Literature

I’m DifferentAbigail Blair

Second Grade, Sierra View Elementary

School

Thirteenth District

There was a boy named Kyle. He was

new to Sierra View. Everyone made fun of

him because he was different. Everyone

except Melissa. They were in third grade

together. One day Max laughed at Kyle at

lunch. Kyle started crying. At recess Max

kicked Kyle. Melissa took him to the

nurse. Back in class the other kids were

working on math. The teacher said it is

okay for people to be different. Just like

numbers, every number is different. The

next day at school some boys asked Kyle

to play with them. Kyle was glad to have

more friends. Everyone noticed that

different was okay. Different is fun!!

“Because the boy in the story is differentthan everybody else. And his friend helpsshow his class it’s OK.”

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Literature

Being Different is Cool!Daniel Roman

Fourth Grade, Margaret R. Sellers Elementary SchoolFirst District

Being Different Is Cool! Hello. My name is Daniel Roman and I am nine and ahalf years old. I live in Glendora, California with my mom and dad. I also havetwo older sisters who are in college. I am in the fourth grade at SellersElementary School. My teacher’s name is Mrs. Fallon.

To me diversity means that it’s okay to be different. I think I knew what diversitymeant long before I ever heard the word. You see I have autism. Having autismhas always made me different from other children. I get bothered by loud noisesor tags in my clothes that make me itch. It is very hard for me to look at people inthe eye, and I don’t like it when anything at school or home does not follow theusual routine. I go to a lot of programs to help me learn how to do things thatother kids just know how to do automatically like telling jokes.

It was when I was in the second grade that I first noticed I was different fromother kids. This is when I started to learn about diversity. At that time I didn’t likebeing different. I thought that no one would ever think I was cool. I just didn’tknow how to talk to other kids about anything other than American history or StarWars. I also got teased sometimes because I was different.

Now two years later with a lot of help from my family and teachers I don’t think ofdiversity as a bad thing anymore. Now I think it is a good thing. It makes everykid special in their own way. I know that all kids have some things that are hardfor them.

Because I know that being different can be hard, I always try to be nice to otherkids who may be feeling like I used to. My cousin Asilbek who comes fromKazakhstan has cerebral palsy. This makes it hard for him to run and play. Ialways try to make sure and say something nice to him and include him in gamesI am playing. I know what it feels like to be different.

I will always have autism and so I may always be different in some ways.However, I never want people to feel sorry for me. I think that having autism willteach me to be strong and learn how to overcome challenges. My mom told meabout a woman named Temple Grandin. Temple Grandin had autism yet becamea famous scientist. Some people didn’t like Martin Luther King Jr. because of thecolor of his skin. These heroes helped me to learn that diversity is a good thing.

I have learned how to feel good about myself and not let other people make mefeel bad. I can be cool and at the same time tell you anything you want to knowabout American history.

My message is that diversity means it’s okay to be different. It will be nicesomeday when everyone is accepted for who they are and we all realize thatdiversity is a good thing. It makes each one of us special!

“This story is about how I have learnedthat diversity is a very cool thing!”

Award of Excellence

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Literature

Fingerprints Across the WorldSonia SacharEighth Grade, Horner Junior High School

Peralta District

I despised my history class. Every day, I felt like I was forced tolearn about events that happened too long ago for me to care aboutor people who had no impact on my life. One day, while I was half-asleep at my desk and waiting for the bell to ring, my teacher askedthe class, “How can you change the world?” My class looked aroundconfused, as this was such a foreign, unknown topic. “Think aboutthis question, and tomorrow we can discuss our ideas.” I didn’t payattention to anything else my teacher said, as I was very intriguedwith that question. What do I do to change the world?

That afternoon, I could not stop thinking about how I change theworld. My role models, my parents, and my idols all impacted theworld and contributed to its history. But me? I felt like I just lived butnever really changed the world in any way, shape, or form. Whenmy grandma came back from the supermarket, she asked me,”What’s the matter?” I quickly responded by telling her myassignment and how I could not figure out how to change the world.She knowingly nodded, and sat down next to me.

“Give me your hand,” she told me. A little confused I gave her myhand. She traced my hand and soothingly massaged it. She slowlybrought her hand and my hand together.

“Look at your hand and my hand, and tell me what you see,” shesaid. I stared at our hands and said they were the same.

“No,” she shook her head. “Look again child,” she spoke. Again Ilooked and this time I saw that her hand was a much lighter color,had longer fingers, and had deep lines cutting through her palm. Icompared it to mine, which was darker, stubbier, and had fine lines.Bewildered I asked, “How...?”

She responded with an explanation. “No matter how much we arerelated, we are all diverse in some way; every single individual isdiverse,” she taught me. My grandma then went to check the oven,leaving me confused about how diversity was related to changingthe world. Finally it dawned on me that they were indeed deeplyintertwined.

