Nothing Can Change

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