Nothing Can Change

Location

96786
United States
21° 32' 54.6144" N, 157° 58' 34.356" W

I stand here
Segregated, broken into pieces
I am Japanese
I am Chinese
I am Portuguese
I am Hawaiian
Yet they segregate me, called me Asian
Because of the color of my skin and the shape of my eyes

The little blood I have doesn’t count
The little voice inside my head
Wants to speak, wants to be heard
But no one is listening
No one is singing
No one is fighting
No one hears that voice, for there is not enough sound
It is not loud enough
It is not strong enough

Now we are Christian
We speak of a tongue
Of a foreign language
Imprinted with English and bible verses
“God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son…”
We, we were tricked, manipulated, and forced to give up to give in
We didn’t fight
We didn’t do anything
We just stood like statues
Hoping that time would heal our wounds
all that was left was the scabs and scars
of this new culture thrusted upon us like a raging ocean

Shakespeare posed: to be or not to be
And we were being

But
I stand here
Trying to speak
My own dead language, Hawaiian, which has become foreign to me
Trying to regain what was lost
Yet I find that it is impossible to go back to the way it once was
The past is past and the present is present
But I will not stop trying, for this is not the end

I thought I was Hawaiian
But by law I am not, by definition I am not, I am classified as not

I am Japanese
I am Chinese
I am Portuguese
I am Hawaiian
That is my nationality; it is who I am
Nothing can change that
Not law, not definition, not classification
It is who I am
Nothing can change that
It runs through the veins under my skin

'O Jolene Inouye ko'u makuahine
'O Dean Watanabe ko'u makuakane
Noho pulaua a hanau 'ia
'O JordiKai ko'u inoa
E ola!

For you can tell me I am not
But I will always stand here
Even if I am alone
I will stand here and say
“I am Hawaiian
I am Portuguese
I am Chinese
I am Japanese
And you can’t change that."

No matter what:
O wou o,
Eu sou,
Wo de,
Watashi wa

Me

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