The next day, my teacher asked us if we had any thoughts on howwe could change the world. Timidly, I raised my hand and said, “Justby being diverse, we are impacting the world. Diversity has manydefinitions. Diversity means changing the world, being different,being a different race, and living life differently. Our individualdiversity makes us who we are. Every step we take, every judgmentwe make, and every conclusion we draw shapes our uniqueidentities. For example, if you compare my grandmother’s hand tomy hand, our hands may look the same, but they are extremelydifferent. In fact, every single person has a truly unique fingerprint.Our hands are symbolic of our individualism; we all have differentskin colors, different interests, and different appearances.”

My voice grew louder and I began to gaze at my fellow classmates. Ipointed to my classmate, Fatima, and said “Fatima is from a Muslimdescent, wears a hijab around her head, and likes to read and write.

While Chaoxiang, is from a Chinese background, wears a jadearound his neck, and likes to study and do puzzles. Fatima wants tobe a children’s book writer, while Chaoxiang aspires to be a doctor.”I moved to the other side of the class room, “Shreya is from anIndian background, wears henna on her hands on special holidays,and likes to sing. Pedro, is from a Mexican descent, wears hand-stitched pants and natural fibered shirts, and loves to play waterpolo. Shreya wants to be an engineer while Pedro wants to be alawyer.

I moved to the center of the class, and said “As you can see, ourclass is very diverse. By being ourselves, voicing our opinions, andrepresenting our heritage, we already change the world. And whatdoes diversity mean? Well, it means being who you are andanything you wish to be. As the famous believer Ghandi said ‘Be thechange you want to see in the world’.” I was acknowledged with abig round of applause and a proud comment from my teacher,saying that my topic of changing the world was meaningful andunderstandable.

Diversity has many different aspects. It changes the world, depictswho we are, and explains how we live. We each are different, butwhen we come together we learn about each other’s differencesand become a whole. We are all different, as we have differentappearances, clothes, and races. However, this is only a part of thedefinition of diversity. The true meaning of diversity is the magic thathappens when a group of different people come together to learn, tosolve a problem, to talk and to be there for each other. As we holdour hands, we connect ourselves to learn, to accept, and to supportour differences.

Diversity is beauty. The diversity in people is their beauty. The faultsthat we may perceive to be ugly are actually beautiful. As ScottWesterfeld said in his book, Uglies, “What you do, the way youthink, make you beautiful.” Whether it’s a hand glove, a hennatattoo, or different nail polish, our hands are the key to our diversepersonality.

Being diverse allows you to be comfortable in your own skin and totrust yourself and your friends. Many teenagers can’t show theirindividualism or their diversity, because we have too much pressure.We have pressure to fit in our society, pressure to be popular, andpressure to fight bullying. When we hide our true selves, we arelying to ourselves, because we are pretending to be who we are not.This leaves us with barely any trust or no trust in ourselves and ourfriends.

Diversity means being comfortable in your skin, trusting yourself andfriends, being beautiful, being different together as a whole, andbeing who you are. As we hold our hands, we unite not only ourfingers, but our diversity too. We come together to be ourselves,comfortable in our skin and our trust. With every finger tinglinganother, we connect our inner beauty and our willingness to grow,learn, and expand our differences. We, the people of the differentnations and different races, control how we change the world, howwe depict ourselves, and how we live.

“My essay is about how diversity means many things. It alsoshows that diversity is everywhere. The title explains howpeople are making an impact across the world, with theirunique fingerprints of their hands.”

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Literature

UniqueSuzanne DonahueTenth Grade, Laguna Hills High School, Fourth District

Sita danced. She spent long, grueling hours in her teacher’s garage afterschool Mondays through Saturdays while her friends went shopping orwatched television, the kind of things you’d expect a normal American girl todo. But Sita would never be a normal American girl, no matter the comfortshe would feel if she were one.

She was blue-eyed, with a golden yellow streak in her light brown hair.She didn’t look too different from the other girls at school, but she hadmuscular legs, for which she was always careful to cover up. Her friendsknew she was a dancer, but Sita was not about to go into detail describingher passion to her friends. She knew that they all assumed she was agraceful ballerina, or maybe even some new-age type lyric dancer, but inreality she was much different.

Sita performed Indian dance. She loved everything about it – telling astory with her hands and feet, wearing traditional dress from the sari to thebindi to the heavy jewelry, and even watching the sweat bead down herforehead as she practiced in Miss Shruti’s dusty old garage. There were fewthings in the world that could make her happier than she felt after a greatperformance.

Sita felt lucky to have her loving family, her friends, and her dance. Evenso, Sita felt she was missing something. It was strange to admit it, butsometimes she wanted her friends to know who she really was. Most of thetime, however, Sita just wanted to fit in.

Sita tried so hard to be normal, but it seemed that every piece of herscreamed out in protest. Even the name her adopted Indian parents gaveher put a distance between her and her friends. Sita’s name could hardly besaid with an American accent. She remembered that when she was in firstgrade, her parents had always corrected her friends when they attempted tosay her name. Sita had cringed when they pointed out that the “t” in hername was too heavy and clumsy when others pronounced it. She hadoftentimes wondered why she couldn’t have just been an Emily or a Jane.

