My sixth-period class freshman year was wild. I’m not going to lie, most of us in that class were trouble makers. Walking in class this particular day and seeing we had a substitute teacher I knew something bad was gonna happen.

I always saw on TV or on social media people being racist to Hispanics and I always felt bad because no one should have to go through that. I always thought to myself, “What would I do if someone said a racist comment to me or a friend?” I never really put much thought into that because I never thought I would experience something like this. I would see on social media people posting about kids being in cages and children being separated from their families and that bothered me. But something that got my blood boiling was when there would be a Hispanic person minding their own business trying to sell their food from their food stand and random people would approach them and trash their stand or make fun of them. They would even punch and beat them up while someone else recorded. But of course, they took the hits and sucked it in. 

I was a freshman at the time and it was a normal day at school, as usual, walking from hallway to hallway. It was time for 6th period and I knew we were having a substitute teacher but what I didn’t know is that the assistant teacher wasn’t going to be there either. I put my stuff down and went to the bathroom as usual and came back to work on whatever I had to work on in class that day. The class was Academic Support Math but most of the time we worked on homework from other classes and got help. As usual, the 4 boys in our class worked together or at least sat together. This day they sat on the counter near the air vent and they were pretty quiet during class. Some talking but not much. All of a sudden we heard a dog whistle and right away everyone knew who it was. 

“Joe* stop it!” you hear someone say. He laughed and kept on doing his work. After a while, Joe got mad at the boy sitting on the counter because he thought they started to record him but really they were showing a friend a video of something or a picture. Then you see Joe pull out his phone and pretend to record the boys and I could tell the boys were getting annoyed with him. They try to ignore but then we hear the dog whistle again. “Dude stop!” said Tony*.  Everyone in the class started to get mad because the dog whistle was starting to get annoying but the substitute teacher didn't even do anything, he just sat there and looked at the things around the classroom. “Joe* literally stop! You're so annoying,” said Matt*. All the boys at once started to tell Joe* to stop. 

“Shut up you Mexicans,” said Joe*. I heard that clear but everyone stopped what they were doing and was silent. Matt, one of the boys on the counter, questioned “What did you say?” but no response from him. “Did you say shut up you Mexicans?” Matt asked. I then asked Jose* who was sitting across from Joe* “Did he really say that?” He nodded his head yes with his eyes a bit wide. I was pretty mad because not only did he offend those boys but he offended almost everyone in that class. The majority of the class was Mexican, most of them were mad. The class ended and everyone rushed out but Matt* was mad and wanted to confront Joe*. They started to yell a bit in the hall and then Matt’s* friends told him to forget about it but Joe* sticks the middle finger up and says it again. “Shut up you Mexican.” Luckily there was a teacher to hold back Matt* who was going to fight Joe*  and they both went to the dean's office. Little did we know we were all getting in big trouble the next day by our teacher.