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29 comfortable sending their children to.” Even once a job is found, problems can continue. Black teachers often face harass- ment, negative comments from parents and coteachers and even campaigns to have them replaced. Hernandez, from New Jersey, says she constantly has trouble with the management at her hagwon in Gangnam. She says she’s faced a constant barrage of criticism from her bosses over “my hair, about my skin, my weight. It’s constant here.” Parents are a driving force. Hernandez says parents ganged up on her and were forever trying to get her to leave her job, or get the bosses to fire her, even though she insists the kids “loved” her classes. These problems didn’t seem to affect the white teachers at the school. “The teacher that I replaced, all he did was play games,” Hernandez says, adding that the teacher had been there for two years. “Me, just getting there, (the parents) wanted me fired after three months.” Brendan Spencer, 28 and from St. Louis, feels he gets a “lack of regard or respect” from his coteachers — “like I’m lesser,” he says. When he was asked to make morning broadcasts at his school — outside of his contract obligations — he did it at first, but then said he was too busy planning his class- es to continue. “They were pretty upset about it,” Spencer says. “Whereas when the previous (white) teacher was asked, he just flat (out) said no. And that got a pass.” Spencer adds that when he disagrees with the other teachers or asserts his rights, Kore- ans often get much more emotional with him than with others. “I just feel that if I were a Korean person or a non-black person, that kind of vitriol or emotion wouldn’t be there,” he says. Scott Meech, a white, Korean-speaking Canadian who worked in 2009 as a head teacher and human resources manager for a company that sent foreign teachers to dif- ferent hagwon every week, has witnessed discrimination against black teachers on the ground level. In one instance, he started re- ceiving complaints about a black teacher, and went to observe that teacher’s classes. He says he saw nothing at all wrong with his teaching. “He was a good teacher with nice class- room manners and a connection with the students,” Meech says. “I had a meeting with the various directors, asking exactly what was wrong, and was told that many of the stu- dents were afraid of black people. They were afraid of losing students.” Meech tried to defend the teacher as “great,” but was told to fire him anyway. He refused and stepped down from his position. He warned the teacher, and a month later, the black teacher was fired. Many Korean parents have complained that their kids are afraid of black teachers. Elliott Ashby thinks the truth is different: Korean kids are not afraid of black teachers — their parents are. “When I did parent-teacher conferences, some of the parents would ask, ‘Are my chil- dren afraid of you?’” says Ashby, 30, from Phoenix. “I’d say, ‘No, but you might be.’” Ashby says kids don’t know racism on their own. Some of his students would notice his dark skin, or the difference in skin tones on the palm and back of his hand. Sometimes kids would ask, “Why are you black?” and he’d answer, “Just ate a lot of chocolate!” But this is not hate — it’s curiosity, and black teachers should understand that, he says. “They say every bigot was once a child with- out prejudice,” Ashby said. “Kids, they don’t know the difference.” But sometimes miseducation comes before a black teacher does. Some teachers report students who couldn’t believe a black person could be from America and not Africa. Epps describes how at her school, the stu- dents were used to black American teachers. But then came a new first grader who looked at her strangely and wouldn’t speak to her. One day, the girl told her, “You’re Africa.” “I didn’t even have to say anything,” Epps says. “The other students responded and said, ‘Babo (dummy), no, she’s American.’” Epps set out to educate her, showing her pic- tures of her white South African friends on Facebook, and showing her Chicago on a map of the United States. Hernandez says she does her best to ed- ucate the children, but she feels it’s a Sisy- phean battle. She believes that educating children about race is important, and says, “I’ve tried that with my own students. … I tell them, ‘Curly hair is okay’; ‘You’re not dirty just because your hair is like this’; ‘People are dif- ferent.’ Then they go home and their parents talk to them, and then their parents say, ‘No, they’re different. That’s not normal.’ They re- educate them.” It’s a cycle Hernandez feels she can never escape. ‘A lot of (Koreans) are really ignorant about what we have in Africa. … They fnd it weird that we actually speak English, and they wonder how we even got here. When they get to know that I’m on a scholarship, they’re like, “Wow!”’ — John, student, from Ghana