Miss Dolores · Flushing library, 2011

Where & when

• Flushing Main Street Library · New York · United States 2011–2012 the table at the back of the children’s room

About them then

Miss Dolores · about 53 then

The children’s librarian at Flushing who ran a free after-school English hour for kids who had just arrived. A short woman in her fifties with reading glasses on a beaded chain, a Puerto Rican lilt, and a bottomless candy jar on her desk.

Who I was then

The skinny twelve-year-old from Vietnam who sat at the end of the table and never said a word for six weeks.

Why I'm writing

To say thank you · Just hoping my words reach them

I arrived in New York in the autumn of 2011 speaking about thirty words of English. After school I hid in the library because it was warm and nobody asked me anything. You noticed. You started leaving a picture book on the chair next to mine, and never once asked me to read it aloud. By spring I was reading to the little ones on Saturdays. I am a teacher now myself, because of that chair.

Passed on by 2 · reached step 2 · 3 keeping an eye out

Could this letter be about you? This is me