My First Bank Account

Yamileth got her first paycheck on a Friday in July: 412 dollars for three weeks of work at the ice cream shop. On Saturday morning, she took the check and her ID to the bank in the shopping mall. She wanted to open her first account.

The woman at the desk was called Ms. Duarte. She had gray hair and bright red glasses. "Your name, please?" "Yamileth." "Can you spell that for me?" "Y-A-M-I-L-E-T-H," Yamileth said slowly. "Everyone forgets the H." Ms. Duarte typed it and smiled. "Not me."

Then came the numbers: her phone number, her date of birth, the fourteenth of March, and a secret four-digit PIN. Ms. Duarte printed a form. "Sign here, please." Yamileth had never really signed anything before. She wrote her name in big, round letters with a little circle over the i.

"Now sign this card, please, so we have a copy." The second signature was small and fast. It looked nothing like the first one. Ms. Duarte looked at the two papers. "They need to look the same," she said kindly. "Try again." The third signature had a long line under it. The fourth one leaned to the left. Yamileth's face felt hot. "I'm sorry," she said. "I don't have a signature. I just have my name."

Ms. Duarte laughed, but not in a mean way. "Everyone starts like that. Choose the one you like best and do it slowly." Yamileth looked at her four signatures and chose the first one, the round one. She copied it three times on a piece of paper. Then she signed the card very carefully. This time, it matched.

Ten minutes later, she had a bank account with 412 dollars in it. When she stood up to leave, Ms. Duarte gave her a blue pen with the bank's name on it. "For homework," she said. "Fifty signatures before your next paycheck." Yamileth practiced at the kitchen table that night. By number thirty, they all looked the same.