It’d be cool if I was Eric Obama.

Sanouse teases me a lot in class. If he knew I was writing this article he would probably ask me what he usually asks me: “why you read and write so much?” I return the favor by trying to teach him how to divide 18 by 3.

I started tutoring at Public School 59 in March. It’s been nearly two months of getting up at 8:30 on Tuesdays and Fridays to help out Ms. Roth and Ms. Schragne’s third grade class. I remember looking for the building on my first day, at the corner of 182^nd street and Bathgate, a ten minute walk from campus, and feeling completely lost.

“Excuse me, but could you tell me where Public School 59 is?,” I asked the crossing guard.

“Yeah. It’s right here.” She pointed to the building that was fifteen feet behind her.

“Oh geez, that’s embarrassing. Thank you.”

I slinked away from the crossing guard, mildly embarrassed by how provincial my Bronx “expertise” was—several blocks past the Lax House, I had a new marker for the farthest south down Bathgate I’d been.

The classroom is small. There are too many desks to put them into rows. I sit in the back on Ms. Roth’s swivel chair, because I’m lazy at 9:30 in the morning. If I’m not rolling over to Duane or Michael’s desk I’m usually stationed next to Sanouse.

“I want to go home,” he said on one of the first days I talked to him.

“Alright, it’s like only 10 o’clock though. It’s almost the weekend. Be patient,” I replied.

“Nooo, I want to go back to Africa.”

“What?”

“I want to go back to Guinea, that’s where I was born.” (Guinea is a country on the western coast of Africa, sandwiched by Senegal and the Ivory Coast)

“Oh, so you meant you wanted to go back to your home-home?,” I asked, surprised.

“Yeah. I been there once when I was four. My dad said we gonna go back soon.”

You can tell that Sanouse’s parents aren’t native English speakers by his accent. The choppiness of his speech reminds me of a foreigner learning English sometimes. Regardless, whether he’s repeatedly asking me “why you read so much” or rattling off a sequence of nonsensical questions that only a nine year old could get away with,“You like Pokemon?”, “You watch Spongebob?”,“You like George Lopez?” (he has this odd fascination with George Lopez) it’s evident that Sanouse’s family background doesn’t obstruct his acceptance as a precocious American kid.

Cherub-faced with short black hair and rolled up sleeves, his behavior and dress (which is a school uniform) is in line with the rest of his class. Like Anthony and Jose, he’s quick to dismiss a math problem as “the easiest thing in the world” and then go onto the next problem which will then become the newest “easiest thing in the world.” Like Xavier and Natalio, he’s prone to whine and not be able to sit still, especially after thirty minutes of “reading workshop.”

I am comfortable enough to tease Sanouse, and I feel as if I know Destiny, Tanya, Lizmeri, Debryanna, Nijah, Coralis, Xavier, Jose, Lee, Natalio, Sidiki and Zedekien fairly well. I sit in class and joke with Sanouse that “if 8 times 6 is the easiest thing in the world how come you can’t figure it out?” He looks at me with a mischievous grin and, as only a child could do, successfully diverts the conversation to something absurd like George Lopez.

I realize that in the classroom, aside from the teachers, no one is white. Sixth semester of college and the realest encounter I’ve had with race is in a third grade classroom. I don’t think the kids are old enough to racially discriminate against each other, but if it were ever to get to that I know saying “Obama” to Sanouse would fix everything.

“O-Bama. O-Bama,” he says in a slow,  inspiring chant.

“Why do you love Obama?”

“I don’t love him. I just like him, my dad loves him,” Sanouse replies, too nuanced for a third grader.

“Okay, what do you like about him?”

He points to a girl in class,

“She Michelle Obama. You Eric Obama. I’m Obama.”

I can’t help but laugh.

“But seriously, what’s so great about ‘em?,”  I gently prod, hoping for a response as humorous as calling me Eric Obama.

He shrugs. He has no real response. He grins, and for one of the first times ever I’ve stumped him. He just really likes Obama.

I like Obama. I think of my own political leanings, preparing myself if he reciprocated the question. I consider how Sanouse doesn’t know—or give a damn—about deficit spending or foreign policy. My understanding of Sanouse and his class is finite; I am not black or latino, I grew up in the suburbs. I will never like or take pride in Obama the same way he does, no matter how many times I help him with math, or go to PS 59, or watch George Lopez there will always be that unbridgeable gap in understanding.