poem | Mixed Roots Stories

私は、青い鳥 / I am a blue bird

私は、青い鳥

青空を自由に飛び回り、

眼下の国々を眺める

私の母は、日本の白い鳥

父は、アメリカの藍色の鳥

そして兄と私は、空の色

ある時は、アメリカの自由平等を

素晴らしいと思い、

ある時は、日本の伝統に

心を魅かれる

私の居場所は、空の上？

日本　それとも　アメリカ？

いつの日か

自分の居場所を選ぶために

私は今　空を飛ぶ

空には、国境がないから

そして、色々な人に出会い、

色々な考えを聞き、

私を作っていく

でも、一つ気づいた

いつの日か

私が居場所を決めても

私は、私のままの青い鳥

誇りを持った青い鳥

翼を持ち、いつもはばたく

I am a blue bird

I fly through this blue sky ever so freely

And I look at the countries that lie below

My mother is a white bird of Japan

My father, a navy blue bird of America

And my brother and I, we are the color of the sky

Sometimes, we admire

America’s freedom and striving for equality

But other times, the traditions of Japan

Appeal to us

Do I belong in the sky?

In Japan? Or in America?

In order for me to someday

Realize where I belong

I soar through this sky right now

Because the sky doesn’t have borders

And I will meet so many people

And I will listen to their ideas

And become who I want to be

But I noticed something

Even if I decide where I belong

Someday

I’ll keep being the blue bird that I’ve always been

A blue bird, full of pride

I’ll use these wings to continue to fly

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

アーリーワイン直美 南カリフォルニア在住の日英バイリンガル教師。日本人の母とアメリカ人の父のもとで日英バイリンガルとして育ち、日米両文化に触れて育った。東京での字幕制作、またシカゴ郊外の日系企業での通訳・翻訳の経験を持つ。2015 年５月にコロンビア大学ティーチャーズ・カレッジでバイリンガル・バイカルチュラル児童教育の修士を所得後、アメリカの公立小学校で日英両語を使って教鞭を執っている。教育者としてのキャリアを通し、教育現場での文化や言語的多様性の受け入れを促進し、ハーフやミックスレースの児童のアイデンティティー形成のサポートを目指している。趣味は、フラメンコと三線。

Naomi Erlewine is a Japanese-English bilingual educator currently teaching at an elementary school in Southern California. As the daughter of a Japanese mother and American father, Naomi grew up speaking English and Japanese and was always immersed in a bicultural environment. She has professional experience writing subtitles in Tokyo and translating/interpreting at a Japanese manufacturing company in the Chicago area, but her heart lies in bilingual education. After receiving her Masters in Bilingual/Bicultural Childhood Education from Teachers College, Columbia University in May 2015, she has been teaching public elementary school students in both English and Japanese. Through her work as an educator, Naomi would like to advocate for cultural and linguistic diversity in education and support the identity development of multiracial children. In her spare time, she enjoys dancing flamenco and learning how to play the Okinawan sanshin.

Pause

I was once asked if I would prefer to be White

It gave me pause

Would I prefer to never have to think of the tone of my skin?

The texture of my hair?

The size of my hands?

The strength of my legs?

Would I prefer to be called beautiful, rather than exotic?

A mulatto gem?

An Oreo?

The Whitest-Black friend they ever had?

Would I prefer to not be followed in stores?

Stared at for looking at the finer things?

Scoffed at for dreaming big?

Deemed a miscreant in societies’ eyes?

Would I prefer to be able to walk down a street, unnoticed?

To not have someone clutch his or her bag as I passed?

To have a stranger smile back a hello?

To care for my little brother without judging looks of disgust?

Would I prefer to have “pretty hair,” rather than that for a “mixed girl”?

A “beautiful smile,” rather than, “wow your teeth are shockingly perfect”?

“Perfect nails,” rather than, “what brand do you use?”

To not be asked where I got my “weave” done?

Would I prefer to be blind?

Shallow?

Ill-Informed?

Dismissing?

I was once asked if I would prefer to be White

I smiled, threw my long natural curls over my shoulder, and said

“I’ll take wisdom over ignorance any day.”

Deanna Keenan lives in Upstate New York and recently graduated from Binghamton University with B.A.s in Psychology and Africana Studies, with honor’s in Africana Studies. She is currently a Copy Editor for Africa Knowledge Project – a publishing house that has a wide range of journals that discuss various aspects of the African Diaspora. She is also currently the Guest Blog Coordinator for Mixed Roots Stories. She also holds a position as an Adjunct Lecturer at Binghamton University for the 2016-2017 school year, teaching Africana Studies 101. She has been published in the journal ProudFlesh twice, with two pieces in production, and has presented at the American Public Health Association (November 2015). She hopes to continue her education in Developmental Psychology, researching Mixed Race identity formation, among other topics regarding the population.

It’s All Ice Cream yet It’s All I Scream

My, my, my people. Look at the times!