Sita wasn’t embarrassed by her identity or her Indian dance, she toldherself. She was just afraid that her friends would find her strange for lovingsuch a foreign thing as Indian dance. That’s why she walked right past theWestchester High Talent Show signup sheet posted on the door of herchemistry classroom without so much as a glance. She and her friend Lisastrolled right past the poster into the classroom and sat down without aword. They were exhausted, as usual for a Monday in March.

Sita was setting her notebook and her neat array of colorful pens on herdesk when Lisa brought up the talent show.

“You know, Sita, I’ve never seen you dance,” Lisa said, motioning towardthe colorful poster with a smug look on her face. “You spend all of your timeon it, and no one at school even knows how hard you work! I think this isyour chance.”

“What, the talent show? No. Not a chance. Nope,” Sita answered flatly.“Will you at least think about it?”“Alright ... no.”“Please?”Sita looked at her friend and shook her head. If Lisa knew what kind of

dancing she did, Sita was sure that Lisa would not want her to show it off toeveryone. To other kids, her makeup would seem overdone, her outfitstrange, and her dancing grotesque. She was sure of it.

Yet, there was a part of her that wanted to let go. She wanted to complainto her friends about how long it took to apply a henna tattoo or howimpossible it was to balance all of her body weight on only a few of her toesfor dance. She wanted to give her friends tickets to see her nextperformance at the Los Angeles Cultural Museum and accept flowers fromthem afterward. But there was always something that kept her from doingthose things.

Later that day, Sita was eating lunch with Lisa and her other friends,Melody and Nadine, when Lisa continued to beg Sita to perform. Sitathought of all the different variations of the word “no” that she could possiblyrecall, but instead something surprising came out.

“You guys will think it’s weird,” Sita blurted out, then instantly closed hermouth and began silently picking at the pasta salad she had brought forlunch. For one long moment, her friends looked at each other and then rightback at Sita in silence. Melody held her breath and looked as if she wereabout to say something important, but she sighed and set her mouth in atight line. Nadine brought her small hand to her chin and kept it there, as ifwaiting for someone to say something. Sita was taken aback when shenoticed that Lisa looked hurt.

“Okay, Sita,” Lisa began. “I’m just going to let the cat out of the bag. Weknow you’re an Indian dancer. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I watched oneof those Bollywood movies a few years ago and I thought that the dancingand the music was really cool, so I started talking to your mom about it, andshe showed me an old video of your dance group performing. You havetalent! Don’t let it go to waste just pretending that you’re exactly likeeveryone else.”

Sita was shocked. She could hardly even grasp the idea that she hadspent so much time afraid that her friends would not accept her that shedidn’t even realize that they already had. Sita had tried to separate herdance from her normal life, assuming that the two were not to be mixed,while her friends had been rooting for her all along. Accepting her lack offaith in her friends and feeling rather ashamed, Sita began preparing a bigapology for hiding herself from them.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it,” Sita began. “I guess I was afraid thatyou guys would think I’m really weird for liking something so ... different.Everyone at school seems to have the same cookie cutter hobbies and I justfelt alienated.”

“You think we’re all the same?” Melody cut in. “We’re all strange! Takeme, for example. I knit. No one our age does it, but it’s actually a lot of fun.And Lisa, she’s really great at singing opera, believe it or not. I heard hermyself. I bet she’s been had voice lessons for years, and she’s been afraidto tell us, just like you were.”

“Melody!” Lisa replied. “I can’t believe you brought that up now. Okay, Ihave had a few lessons, but that’s beside the point. Sita, what we’re trying tosay is that we love you for who you are, so we have to love everything thatmakes you different. People would be so boring if they didn’t have anythingthat made them unique.”

“Unique,” Sita thought aloud. “Sounds like a good title for the dance I’mgoing to choreograph for the talent show!”

Melody, Lisa, and Nadine squealed in unison.“But,” Sita continued. “You’re going to have to do it with me. We can do a

mixture of everything-Indian, hip hop, all kinds of dance mixed into one. I’monly going to do it if you guys do!”

“I’m in,” Nadine said, followed shortly after by Melody and Lisa.Two weeks later, the four girls took the stage at the Westchester High

Talent Show. They wore hip hop sweats in different colors and started theshow off dancing to the pop hits. Halfway through the song, each of the girlsripped off their sweats to show a sari beneath. They transitioned from hiphop to ballet to something even resembling an Irish dance, until finally Sitabegan her Indian dance. She smiled wide and danced without a hint of self-doubt. When the four girls took a bow, they were met with a standingovation. It seemed that everyone in the audience had something to relate toin their dance, whether it was the contemporary or traditional elements.

When the girls accepted their first place prize, Sita took a look at her bestfriends, thinking about everything she had learned about life and herself inthe past few weeks. She and her friends were four different girls who eachhad something to share. They balanced each other out, creating a blend ofexperiences and cultures. They were unique.

“My short story tells the tale of a young girl who feelsashamed of being different, yet also conflicted because she isproud of her hobby of Indian dancing. With her friends, shediscovers that being unique is what makes life interesting.

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