All Allied Up Showcase highlights diversity of M-A

The Dream Club and All Allied Up Club brought together M-A's diverse clubs in a showcase fundraiser to support scholarships for students with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) on November 15. The showcase focused not only on immigration but each club represented their culture or their experiences facing any social injustice.

"I think this showcase really highlights what strength and diversity mean. For the majority of the students, it was their first time using the PAC stage and so these kinds of events are important to give the opportunity to every student to showcase their talent and their voice... We need to support and celebrate one another and I feel that music and dancing is a great way to come together." -Dream Club Advisor and showcase Organizer Gonzalez Alvarez Chavez

Chavez explained that the Dream Club has many plans for the future, and said, "Second semester during M-A's international week, the Dream Club wants the administration to host an assembly for the entire school and have these students dance and sing. Also down the line for rallies, we would like to showcase this talent because the school is really diverse and they can definitely incorporate their talent."

Dream Club students Luis Franco, Fernando Bonilla, and Maycol Hernandez shared their original song "Todos Soñadores," a song about M-A's creation of the Dream Club and coming together as one school.

Adilene Ledezma, Martin Moreno, Jennifer Gonzalez, Mariela Salgado, Benjamin Zarate, and Noelia Barajas performed "Dance of the machetes" which is a Mestizo dance that seeks to contrast the rudeness of man and the delicacy of the woman by showing the men dancing with machetes.

Jesus Lombera sang "Corrido De Juanito," a song by Calibre 50 which shares the journey of immigrating to the United States and not being able to return to Mexico to visit one's parents.

"The song 'El Son de la Negra,' from mariachi repertoire, is so popular it is sometimes called the 'second national anthem of Mexico.' Composed by Blas Galindo in the late 1800s, this song from Jalisco, Mexico has many versions and variations but is loved and appreciated everywhere as an important part of Mexican folk culture." -Dream Club

Dancers Barajas and Zarate performed a quebradita and the Jarabe Tapatio, two types of Mexican dances.

"A quebradita (little break), referring to the breaking of a wild horse and a female dancer's backbends, is a Mexican dancing style. It is usually performed to a modified form of Sinaloan banda music, and often the word 'quebradita' can also refer to the music style. In the quebradita there is a male dancer and a female dancer. The male dancer lowers the female dancer backwards almost to the point where she touches the floor. Then the male dancer quickly pulls her up. This is what the 'little break' refers to... The Jarabe Tapatío is a dance that celebrates romantic courtship. It was performed by the 'national couple of Mexico': the Charro Mexicano and the China Poblana. During this courtship, the woman first rejects the man, but after a few taps on the dance floor, she takes him in! El Jarabe Tapatío: an icon of Mexican traditions and the star on the dance floors and mariachis!" -Barajas and Zarate

BSU president Danae Brister performed poems "Caged Bird" by Maya Angelou as well as "The System" by Prentice Powell with Breona Hicks. They also sang "Where is the love," a social justice rap song by The Black Eyed Peas.

"As a minority, I know a lot about social injustice and so I wanted to share. I recited the poem 'Caged Bird' which is about being oppressed and being trapped in this box. The only way to feel your freedom is to sing, as a caged bird sings. For me speaking out is another form of a caged bird singing. I'm speaking out about my experiences and I'm trying to get out of this box so that everybody has a better understanding of each other,” Brister said.

Brister explained that the poem "'The System' is from a white man's perspective of why they created the social system and how it was created to hold back minorities and people of color, how it was meant for only white man to succeed."

"As a club... we like to make sure that we are doing things that include other races, and other clubs so that we are actually building a bigger community... of different clubs, cultures, and races because I want us to be stronger and I feel that the only way to be stronger is to be stronger with other people." -Brister

The Samoan dance "Pate Pate" was performed by Katalina Mahe and Ata Vatuvei. "Lau Samoa" was performed by Mahe, Kauilani Puamau, and Vatuvei. James Pongi sang "Apple of my Eye" by Micah G and Josephine Tonga and Angela Langi performed "Fakateretere," a Tahitian dance.

Mahe said, “I've been dancing my whole life but Pate Pate was the first dance I ever learned from my parents. My mom is from Fiji and my dad is from Tonga and so they grew up in that environment where they danced every day, either for fun or events. My dad was mostly the one who taught me the Tauranga which is a dance for girls and Ahaka is for boys.”

Vatuvei added, “I was inspired to dance today because there are not that many Samoans out here so we like to show off our culture.”

“I have been dancing since I was in fifth grade... I'm Tongan and so my culture inspires me to dance, and I want to show it off.” -Tonga

Juliana Zolopa performed the following poem, "Chinese Quatrains" by Marilyn Chin.

