Justified Conditioning...

The row of children, pivoting their hips to the sway of the canary yellow bus, sat singing, two to a bench, all matching the verses with ingrained hand gestures that unearth memories of 50's bop dances. In unison the children sang:

I'll never go to Mexico no more, more, more
I'll never go to Mexico no more, more, more
There's a big bad policeman at the door, door, door
And he'll grab me by the collar
And he'll make me pay a dollar
So I'll never go to Mexico no more, more, more


The song finishes and the children revert to the chaos that plagued the bus ride on the way to the field trip. Kids climb upon their seats and hang over the backs. Half of them are laughing and joking in Spanish, the others in English.

The teacher tries to resurrect the singing, but the din of the children is too powerful to overcome. Accepting defeat she sits back down in her first row, pleather lined seat. Glancing at the large mirror above the head of the driver she caught his fleeting eye contact laden with pity.

A little girl trots up to the first row and plops herself down next to the teacher. Her feet dangle and bounce over the edge of the cushion but are unable to touch the floor. Smiling down at her, the teacher expected Angelica to keep her company as she has done during most bus rides.

Angelica, who is the star pupil of this first grade class asks her teacher in a shout to overcome the roar pouring from the back of the bus, "My papa is in Mexico right now. He writes to me from there."

The teacher senses that the song she regularly has the children sing may cause a scandal. She had overheard a couple girls singing it while jumping rope her first year at the school. The song became a regularity for class bus rides and she never protested. Eventually she joined in and now she encouraged it. Bringing her attention back to Angelica, she looks down at her with concern and asks, "Is that right?"

"Yes, and he will be coming back a mule."

"Don't you mean he will come back 'on a mule?'" the teacher tries to correct Angelica.

"No, he's coming back on an airplane."

The teacher has heard that term before. Angelica's father would be returning to the states with his intestines lined with heroine or cocaine. Her family wasn't a favorite amongst the faculty.

In kindergarten Angelica was scratched during a fight with another girl. Her brother waited after school for her teacher and confronted her. He stepped out of his glossy Cutlass G-body with 20" rims and told the teacher in broken English that she would pay the price if Angelica were to come home again hurt. He lifted his shirt to emphasize his point by exposing the handle of a pistol tucked between the waistband of his pants and boxers.

The parent teacher conferences were useless. Both her parents spoke little to no English. The teacher would have to manage with whatever phrases that they picked up from the children. Luckily Angelica had no real issues to discuss.

Unlike most of the other children who were horridly supplied for class and rarely dressed properly during a Chicagoland winter, Angelica wore brand name clothing and had expensive accessories. While the other children lived three families to an apartment with every adult working, Angelica's family had an address that didn't end with a solitary number or letter. The teacher understood that the deprived child's parents sacrificed their children's luxuries in order to support their families in Mexico. Angelica's parents were exceptions.

Many of the first grade boys were known to steal from the other students. Kids lost hand held video games, cell phones, money and even their lunches. Angelica, who was regularly equipped with healthy lunches, a camera phone, and a purse full of gadgets, never had an item stolen from her. Both the girls and boys kept their distance, which is assumed to be the reason why she befriended her teacher.

This past Christmas, Angelica gave her teacher a present before leaving on winter break. The teacher opened it to find a portable DVD player. In January when the kids came back, the teacher told Angelicathat the gift was too nice to accept and told her to bring it back to her parents. Upon hearing this Angelica cried causing the teacher to fear a visit from her older brother. The teacher soothed the situation as best she could and never brought it up to Angelica again, but that nervous feeling remained when the intimacy level grew too comfortable.

Now Angelica was rambling that a boy named Manuel was throwing rocks at geese during the field trip. The teacher was barely listening. Instead she was staring out the window at the large homes that lined the road they traveled through the affluent town of Elmhurst. These mansions crammed onto the maple lined boulevard. They seemed to belong more on postcards than passing across her window.

Gradually the mini-estates transformed into apartment buildings. They crossed the border into Addison, it would only be a few blocks before the bus pulled into the school parking lot. The children took notice of their proximity and their behavior worsened and the volume increased. The teacher could no longer hear Angelica's ramblings. She could only hear the vibrating bass of the occasional SUV or low rider that passed by.

She didn't want her students to stain her reputation, so she stood up and walked down the aisle of the bus quieting the students. She returned to the head of the bus and saw the order rapidly decaying. She raised her hands and waving them to the rhythm began singing, "I'll never go to Mexico no more, no more..."

---

These are actual events witnessed during the end of the school year field trip for the first graders at a public elementary school in Addison, IL.