Less than a week after posting suggestions for talking to your child about racism, I had my first lengthy conversation about racism with one of my children. It was initiated by my barely five-year-old daughter who is very aware of race– hers and other people’s.

While sitting at a stoplight yesterday, she spotted an American flag sticker on the rear window of the truck stopped in front of us. She asked me what seeing the American flag is supposed to make us “feel.” Wow, I thought, that is am amazing question for a child her age, and I gave her as simple an answer as possible. I talked about how the flag should make us feel happy and proud and lucky to be Americans. “Even Hispanics like me?” she asked.

I said “yes,” guessing that Sunshine was simply trying to confirm that she was both Hispanic and American, but the question left me feeling like I’d taken a punch to the gut. I couldn’t say with certainty, “Yes, Sweetie! You are lucky to be a Hispanic American!” Tensions continue to mount over the issue of immigration reform, and things will likely get worse before they get better. Our nation’s politicians talk around the issue, but I don’t look for any solutions to come out of Washington in the near future, if ever. Instead, “we the people” need to decide what it is we want, and then we need to make our choices loud and clear so our elected representatives can act on our choices.

In that moment, I did what most mothers would do: I told my daughter that she was lucky to be Hispanic and American and that she had a lot to be happy about and proud of. The conversation might have ended there, were Sunshine a different child! Instead, she went on to ask me if people in America wouldn’t like her and treat her well “like they did the black people” “because I am brown.” (I had told the kids earlier in the week that there was a time in America when black people were not treated well by white people, that they used to be made to work without pay and that they didn’t always have the same rights as white people. This came up when our kindergartener asked who Martin Luther King, Jr. was and what were we “celebrating” on the MLK holiday.)

In yesterday’s conversation, Sunshine asked why the white people treated the black people so badly and why they thought they were better than the black people. I said that sometimes people think things that they are wrong about, and this was one of them. She then asked some questions about how black people were forced to work. (We talked very, very generally about slavery about four months ago when the topic came up on an American Girl CD that she listens to.) “What about the kids?” she asked. “What did they do?” “They worked, too,” I said. She wanted to know what kind of work they did, so I told her that they helped on the farms and in the kitchens, serving the white people.

Sunshine is a sharp girl. She had already made the connection that if white people in America didn’t think black people were so great then they might not think brown people are so great either. What’s the next logical extension? That white people might think this way in other parts of the world too. That question came precisely as we crossed the threshold of a local Hispanic-owned alterations shop. I can’t remember her exact words, but she asked me if people fight about skin color in other countries too– “…like Guatemala?” she added. Since we needed to wait for my husband’s glove to be repaired so he could take it on a business trip today, there was no cutting out of there so I could answer Sunshine’s questions in the privacy of my own home! I had nowhere to hide and nothing but time on my hands!

I decided that the best approach was to face the music head-on, and go where the conversation took me. I sat there, the sole white woman in a room of Latinos, explaining not only racism to my Guatemalan-born daughter but that it was at the core of a 36-year civil war in Guatemala that was not ancient history but still fresh in the minds and hearts of its people. In Guatemala, the conflict was not between whites and blacks, I explained, but between the Hispanics and the Maya (or “Mayan Indians,” as some people call them). “Why were they fighting?” she wanted to know. “Because the Hispanic people thought they were better than the Maya,” I said, praying I got it right and waiting for someone to correct me! Talk about feeling conspicuous!

Sunshine wanted to know more about the Maya, so I promised her I would show her some pictures when we got home. We had a lovely time today looking through a book together and then digging through a trunk of Mayan textiles and other treasures I’ve collected on my many trips to Guatemala. Her brothers joined in on the fun and then the four of us toured the house looking at various Guatemalan art pieces throughout the house that the kids have seen for years but have never known what they were looking at. It was really remarkable for me to watch their world expand in so many ways.

But before Sunshine and I left the alterations shop yesterday, she wanted to know what besides skin color people fight about. “Land, religion, whether you believe in Jesus, lots of things,” I said. “Do they fight about things right now– and have wars?” she asked. “Yes, Baby. People fight about things all the time. The United States is even in a war right now. It’s in another county, very far away but we are in a war,” I said. “Just remember that where we are is very safe. We live in a safe house in a safe place. Okay, Baby?” I said. “Okay, Mommy,” she replied.

Yesterday gave me quite a few reasons to feel happy and proud and lucky for us both to be Americans.