After coming in second and tying for first in their first two bouts in February, the poetry slam team will compete in the Louder Than a Bomb quarterfinals.
“After two dynamic weeks of #LTAB2016 Prelims, more than 1,200 poems performed, a stronger and larger community built, the first phase of the tournament comes to a close,” the LTAB organizers wrote in an email to coaches.
In the photo above, teachers James Sloan and Ivelisse Cotto pose with the poetry slam team at the second bout of the LTAB competition.
Ashamed
I have always been conflicted.
Born in America, raised by
Pakistani parents, and instilled,
With traditional Islamic values.
Alina Qureshy performs Ashamed at LTAB on Feb. 20. Photo by Elise Guilen.
My parents raised me to be a
proper, modest, Muslim girl
Polite, smart, even deferential
To be seen and not heard.
Every meal in my house
Was homemade, with love.
Kicheri and haleem, with
fragrant gulab jamen.
My closet was filled with
Lehengas and shalwar kameezes
Long sleeved shirts and
Full length jeans.
I learned Urdu along
With English, and my mother
Never called me ‘sweetie’ or
‘Honey’ or ‘baby’
No, I was her beti, her
Chanda rani, her dil ki suruth.
But I was also her jan ke azab,
A gadha, an ooloo ki puthi.
But it couldn’t always be this way.
Stepping outside the house was like
Stepping into a different world, and
It was completely different from what I knew
No one knew about
Shah Rukh Khan
Instead, it was all about
Brad Pitt and Zac Effron
My modesty was an anomaly
People thought I was weird or crazy
Everywhere around me was
low cut shirts and short skirts
I was bullied for my ‘otherness’;
For my thick eyebrows and hairy arms
for the mehndi trailing dark red
Patterns Up and down my hands
Going to school only
Taught me how to
Be ashamed; of my culture,
My language, my own self.
So I learned how to assimilate.
I learned the ins and outs
Of how to “American”
Of how to be “normal”
I locked away the girl who
loved her culture and her
heritage, the girl who reveled
In her Lehengas and kurtis.
But then things changed.
I left that place, full
Of ignorance and hate
And discovered myself,
And I realized some things.
I didn’t believe in God,
Or The things my family
told me about the world.
I didn’t want to be proper
Or modest,or polite,
And damn I didn’t want
To be deferential!
I wanted to be LOUD
I wanted to be sarcastic
And sassy and the
Exact opposite of proper
I wanted to believe that it was
Time to stop hating myself
For the Pakistani blood
Running through my veins
Then I came to a new school,
And I learned to unlearn
The self hate that had been self taught.
And instead learned to be proud again.
Proud of my thick eyebrows
And my love of Bollywood.
Proud of my bilingualism
And my traditional clothes.
But I also love America,
The Land of my birth.
The freedom I couldn’t
Have in Pakistan.
My name is Alina afzal qureshy
I’m not American or Pakistani,
But American and Pakistani
And I am no longer ashamed.
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