Published in The Siskiyou, June 5, 2006

Twelve years ago there was a high school graduate who felt limited by the labels that defined her. She was a mulatto. She was a bastard child. She was the stepdaughter of a man who resented her. She was the estranged child of an alcoholic ex-prisoner. She was not expected to be much or accomplish much, but to find a niche out in the big wide world where she would say please and thank you and be grateful for any notice that was sparingly cast her way.

She walked with her head down, she rarely spoke; but she wrote, and wrote fervently. She wrote stories about being a caterpillar that turned into a butterfly. She wrote stories about being a garden with flourishing foliage. She was overly sentimental and melodramatic, but she was strong. She slowly learned that “bastard” was just an ugly word for a love child. She learned that “mulatto” was bland way of saying multiracial. She learned that labels can work against you, but they can also work for you, and that a colorful life of mixed marriages and mixed identities and mixed up families can make a beautifully blended and well-rounded existence. She learned that not only could she overcome her limitations, but that some of those limitations didn’t have to be limiting at all.

My purpose here is to be neither self-abasing nor self-aggrandizing. My purpose is to say that I know I’m not alone, that there are others out there who struggle with feelings of inadequacy and unimportance. For anyone questioning his or her worth, I want to leave you with the following message:  I don’t care where you’ve come from, I don’t care what little is expected of you, I don’t care what labels are attached to your personhood… Walk with your head up. Be proud of your past. Find what you want to do in life and follow it with everything you have. If someone thinks little of you, prove them wrong. If you feel you can’t accomplish something, prove yourself wrong. Don’t let anyone define you except for you—and make it one hell of a definition.

Copyright © 2005 Shannon Luders-Manuel