This poem was read at the 2014 Diversity Assembly by Sarah Bowen, Carmen Abbe, Laura Jagels, and Max Taylor. It was written collectively by the Poet’s Committee.
We look at the same sky
The one that is endless and blue
And almost convinces us that we can fly
I don’t know where the sky goes
Just like I don’t know a lot of things about you
I don’t know why your clothes are so different than mine
Why you step with your left foot instead of your right
Or why the houses on your street are a different color than mine
Your face
is like the face of the moon
The one I saw out of my bedroom window
Someone told me you were made out of cheese
But I didn’t believe them,
I knew you were made of the same stuff as me
I knew you could smile and frown and laugh and cry
I always remembered
That we lived under the same sky
But as I grew older
And TV screens and magazines told me what my clothes meant,
What friends I could have,
And which lunch tables I could sit at
I started to see the differences
the ones painted in crayon on your skin
the ones my eyes skimmed over
categorizing you into one of the many boxes in my head
Your differences were my fears
they were patterns of crayon that I did not see on myself
And I thought
We couldn’t possibly be from the same part of the sky
I let myself forget, that I am here, because of you
That your differences are what make mine
That we live under the same sky,
And that I am
Because of you
Diversity is not different skin tones or hair colors
It is the different ideas
different thoughts
different paradigms
that could tear us apart,
pulling us together.
My grandfather spoke through dots and dashes in World War Two
so that we could speak through hashtags and acronyms now.
Where those who never talked in tongues known to this world
were able to speak with those in others.
They spoke with the same mouths
the same tongues
the same words
and meanings.
Where language was served on a silver platter
and chewed by their children
and their children’s children
until they spat out you.
It is through the innate human connectedness
That we find through our unique intricacies;
It is through our celebration of the individual
That we may grow as a species
On Saturday nights
I make rugelach while eating leftover challah
with my mostly-Jewish friend
but my family eats enchiladas for dinner
Belgian waffles on Sunday’s brunch,
afternoon dim sum with the relatives
when I went to Austin last week
Dad took me to a “Tex-Mex” place – so I could know what his childhood was like
and while his growing-up was soaked in tomatillo sauce, sprinkled with chili,
I entered adolescence wielding
a pair of chopsticks and a spatula,
both of which I use to
eat popcorn in front of the big-screen, football-filled TV
Dad used to warn me that if I ate so many vegetables
“You’ll turn green!”
and it’s true:
these years of multi-colored fajitas and chow mein
mixed around under my skin
and now I can’t count all the little freckles of darker pigment
I can’t count the stray blond hairs
I can’t count all the times I’ve said
I am American
No, I’m not oriental. I’m not white. I’m not Greek.
No, I am American.
