A school faces its own segregation

It was a class discussion with her eighth-graders that spurred Carol Gay's decision to venture into the student cafeteria.

Racial tensions, her young charges told her, were thriving at the school. So the next day, Mrs. Gay marched through the locker-lined halls and into the bustling lunchroom. And what she saw shocked her.

"I was so surprised by the drastic segregation – all the Brazilians were sitting in one place, the Hispanics in another, the Anglos in their spot, and the African-Americans in another," Mrs. Gay recalls. "After everything we do, there is still an aspect of segregation."

That was last year. Today, the cafeteria at Fuller Middle School in Framingham, Mass., bears the same stratification. But more efforts have been made to mitigate growing racial divides. And one resource that educators have drawn on is reading.

Gay, who heads the language-arts department, knows there is much for her students to gain from literature that deals with racial issues. "It provides an important lens ... through which they can start to see race and racism from another point of view," she says.

Fuller's 900 students reflect the diversity of this town of about 65,000 residents, located 15 miles west of Boston: Whites account for 50 percent of the population, Asian and black students less than 10 percent. Brazilians, at 20 percent, have slightly overtaken Hispanics in recent years, a fact that has helped intensify rivalry between the two groups.

Lunchroom self-segregation is a common phenomenon in schools. But at Fuller, the problem extends further: the lockers and pick-up sports games are segregated by choice. So are buses, where the Brazilians and Latinos often brawl over whether to play Portuguese samba or Spanish salsa.

In some ways, it's a reflection of what kids see around a town where, for example, the green-and-yellow flags waving from Brazilian storefronts have prompted some people to ask that only American flags be displayed.

"In school, the students are often simply mimicking their parents' dislike for a particular ethnic group," Gay says.

This spring, Gay's seventh-graders are reading "Warriors Don't Cry" by Melba Patillo Beals, one of the first African-Americans to integrate into Central High in Little Rock, Ark.

Ayla Marinho, who has one Brazilian and one white parent, found the book particularly inspiring. "If I hadn't read the book, I know I would never have the courage like she had to stand up for my beliefs," she says, her blue eyes sparkling. "Now I think maybe I could."

That newfound courage translated into a recent encounter at the mall with her Latina friend, who is a few shades darker than she. "We ran into some of my white friends who asked what I was doing hanging out with her.... I finally stood up to them and told them they were being racist," she says.

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