Si Se Puede
Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can seize our future. And as we leave this great state with a new wind at our backs and we take this journey across this great country, a country we love, with the message we carry from the plains of Iowa to the hills of New Hampshire, from the Nevada desert to the South Carolina coast, the same message we had when we were up and when we were down, that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we will hope.
And where we are met with cynicism and doubt and fear and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of the American people in three simple words -- yes, we can.
President Elect of the United States of America - Barack Obama
As a little girl, I'm sure like many people on my friends list, I wanted to be President of the United States when I grew up.
When I was ten years old, my mother needed to move us to a town called Le Roy, NY, an intensely conservative town in Upstate New York. In the seven years I went to school there, not a single one of my teachers (which the exception of ONE Spanish teacher) bothered to learn to pronounce my last name.
By seventh grade I knew what "spic," "wetback," and a whole other slew of racial slurs meant. I was white if you looked at my skin, I mean, no one *ever* guesses my Puerto Rican origins to look at me. I wasn't white enough though, they knew my last name and for quite a few years I was ashamed of my father's lineage. It made me separate, different, in a world of blonde hair and blues eyes - and it was like no matter how hard I tried for a lot of people - I was never really good enough. By Eighth grade I stopped thinking I could be a somebody that people respected, let alone in the world of politics, or that my voice even really mattered. Clearly, I just wasn't good enough - and if my peers couldn't accept my thick thighs, Spanish surname, and bilingual nature how could a large crowd?
Throw on the fact that by High School I was fully aware of the fact that I was bisexual, and I couldn't have felt like anymore of a freak if I tried. Cue the alternative hair, angry faces, and loud music.
Now, for the first time in years, I feel like that little girl again, the deeply tanned, rice and beans loving (okay that part NEVER changed), Puerto Rican and Polish (PoliRican), who really believes in the American Dream. Proposition 8 passed, but, I have faith. I have faith it will be over turned because look at the world, It's time for change.
Yes. We. Can.
Barack Obama is the man for the job. I'm hoping now, harder than I have dared too in years and it feels like free falling. The wind is in my face, and I can hear those who doubt but for now I refuse to listen because after so many years of doubt, shame, and frustration with my country, I am PROUD.
I believe in my President Elect, I believe that maybe, just maybe things will get better.
January 20th 2009, here we come baby.
And where we are met with cynicism and doubt and fear and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of the American people in three simple words -- yes, we can.
President Elect of the United States of America - Barack Obama
As a little girl, I'm sure like many people on my friends list, I wanted to be President of the United States when I grew up.
When I was ten years old, my mother needed to move us to a town called Le Roy, NY, an intensely conservative town in Upstate New York. In the seven years I went to school there, not a single one of my teachers (which the exception of ONE Spanish teacher) bothered to learn to pronounce my last name.
By seventh grade I knew what "spic," "wetback," and a whole other slew of racial slurs meant. I was white if you looked at my skin, I mean, no one *ever* guesses my Puerto Rican origins to look at me. I wasn't white enough though, they knew my last name and for quite a few years I was ashamed of my father's lineage. It made me separate, different, in a world of blonde hair and blues eyes - and it was like no matter how hard I tried for a lot of people - I was never really good enough. By Eighth grade I stopped thinking I could be a somebody that people respected, let alone in the world of politics, or that my voice even really mattered. Clearly, I just wasn't good enough - and if my peers couldn't accept my thick thighs, Spanish surname, and bilingual nature how could a large crowd?
Throw on the fact that by High School I was fully aware of the fact that I was bisexual, and I couldn't have felt like anymore of a freak if I tried. Cue the alternative hair, angry faces, and loud music.
Now, for the first time in years, I feel like that little girl again, the deeply tanned, rice and beans loving (okay that part NEVER changed), Puerto Rican and Polish (PoliRican), who really believes in the American Dream. Proposition 8 passed, but, I have faith. I have faith it will be over turned because look at the world, It's time for change.
Yes. We. Can.
Barack Obama is the man for the job. I'm hoping now, harder than I have dared too in years and it feels like free falling. The wind is in my face, and I can hear those who doubt but for now I refuse to listen because after so many years of doubt, shame, and frustration with my country, I am PROUD.
I believe in my President Elect, I believe that maybe, just maybe things will get better.
January 20th 2009, here we come baby.