How many of us are still captive, confined?

We’re reading, speeding, feeding on this info highway.

We are the fortunate lot who’ve been allotted a byway,

Yet cannot freely speak our truths afraid of what they might say,

Find ourselves with no job with no pause nor delay.

Don’t even speak a word unless it sounds like “obey!”

How they terrify terrifically, so we do not speak specifically.

Relay a hint of history? Reveal what’s been a mystery?

Composed Craig Steven Wilder tells a story so gracefully.

Truth be told, outrage on hold, he seems a little pissed to me.

Perhaps because he sees what has been hidden so explicitly.

That the plasticity of enslavement shapeshifted with plausible complicity.

I wonder what the fourteenth amendment was for?

Perhaps an uncivil war slaughtered 600,000+ to blood and gore,

So under the law a person could be a person and a negro no more.

OR,

Maybe it was a concession for new breed of oppression upon the “poor,”

For under that law, corporations quickly became persons too

The “person” now patenting life itself, doing what they do.

The “person” capitalizing the most on the law meant to protect YOU

How many mortal “persons” died for that law so that immortal “persons” can sue

After all the horror, you see who got their foot in the door?

Are the beneficiaries the descendants of DeWolf or The Moor?

If that’s unclear, let’s go straight to the core:

The wealth usurped off the backs of blacks

that built the universities from out of the cracks,

that trained lawyers to cleverly devise a new plan of attack,

to leverage that same wealth to make a bigger stack,

so once shackles were removed, they could put them right back.

A law that remains intact – and that is an actual fact.

We choose to ignore this parasitic symbiosis

Divide conquer subjugate – prepare for the prognosis

Reduced to fractions of opposing factions,

While extraction is the action during our distracted, delayed reaction

to the retraction of our freedom as it erodes to mere abstraction

and sink deeper into indebted servitude through predatory transactions.

Politically, it’s present perpetually.

Realistically, a ridiculous rivalry.

Sadistically, it’s psychological slavery.

We can’t know our history, but can at least get a fistful.

Words straight from the heart, from the start make you tearful.

Fearful, although the fear is unnecessary.

Simply submit to the empire, it doesn’t have to be scary.

See beyond surface, I don’t intend to offend.

This is a time to build bridges and a time to blend.

To send a message similar to the dream

Of Dr. MLK – it has not lost its steam.

It’s why we still celebrate the day of his birth.

He put faith in the world when we doubted our worth.

A black man on the mic defending “niggers and kikes,”

Publicly speaking his mind – until he rested in Earth.

Honor to those who fought so that we could be free,

Instead of picking weeds or hanging out in a tree.

If we explore our roots, we most certainly see,

Soil and ivy bloodsoaked, fertilized with fallen ebony.

These Ivory Towers, towering over our ancestors,

Unite education, exploitation, imperial oppressors,

Taxation for public research serving private investors.

Baskin, my name, it comes from slavers,

Now with global corporate presence – think thirty-one flavors.

What have we learned? Some things are not what they seem

Chocolate or vanilla? You know, it’s all ice cream.

-By Andrew Baskin

For more on “Ebony & Ivy” see here

In a roundabout way, Andrew Baskin recognized food as a nexus linking complex issues regarding sustainability and immediately put this knowledge into action. Transitioning from volunteer positions with Soil Born Farms in Sacramento to guiding collaborative projects as a senior apprentice at Love Apple Farm in Santa Cruz, he subsequently traveled across Western Europe studying food systems for 2 months on a shoestring, and finally returned stateside to a vermicomposting farm in Sonoma. Now in his senior year at UC Davis studying Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems with emphasis in Economics & Policy, he has an immense appreciation for the movement driving this educational paradigm shift. As with many families, his has survived genocide, exploitation, and war and he desires to integrate this historical narrative around social/economic/ecological exploitation into his professional career as he, both personally and collaboratively, pursues healing and justice in these dimensions.

Mixed Up

They say;

half and Half,

quarter this, part That.

They ask;

What,

never Who.

They insist;

This looks Right,

but that must be Wrong.

They claim;

you are one of Us,

or you are one of Them.

I am no riddle, no puzzle,

not a problem to solve.

why not Double,

why not Whole?

why not Neutral,

why not All?

They say;

half and Half,

quarter this, part That.

They ask;

What,

never Who.

They insist;

This looks Right,

but that must be Wrong.

They claim;

you are one of Us,

or you are one of Them.

I am no riddle, no puzzle,

not a problem to solve.

why not Double,

why not Whole?

why not Neutral,

why not All?

By October 2014 Guest Blogger: Lill Salole

Lill Salole is a writer and speaker who holds an MA in Psychology. For over a decade, she has been working with issues concerning children and youth growing up in migrant and mixed families. She is particularly interested in issues of identity and belonging, as well as accessing resources in intercultural lives and communities. Salole comes from an international family and had a cross-cultural childhood. She is currently living in Oslo, Norway.

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