I attended an authors fair a few weeks ago hosted by Bukola Oriola for the ten year commemoration of Imprisoned, a book detailing the story of Bukola, as a trafficking victim and now survivor. Other authors and I were featured.  The fair took place at Northtown Mall located in Blaine, Minnesota.  The next one will be taking place in July.  To learn more about Bukola and the authors fair, click here .

On the last day of the fair, there was a woman who visited the kiosk by the name of Maria Tran.  She gave me a copy of a her essay titled, “Prejudice in a small town” which details the life of her son enduring prejudice in school while living in Elk River, Minnesota.

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The story takes the reader through the segregated and isolated days of Maria’s son Taiyo, during his elementary school days attending school in Elk River. Taiyo was bullied and harmed by children at school for being Asian. He had to seek therapy to cope with the trauma and suicidal thoughts that came from not being accepted but all the while continued to be an A student.  Maria and her son could not understand how America, a pluralistic culture, different from the monoculture of Japan, could be so harsh and contradicting. Maria’s essay was submitted to the Brooklyn Park Police Department for a project they had on bullying.  The essay and a video are now used to educate students about bullying.

This story does have a happy ending. As Maria quotes at the beginning of her essay, “A human’s first need is to love and to be loved”.  With Maria’s love, steadfastness and determination to protect her son from further trauma of bullying and prejudice, they moved from that town to a more diverse city and Taiyo graduated with a BA in Aerospace Engineering in 2018 from the University of Minnesota.