Learning Truth

Jacob Turner, or Joo Sung Lee, was born in Seoul, South Korea on June 1, 1996. On November 18, 1996, I along with the rest of the Turner family welcomed this little boy as an addition to our home in Louisville, KY. Nothing ever seemed different to me growing up as a child. Jacob was never seen or treated differently than any other member of the family. He was Asian, but nationality was never a factor to us. He was a Turner, my brother, my friend. And to that little boy, I was not only a member of the family; I was his protector and role model.

Everything I did, he would copy, and continue doing over and over again until he too, could do it. But then there came a point in life, when he was about six or seven years old, where things started to seem odd. When Jacob spoke, he could not pronounce any vowels, only consonants. He also had a particularly hard time remembering the alphabet, writing, and reading. My mother put him through speech therapy and tutoring from that point on. Eventually, he transferred to a local public elementary school that had teachers that specialized in learning disabilities. All seemed under control until the first week of school started.

It was strange; Jacob would come home from school every day and run up to his room and cry. I was the only one in the family that ever noticed it. He never wanted to play or talk to anyone, which was not like him. He just seemed miserable. So one day after school, I followed him to his room and asked him what was wrong.

He then began to say, “Jordan, I have no friends. Nobody likes me there. I sit alone at lunch, play alone on the playground, and get tripped and pushed just because I am Korean. They always tell me I am dumb because I cannot read, and Asians are supposed to be smart. I am the retarded Asian. Jordan, what is wrong with me? I hate this.”

Then he just started crying, and would not stop for hours.

The next day was a Friday. Every Friday my brother had tutoring at an elementary school walking distance from our house. It just so happened I was off school for a long weekend, so I volunteered to take him to his tutoring lesson.

I only had to have been there for about twenty minutes before I saw my brother walk out into the hallway, where I was sitting, to go find the restroom. I had placed myself comfortably in the hallway right across from the water fountain, and on either side of me were the men and women’s restroom. My brother walked past me and disappeared behind the closed door to the boy’s bathroom.

The next thing I heard was a scream. That’s all I heard; the sound of my younger brother screaming from behind that closed door. Without even thinking, I ran in.

When I walked around the corner of the bathroom of this elementary school, I saw my brother curled up in a ball in the corner of the bathroom covering his head with his hands. Hovering over him was a slightly taller boy who looked about the same age as I was.

He was yelling at Jacob telling him, “Go back to where you came from. You can not even talk right! What is wrong with you? Asians are supposed to be smart; you’re just the dumb Asian kid who cannot read or even talk! You are such a loser!”

Well, to this kid’s surprise, he had a much unexpected visitor in the room with him. Without hesitation, having only the picture of my brother huddled in the bathroom corner completely helpless, I went after him. I had never been so brave and tough in my life. I had a rush of adrenaline going through my veins that could have allowed me to lift cars or run through burning buildings. Whatever I had to do to make sure my brother was safe. I ran up to this kid, I never caught his name, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and spun him around so fast I am sure I gave him whiplash. I towered over him and pushed him up against the wall.

I glared at this boy with such disgust. I hated everything about him. I hated the little smirk he had stretched across his chubby, sun-burned face, and I despised the fact that he thought he was so much more superior to everyone else walking those school halls. Well, I felt this would be the perfect opportunity for a reality check.

I looked at him and said in a very stern, quiet voice, “Get the hell off my brother. Not so big and tough now, are you? How would you feel to get beat up by a girl? Bet all your friends would love that.”

He replied in a shaky voice, “Dude, please don’t do that! I would never live it down.”

I just looked at him. I stared at him for a couple minutes and then finally said, “Then step away. Back down and never even look my brother in the eye again, or I will make sure to invite all your friends to watch me kick your butt. You think you can make fun of my brother? Yeah well, I guess you must feel really cool beating up a kid half the size of you. Walk away.”

The kid ran out, and I never saw him again.

My brother never went back there after that day in the bathroom. I told my mom everything that had happened. I could not get it through my head why everyone was so mean and cruel to my brother, but they acted normal towards me.

I grew up that day in the bathroom. I learned boys cry too, even the tough ones. That a child’s biggest fear is what their friends will think of them. I also realized something else, no one is perfect. We all have our flaws, and there is nothing we can do to escape it. Life is in no way an easy thing to get through, but as my dad always told me, “If everything in life came easy, a person could never become stronger.” And through my little brother, I discovered the misunderstandings about stereotypes.

BY Jordan Turner