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a space for youth writing on mental health & identity
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a space for youth writing on mental health & identity
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![]() I came from a land of swirling, colorful paintbrush strokes From smooth, grass fields like vast, green carpets rolled out over the Earth From the soft, gentle twang of our flowing music, our beautiful language From dense, diverse forests, soaring mountains, and roaring rivers Even before we moved from our land
My mama proudly told me, bragged to me How we had 5,000 years of history compared to their primitive, mere 200 How our people, our culture, transcended time and space Wove in between the threads of the world And that I shared our blood And I was proud of it, proud of all of it Proud that I had been created by those same paintbrush strokes That my mother, and countless others before her, had been That I was from the land of bright scarlet red Speckled with the sparkle of golden stars When we came here, it didn’t take me long to discover the white pool in our backyard It was a strange thing, a different thing from anything I’d ever seen I approached it tentatively, cautiously But also curiously, hopefully, excitedly As I got closer to the pool of white water I heard whispers of a language I didn’t understand A sharp, staccato tongue with vibrato slangs and jokes Strange music in the distance, the stinging beats of drums The whoop and holler of people, with the whistles of the referee mingling in The savory smells of freshly cooked food, the sugary sweetness of tarts and cakes The crash of thunder, the flickering screens of movies And as I got closer…and closer…just a couple steps closer Something fluctuated in the pool It wasn’t only white anymore Other colors ebbed and flowed in between the waves of white There was red! Just like the red from my homeland! But there was also a bit of blue A magnificent, royal blue And countless others too A rainbow and that flowed and changed Like an opal, changing with each shift in perspective I got As I stood at the edge of that pool, some of the voices cursed at me But they were only the tiniest of dark spots Amidst the sea of welcome that awaited me I heard screams of joy as I approached Encouraging shouts and beckoning calls I could have sworn I saw hands from within the water Reaching out to take mine To help me into the pool And show me what lay in those fascinating depths But Mama and Baba warned me They said there would be…temptations I didn’t know that they would come in the form of this pool The strange, but captivating other world that was just underneath its surface So I very carefully Very slowly Stuck one finger A single finger Into the water It was beautifully warm and a hostile cold all at once But the satisfying warmth overpowered the frigid discomfort I submerged my whole hand It felt amazing Weird, but truly amazing When I took my hand out of the water It was stained white like its waves Like a glove I had slipped over my fingers Only this? It felt like it was a part of me now And I felt happy I felt almost as if I was home I ran back home and showed my people, my family I showed them my hand I told them the sounds I heard The sights I saw The colors that evanesced in the pool amongst the white The smells of the food, the taste of the air The thunderous, powerful bang of the music I reached out and took Mama and Baba’s hands About to guide them to the pool in our backyard I wanted to show them what I saw Let them experience what I had And maybe Just maybe They would feel at home, too But my people turned around Seizing my hand and staring at it instead “No! What have you done?” they shouted I was confused I wasn’t sure what I had done “You’ve become whitewashed!” they panicked in a frenzy They grabbed my now-pale hand Rubbed it over and over and over with their own Some of their color, my color Bled back into my skin But the whiteness was still there It had left its mark on me And they were angry “Stay away from there” “Those are not your people” “You’re forgetting your culture” “You’re forgetting who you are” “Don’t Become Whitewashed” Whitewashed What did it mean To be whitewashed? Why did the fact that I touched the white mean that I was giving up the intricate, careful paintbrush strokes that made up my old home? Why did the fact that I liked the blue of the new land meant that I was wiping away the shimmer of the golden stars from where I came? Why couldn’t the bright scarlet of my people’s blood and our land Coexist with the deep, rich crimson of America? In the end aren’t My red and your red Both the same color Just in a slightly different shade? Why can’t I have Both my red And your red? Comments are closed.
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May 2023
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