"The aeroplane is shaped like a bird
Or a giant mechanical penis
My father escorts my mother
From girlhood to unhappiness
A dragonfly has iridescent wings
Shorn, it's a lowly pismire
Plucked of arms and legs
A throbbing red pepperpod
Baby, she’s a girl
Pinkly propped as a doll
Baby, she’s a pearl
An ulcer in the oyster of God
Cry little baby clam cry
The steam has opened your eyes
Your secret darkly hidden
The razor is sharpening the knife
Abandoned taro-leaf boat
Its lonely black sail broken
The corpses are fat and bejeweled
The hull is thoroughly rotten
The worm has entered the ear
And out the nose of my father
Cleaned the pelvis of my mother
And ringed around her fingerbone
One child beats a bedpan
One beats a fishhook out of wire
One beats his half-sister on the head
Oh, teach us to fish and love
Don’t say her boudoir is too narrow
She could sleep but in one cold bed
Don’t say you own many horses
We escaped on her skinny mare’s back..."

Sandy Han performed Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" and Alexandra Ornes sang "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," a song from “The Wizard of Oz,” about hope for a better place.

Han said, “I've been teaching myself to dance for the past few months now, people always look at me weird, they never give a reason but the implication is because I'm Asian. They're surprised that I sing pop and rock music. I make my own music and people assume it to be classical music. I think the expectation for my ethnicity is that we play classical piano or violin or cello and so I felt that what I was doing was against societal norms... I figured that by doing this I could show people that... anyone can dance.”

He also performed an original song dedicated to the memory of Matthew Cruz, Andrew Gonzales, and Ricardo Torres. "The song 'If I Had' deals with themes of regret and the importance of appreciating things, especially one's friends, as you never know when they may leave you," said Han.

Emma Dewey (a copy-editor and writer on staff) is a co-president of GSA. She shared the following speech about her experiences being gay.

"I’d like to acknowledge that in a lot of ways, my experience has been a privileged one. I’m half white and pass, I’m cisgender, my parents are well off. I’d also like to acknowledge that there is no universal lesbian experience, and there’s definitely no universal LGBTQ experience, which is an acronym that encompasses so many different identities.
That being said, what I’ve just done — come out to all of you — is probably the one thing all LGBTQ people do at some point in their lives. Usually, the response I get is surprise, because I don’t present as the stereotypical lesbian; I don’t fit the definition of gay girl that most people have in their heads. But I’d ask you all to consider why that is. When we look at people, why do we automatically assume that they are straight and cisgender? The entire concept of coming out — that one universal queer experience — is a product of that assumption, because what it means to be queer is to in some way fall outside those norms of gender and sexuality and so society requires us to announce it to the world. If we really want to envision a world that accepts LGBTQ people, we need to erase the idea that straight and cisgender is the default.
Because we shouldn’t have to come out. Existing in the closet of cisheteronormative society has a lasting, traumatic effect on the psyche of LGBTQ people. I didn’t even know that queer people existed until I was in fifth grade. Once I realized I was one of them, I spent my middle school years grappling with suicidal thoughts and depression because I felt so othered by my sexual orientation. That closet was suffocating me; it isolated me from my friends and family, it made me feel that I was truly alone at times. And that closet follows me wherever I go. Because I don’t 'look gay,' I’m continually coming out to people. Although I’ve grown to love and accept and be confident in my identity, that fear of alienation and rejection, even though it’s minuscule in comparison to what it once was, is still always itching at the back of my mind.
I know that in some ways this invisibility protects me. To wear my identity on my face would be to invite harassment from the ignorant and hateful people of the world, and there are so many people in our community, who visibly defy norms of gender and sexuality, that endure this violence, emotional and physical, every day. For some LGBTQ people, who do not have the comfort of accepting families or peers, hiding their identity is the reason they still have a home or a job or feel safe at school. But I’d ask you — is it really safety if such an essential part of your being is silenced? Is it really safety if you must put on a mask every day and live as something you’re not?
I ask the allies in the audience to walk away from tonight with a shifted perspective. I ask you to consider how being cisgender and straight informs the way you look at and categorize people. I ask you to start erasing that default that everyone is straight and cisgender, to be conscious in your efforts to use gender-neutral language, to call peers out who use slurs, to not make a joke out of equality. It is difficult to unlearn, but we must, or else queer people will continue to feel othered; we’ll continue to suffer disproportionately from mental health issues, and sexual violence, and homelessness. If this unlearning seems like a daunting task, that’s because it is. I am still working to take off society’s cisheteronormative goggles, and probably will be my whole life. But I invite you all to start that process, to start learning from and listening to the LGBTQ people around you. Because the truth is, we’re everywhere. We come from every race and ethnicity and background and we all have unique stories that need to be heard. We’re here to liberate you all from that suffocating closet, but we need your support. We need our peers and and our teachers and our doctors and our lawmakers and our families to understand and respect and validate us. So let’s get to work."