Fist Fight In School?

After almost two weeks in the no-star motel, we finally found a small three bedroom house to rent. The house was so small, our furniture could not fit in. Neither was there a garage.
We used one of the bedrooms to store a lot of the furniture and put all three girls in one tiny bedroom. 

What choice did we Have? 
I was dying to get out of the One room in the motel.

Would you believe, within the month (we had hardly settled into the house), our landlord wanted us to move? He said that he had sold the house. 
Was he telling the truth?
Maybe he did not like us?
Discrimination?

I was really upset. I told the landlord that I would not move until I found another place to go to. I told him that he could evict me, if he wanted to.

One of the real estate tycoons in town, Charles Thompson, was very helpful to me. He rented one of his houses to us on the west side of town - at that time, it was at the edge of town. Beyond our block, there were fields. 
It still was fairly small, but at least it had a garage and a kitchen/den/dining combination, and it had central air. So we moved again. 
I missed my home in Albuquerque.

S.C. did a lot of traveling in the early days. I was not happy being alone with the kids for days on end. If it was not for some Lab wives who gave me both moral and physical support, (One of them even came and stayed with me some.) I would not know what would I have done.

Cynthia started third grade in the fall.
One year younger than her classmates, and some one-head shorter.
Soon I got a call from her teacher, Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Smith wanted to see me.
I did not know what to expect. Did she want to move Cynthia up a grade? I wondered.

So I went to the elementary school.

Mrs. Smith said that Cynthia hit one of her classmates, a big husky boy. 
I said, "It can't be. Cynthia had never been in a fight before."
Mrs. Smith said, "She did."
Turned out that the kids were taunting her.
You see, there is this chant about - 
"My father is Chinese, my mother is Japanese . . .
Chin, Chin, Chin. . ."
The kids pulled their eyelids up and down while chanting, making fun of Asian eyes.
Yes, Cynthia did Hit big Jeff on the face.

Well, it stopped the taunting!

I did not think I needed to apologize for my daughter's anger. I would have hit Jeff, too.

And she paved the way for her sisters.

P.S. Charles had a grand-daughter, of the same age as Cissy, my youngest. The girls were two then.They became good friends. When the girls got older, Charles used to take them fishing at his ranch. His wife would have the girls to play at her house.