Blue Plaid By Janine Lim
At the school of Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow, we were required to always mind our appearances. We each wore a blue plaid pleated skirt, a shirt with a white Peter Pan collar, a royal blue cardigan, and royal blue knee-high socks. Every morning after the pledge of allegiance, we got down on our knees, and Sister Adeline would walk the room with a ruler measuring how far our skirts were from the ground. We were allowed no more than two and a half inches. Earrings were prohibited. Our fingernails were checked for length and polish. Clean, unpainted, and short were the requirements. Our hair was to remain simple to avoid causing distraction. We were to come as God had made us.
We learned to recognize temptation early. We learned to identify the snakes that tempted us to eat forbidden fruit. We learned that the fruits were called sins and we were born with them. Our baptism cleansed us of the sins which marred us at birth. Then we spent the rest of our lives collecting them again. Sins were everywhere. On TV behind the scrambled signal, in our older cousins’ tape collections, in locked cabinets in the living room, and on the top shelf of the magazine rack at the corner store, marked “Adults Only.” God was also everywhere watching everything we did, including using the bathroom and showering. With our parents on Earth, God above, and the Devil below, we were tamed by fear from all sides. This fear was meant to keep us pure and assured us a pathway to the gates of heaven.
We began this path with Reconciliation, when we confessed our sins to Father Stephen, telling him of the forbidden fruit we had eaten. We were only six years old when we disclosed to him the sins of children. Daisy, forever weight-conscious, confessed to sneaking Hostess cupcakes in the middle of the night. Jocelyn told Father Stephen how she threw a kickball at her brother’s face on purpose. Rochelle, the most God-fearing among us, confessed she stole a pen from the Hello Kitty store. Ailyn revealed that while her mother showered she would often try on her lipstick. Eva told us she made up her sins. She said she felt weird about telling her secrets to an old man she barely knew.
After confessing, we were to recite the Act of Contrition, an eight-line prayer of penitence. Ailyn forgot the words. Daisy scrawled the prayer on various parts of her arms and hands. Jocelyn used a tiny scrap of paper. Eva managed to fit the whole prayer on the sides of her pink eraser. Some of us were completely distracted by the golden cups and ornate robes in the confession room. Some of us laughed at Father Stephen’s bad wig. Some of us were afraid and cried. We all did our penance. We were all forgiven. We all sinned again.
Continue reading Blue Plaid here.
Also check out the amazing curriculum that accompanies this piece which will be taught in some LAUSD high schools. Link here.