Photo by Nastasia Makfinova on Unsplash
Special to United Methodist Insight | Oct. 30, 2025
I teach English as a Second Language. At the start of every class, I ask my students how they are doing, what they did over the weekend, and what they plan to do over the coming days. It is our conversational warm-up, a ritual that begins with small talk but often ends somewhere deeper.
Last week, as Halloween approached, I asked them what their plans were. One of my students, a dentist from Mexico named Juan, said he and his family were going to a terror casa. Everyone calls him Johnny.
It took me a moment to realize he meant a haunted house.
A terror casa. I liked the sound of it. It felt more accurate than “haunted house,” more visceral, more honest.
When we met again after the weekend, I asked how it went. Johnny shook his head. They did not go.
“Too expensive,” he said. “Fifty-five dollars for thirty minutes of being scared by American teenagers in masks.”
I said I could not believe it. I had not been to a haunted house since I was in the sixth grade, and I had clearly underestimated inflation. Even the price of fear has gone up.
Then Johnny said the thing that has stayed with me ever since.
He said, “I could not see paying fifty-five dollars to be scared when so many of my people walk around in daylight and are afraid of being taken by people in dark masks for free.”
The room went still.
It reminded me of so many stories I heard in the former Soviet Union. The dark humor of the dissidents, honed in the GULAG, which always began with the words, “Old Soviet Joke.”
We eventually moved on to grammar, vocabulary, and the day’s lesson. But the truth of what he said hung there quietly. It was a reminder that for so many immigrants, fear is not a seasonal amusement. It is the background noise of survival.
Maybe that is why Juan and his family come to English class every week. I believe they come not just to learn a language, but to build a life where the ghosts wear no masks, and where daylight, real daylight, might finally feel safe again.
Richard Bryant
Richard Bryant teaches English to adult learners in North Carolina. His work explores language, identity, and the quiet heroism of everyday life in the ESL classroom. He is currently completing his MA in TESOL, with his research focusing on storytelling and the philosophy of language in adult education.