Vinny Sidoli

Single Story

In my life i once met a student from Vietnam who went to my high school. He was from Northern Vietnam so most of the people in my school did not like him very much. The students even the nice ones simply ignored him, and some even made fun of him. At first i wasn't very fond of him either since i had multiple family members who fought in Vietnam during the war. I did not make fun of him but there was a type of hostility every time i saw him, it felt like the war was still going on. I didn’t think much of him and neither did anyone else in my class. One day i was outside of school during lunch in the senior parking lot. I had just threw in a chew when he came up to me and asked me my name. At first i was silent i answered him with caution. Eventually we hit it off and found out we had a lot more in common with anyone else. After that talk we had both become quite friendly and i had found out that he was not that bad of a guy at all. Once i had taken the time to get to know him i found out that he was not the enemy and the war had ended years ago, instead this kid was just a human like me who hated school and in fact was quite intelligent and funny. Instead of seeing a kid from North Vietnam who i was scared of i now saw a kid who hated school just like me, and simply wanted to gt out of here and make a life for himself.