I asked, “What careers are you interested in pursuing?”

Esmeralda took a long moment to think before replying, “I don’t know. I’m not sure. I’ve thought about being a therapist because people tell me and I feel like I’m good at helping people. I’ve also thought about being a teacher, but I don’t know because they don’t make as much.” I laugh and say that I’m sure my teacher will appreciate her elaborating on that.

“There are a lot of things that I have in mind,” she continued, “but probably won’t work.” I ask her what she was referring to and she responds, “I’ve also thought about being a cosmetician. Is that what it’s called? I want to style and color people’s hair. I wouldn’t mind cutting it too because that would be really useful.”

I called on my knowledge that she’s interested in fashion and ask her about if she’s considered pursuing something related to that. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’d be good at it. I don’t know what career I could go for that involves fashion. I don’t know. Maybe. I can’t design anything because I can’t draw. And I’m not creative so I can’t think of like, designs for clothes and stuff like that. That’s what I think of when I think of fashion and I can’t be creative like that.” I argued briefly that she might be selling herself short before continuing.

2. Her favorite outfit. Image borrowed from Esmeralda

“What do you like about these careers?” I asked.

“For therapist, I really like the idea of helping others. I would like to help if I can. If I were to be a teacher I’d want to work with like kids. Well I don’t know, actually older kids. But teach them in a way that I think is good. Like not feel the need to be disruptive. I don’t’ know how, but I’d try to find a way to get them to actually want to learn. Or at least do their work. Being a cosmetician is just fun.”, she said laughing. “No, but I think coloring hair is fun… to me. It’s fun to see how people change their hair and see what they think looks good. It’s also nice to help someone do something they’ve been wanting to try or express themselves better. It feels nice to get your hair cut, you know? Same with fashion. I really like seeing how people express themselves. It’s cool to see how people put stuff together. Kind of the same thing I guess.” As she was telling me this, I was noticed that everything she said she liked about these careers involved helping others in some way. I admired the selflessness of these motives. This answer came naturally, as well. I knew this because I had a hard time keeping up with her as she spoke.

Whether it’s a problem she observed or one which she experienced first-hand, Esmeralda identified a serious issue with teacher quality that she wishes to address as a potential career. Teacher quality is the most important factor for predicting student success, but little is done to control this quality.

“In contrast to the approach used by Darling-Hammond, which equates teacher quality with specific qualifications, Rivkin, Hanushek, and Kain (1998) identify teacher quality in terms of student performance outcomes.3 Their research identifies teacher quality as the most important school-related factor influencing student achievement. They conclude from their analysis of 400,000 students in 3,000 schools that, while school quality is an important determinant of student achievement, the most important predictor is teacher quality. In comparison, class size, teacher education, and teacher experience play a small role.” (Rice)

            Perhaps her education was difficult at times or at least different thanks to her having to learn English on her own without having any accommodations. I thought that this might be related to her interest in increasing teacher quality by taking on the role herself.

“That’s really great.”, I responded. “Who would you say is your biggest role model?”

“Role model… can you define that?” I told her to describe someone who has set a positive example in her life. She takes a minute to think before saying, “Yikes”, and laughing at her hesitation. “How awkward would it be if I named a YouTuber? …. Yeah it would probably be my favorite Youtuber. Yikes.”

“Who are they?”

“Her name is Ashley, but her YouTube name is ‘bestdressed’. Most of her videos are fashion videos, but she also had videos where she just sits down and talks to the camera about stuff that I feel like most YouTubers wouldn’t talk about.”

“Like what?” Esmeralda had my interest.

“I don’t know… I don’t know… yeah. Like… I can’t think of anything right know.” She said laughing.

“It’s okay,” I said, “I’ll research her after the interview. How has she been a role-model for you?”

“I guess I like the way she is as a person. For the most part I feel like she’s really honest. I want to be confident like that.” She takes several minutes to think. “I also like how if she’s not feeling good, she’ll talk about it and stuff. I don’t do that so… it’s something I want to get better at, I guess. I also think she has a good sense of fashion and that’s something I’m interested in, so I want to be more like that I guess.” While I was surprised at first that she provided me with a YouTuber as her role model and put off a little that there wasn’t someone she knew in real life that she would choose over her, I was also impressed at just how big of an influence this Ashley had on Esmeralda. After looking into her and getting a better understanding of who this person was I can see how this person could make an impression on a girl that admits to having a hard time sharing her emotions. “On the YouTube side, she became a one-woman production team making a range of weekly content, from vlogs (she calls them “chatty” videos) to videos about the essentials of fashion to often tongue-in-cheek how-to’s about a variety of subjects.” (Hale) bestdressed is impressively open about her emotions and events in her life that are affecting her. She also has a great sense of fashion. Both connect deeply with things Esmeralda desires.

“It sounds like she’s really had an impact on you. Where do you see yourself in five years?” The interview had been going on for over an hour at this point, so I was trying to hasten the conversation for both of our sakes.

“That’s a bad question. Or I don’t know maybe my answers not great. I can picture myself living by myself. Or with roommates. Working two jobs or something like that. Being alone. Or with roommates.” She pauses before laughing as she adds, “And sad. Probably somewhere else too. Not in Georgia. I don’t know where though.”

Almost poetically, Esmeralda finds her way back to her desire to be alone as the interview ended. Certainly a bitter note to end on, but one I found appropriate for the conversation we had. Thankfully, this wasn’t the real end of the conversation. We kept talking over the next couple of days about what we had discussed, and Esmeralda has decided to pursue treatment via therapy for the events that are weighing her down. Hopefully, Esmeralda will get the help she deserves and will find herself surrounded by friends in five years and not by herself as she envisioned. Many people have suffered from some form of trauma. Some more so than others. Some may be better or worse at coping with it than others. The one thing that everyone carrying a burden like Esmeralda does shares is the opportunity for healing. No matter how great the trauma, there is a road to recovery. Esmeralda is taking her first steps on that road after years of compartmentalizing her emotions. It is my wish that any readers struggling with their own battles are given a similar hope from this as I am. Esmeralda is a woman that has been made weak by her past but wants to be strong. She is a signpost for others that wish to recover.

Bibliography:

McConnell, Ian. “Burdened.” 16 Sept. 2020.

“National Child Abuse Statistics from NCA.” National Children's Alliance, 18 Aug. 2020, www.nationalchildrensalliance.org/media-room/national-statistics-on-child-abuse/.

Hale, James. “YouTube Millionaires: Ashley (Aka 'Bestdressed') Teaches The Internet How To Do Fashion With A Combo Of ‘Uncensored Personality’ And Expertly Crafted Videos.” Tubefilter, 3 May 2019, www.tubefilter.com/2019/05/02/youtube-millionaires-ashley-aka-bestdressed/.

Rice, Jennifer King. “Teacher Quality: Understanding the Effectiveness of Teacher Attributes” Economic Policy Institute, 2003, www.epi.org/publication/books_teacher_quality_execsum_intro/.

Peterson, Sarah. “Effects.” The National Child Traumatic Stress Network, 19 Mar. 2018, www.nctsn.org/what-is-child-trauma/trauma-types/physical-abuse/effects.

Rodriguez, C.M. (2003), Parental Discipline and Abuse Potential Affects on Child Depression, Anxiety, and Attributions. Journal of Marriage and Family, 65: 809-817. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2003.00809.x