We invited undergraduate students from across campus to participate in the Buffs One Read storytelling contest. Students were invited to reflect on their experience of America and reply to the question: Who are you, and what is American Like You? Enjoy the wonderful responses and stories of CU Students in 2022.
Congratulations to the 2022 Contest Winners: Rumi Natanzi, Mya Lillemoen, and Lou Abecassis.
Ethnically Ambiguous Rumi Natanzi
My story offers a detailed account of growing up ethnically ambiguous in America, with all the wonders, questions, and upset that encounter it. It begs the question: what does it really mean to be an American in this country when that title seems to be reserved for such a select few...?
The Middle Seat by Mya Lillemoen
I really wanted to focus on the identity crisis that I have faced my entire life - being a Chinese Born American (CBA). I hope to use my voice as an adopted Chinese American to empower other adoptees like me to use their feeling of straddling two worlds and being in the "middle seat" to be empowered with the opportunity of creating their own identity rather than a lack of one.
Songwriting without Sheet Music by Lou Abecassis
In this poetic essay that I've attempted to unite all the different facets of my experience in America, both as an outsider and as someone who has lived in the US for half of my life. I wanted to relay my experience of being an immigrant in the US when your family remains in your home country, since it's something that is very personal to me and has affected my life. I hope that other people that are and aren't American like me can relate to what I've written.
My work is a poem reflective on the struggle that is being American and associated with the global American identity. In this current moment, it feels painful to be American in America, to watch how other Americans wreak havoc on our home soil and in other places. It connects to the question via speaking on pain and how it ties into being part of this country in which violence and pain are an everyday experience. I wrote this piece after the King Sooper's shooting, and the everyday exhaustion of living in a trigger-happy America.
Not Quite American Like Me by anonymous
This question regards the many cultures in & around the question: "What is America Like Me?" I attempt to answer that from the space of someone in the transition zone to actually becoming a fully American citizen.
Part narrative, part reflective critique, this piece examines aspects of American culture and society through the lens of vice and virtue. It engages with ideas of American myth-making and practices of socialization that can inevitably connect us or corrupt us, offering abstract answers to the question of "What is American Like Me?" by speaking generally about larger themes implicated by the American experience, yet through the lens of my own personal life.
The American Russian Jew by anonymous
It's a written examination of the clashing of my various cultural identities stemming from being the American born child of two immigrants, one Polish, one Russian and (non-religously) Jewish. It connects to the question "What is American Like me?" because it covers a feeling that I think many children of immigrants share of being caught between two worlds and not knowing which one to find community in.
My work is a collage that was created from images in old copies of Time, The Economist, & other magazines. The base of the collage was a picture of a migrant boat full of refugees and then I placed cut outs of New York City on top. The details include images of politicians, urban art, protester signs, small blocks of text, ect. I wanted to capture the current American political atmosphere with a sort of "call to action," that we can do better and it starts with acknowledging America's reality. America was built off the backs of the most vulnerable and that practice never stopped. Greed is a plague in our society that encourages the continued exploitation of millions. However, this collage does not represent hopelessness or despair in any way; it is calling out to inspire change.
It is a poem about what has made me the person, the American, I am today placed on an American flag with symbols representing me rather than stars representing states. I drew each symbol, some with references, and uploaded them to my google drawing. I then incorporated each image into at least one line of the poem.
I used acrylic paints to express the brilliant, complex, and increasingly foreign connection between nature, the human body, and the always present energy behind it all.
“American Like Me” inspired me to showcase the epiphany after my ongoing struggle being an African- American not only in my predominantly white community but more importantly, in the outdoor spaces surrounding it. I’ve always had a close relationship with nature and have been forced to be aware of the apparent prejudices jabbed at me when taking up space in the outdoors.
I made this piece not to talk about the many biases I’ve experienced as an African American but to emphasize that underneath it all, lie the energies that work for us to experience the beautiful environment we live in. It just IS. Within it, I simply am.
Nature taught me to just be. With every deep breath, every step outside of the endless labels and hurtful comments; We have a chance to evolve past the differences that make every individual beautifully unique and embrace the abundance of similarities that makes us human. Because underneath the clothes, cultures, traumas, and experiences: We are…human.