"Two years ago, I wrote a poem recounting the exper..."
Emerson College
Much of the work that students do at Emerson College is a form of storytelling. If you were to write the story of your life until now, what would you title it and why?
100 - 200 words
(Emerson College)
Two years ago, I wrote a poem recounting the experience of wearing a traditional red Chinese dress to school. My classmates’ taunts had humiliated me out of wanting to wear red ever again.
The poem, called “Red is the Chinese Color of Tragedy”, was intended to describe how racism had transformed something associated in Chinese culture with luck and fortune into something of hurt and tragedy. It was, at the time, the story of my life--a story where the main character was a girl deeply ashamed of her racial identity.
But I’d like to rewrite that story, and I’d like it to have a different title: “I Want to Start Wearing More Red”.
I am ever evolving. This new title represents that. It acknowledges that the story of my life includes a chapter where I didn’t want to wear red, where I hated who I was--but within the title also lies an “I Want”, a longing to grow and move past that era.
Red, for me, will no longer be the Chinese color of tragedy. If “I Want to Start Wearing More Red”, I will never attempt to rewrite my heritage. I will never erase myself again.