Winter of 1986.

A mother awoke one November Saturday morning to the laughter of children. She walked over to the window and peered out from her third floor two-room apartment. The ground was covered with a white velvet blanket and little children rolling around in it. They wore colorful coats that made them look like flower puffs. On their heads were hats with pom-poms like the ones she'd sewn on her children's traditional dress.

The mother slowly opened the window and felt a cold rush of wind blast whistle the room. She slid her fingers through and ran it against the sill. The white velvet quickly melted into cold water between her fingers. She looked at the pile of folded clothes she had she washed the day before in the laundromat around the corner and worried it wouldn't be enough to keep her children warm.

Snow, she later learned from her sponsor. It came every year and lasted for several moons in their rural Midwest American town. Her sponsor had taken her to the local salvation army where they handed her bags of heavy clothing. She knew the clothes were secondhand because they smelled like a mixture of the people who were handing it to her and a moth-bally oldness. Some of the clothing still had animal hair from their previous owners.

Life in America was much more difficult than she imagined. She wanted new things for her family but right now she had to settle for secondhand items. She was determined not to be comfortable with welfare and charity but she refused to receive anything less than what she could work for. She didn't want to depend on others for the rest of her life; she wouldn't. That's not why she had escaped war and persecution for.

There was more snow on Monday morning when her children got up for school. In their closest, she had hung their freshly washed secondhand coats and snowsuits. Her children excitedly pulled themselves into the snowsuits. Their tiny hands slipped into gloves and mittens and their sock-covered feet hid in boots. She walked them to their bus stop and watched their backs as they stood with the other children. From behind, you couldn't even tell they were children of immigrants.

At school, other students took off their snowsuits and hung them on their assigned hooks. They exchanged their boots for sneakers and ran off into classrooms. Her children didn't know what to do because they didn't have anything on under their snowsuits and coats. They sat awkwardly in their seats with their big coats and waited anxiously for the school day to be over.

In the afternoon, the mother got a phone call from school.

"Mrs. Y, your children won't take off their coats and snowsuits. Is there any way we can get your kids to take them off?" The translator sounded condemning and unsympathetic.
"Why would they take it off? There's snow outside and it's cold," she responded.
"Mrs. Y, the kids are not allowed to wear snowsuits in school. They must wear their regular clothes."

She felt her cheeks heat up and was thankful the phone lines hid her from the translator.

Shame filled her body as she thought about her children wearing the ridiculous American winter clothing while the other children sat in their sweaters and jeans. If I endure shame and hardships, my children and their children won't have to, the mother thought. She stood up, returned the phone to its place, and returned to her youngest son's picture book at the kitchen table. Q is for Quetzal.