i am not american

i am not american.

 

i refuse to be held down by a name that refers

to the country that i was born in, the country

that, yes, i live in, but i do not

associate myself with.

 

[i do not associate myself with anything]

 

i refuse to be told that i should be, that i am,

something because of where i was born

or what color my skin, hair, eyes are

or what religion i was raised in

because i do not want to associate myself with

the history behind those names that have been pinned

down on me, a 16 year old girl, who hasn't gotten to yet

see the world and make judgments, make my own history.

 

[i do not agree with society]

 

i am not white. i am not a red head. i am not christian.

 

i am a girl with pale skin and hair like fire, i believe

in a God that doesn't care what you look like or where you were

born or what you believe in and i believe

that there is more to my hair than just the fact that it is "red"

because there is a history to my hair, it was

the hair of my ancestors who survived famines and wars and

passed it down a line of strong-willed people to me and i am

proud to have this hair and i am proud of its history, but i am told

that it is just "red" and that i am just a "red head".

 

[there is more to it than that]

 

and my skin is not white, it is pale, it is not as dark as some

because my ancestors came from places where the sun would give them

little kisses that they called freckles and evolution

didn't give them the ability to become dark, so they became red

as they worked hard in the fields and in the factories and made

a life for themselves.

 

i am proud of who i am and where i come from, of the people

who lead up to me, the ones who make up the history i don't yet have

and i do not think that the words that are so forcefully pinned on me

are right because they can't ever begin to portray

the past, the present, and the future that lays

behind me, next to me, and in front of me.

 

i am not american.

 

i am just a 16 year old girl with fiery hair and pale skin who believes in God.