Chapter 5: Sweetest Candy—Education and the Love of Teachers!

“Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair,” wrote Langston Hughes in the poem “Mother to Son.” As an African American and Native American woman, I have struggled to survive—to become someone with racial pride, who was successful, and who made a difference. From the age of two, I was raised in a foster home by Ms. Pinto, who was African American and Portuguese. Four of my siblings were also sent to the same foster home (a brother and three sisters).

I was very close to my biological half-brother, Carl who was a few years older than me. One of my fondest memories about learning was when he introduced me to his fourth grade teacher, Mr. Levitt and his wife Mrs. Levitt, who was also a fourth grade teacher at our elementary school. The school was located a few streets from where we lived in the suburbs of Randolph, Massachusetts. Before Carl introduced me, I had seen my brother with his teacher after school on a few occasions while I was on the basketball court shooting hoops with my friends. Carl loved school, but I didn’t because the boys in my class picked on me and the teacher never did anything when I complained to her about them pulling my hair and calling me names. Her uncaring attitude made me distrust all teachers. So, when my brother told me that the Levitts were different, I didn’t believe him. However, I promised Carl I would give the Levitts a chance. I found out after spending some time with them that they were pretty nice people. After Carl begged for weeks, our foster mother allowed the two of us to spend a few hours a month with them at their home in Braintree. Our sisters were encouraged to come along, but they didn’t want to, and so they never came with us. They called us “teachers’ pets.” My youngest sister was too young to join us. Personally, I was happy to take a break from our noisy, crowded home filled with bickering and fighting children.