KarMel Scholarship 2007

“Fight that Needs Fighting”

By Jhoana Chan

Desciption of Submission: Essay Concerning My Personal Struggles with Homosexuality

“You fight the fights that need fighting!” –A.J. MacInerney, “The American President”

I am a teacher at seventeen.

I teach not because I want to, but because I must. I must. I must teach in order to be understood, in order to be accepted, in order to survive. Everyday I am required to educate the masses. There is no break. The break will come when I take a break from being who I am. This is something that will never occur. I will not let it.

This begs the question: what am I teaching?

I am teaching people to challenge their own ignorance. I am challenging them to experience the unknown, the uncomfortable, the unexplored. I challenge them everyday: in my school, in my home, in my life.

How am I challenging?

My very existence challenges people.

I am gay and I have thrown a bomb into my closet. It has blown up and there is no way for me to return to it.

Since coming out eleven months ago, I have faced many questions from both other people and from myself. I have questioned every fiber of my existence and have finally, finally, come to agreement with myself as to who it is I am. So, who am I?

I am the next Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. was quite possibly the greatest educator of the last century. He taught millions of people to look past their differences and see their similarities. He taught millions of people how to have compassion and how to understand. He challenged millions of people to go outside what is comfortable and uncomplicated. He challenged millions of people to change their opinions and views on life and on others.

Surely I am not comparing myself to this great American icon of liberty and equality. Surely I would not be so bold, so arrogant. I tell you now: I am. Is it arrogance to say that I want to change the world? Is it arrogance to fight for equality in a country that has been striving for it for 230 years? Can I honestly sit here and tell you this above average procrastinator will one day be the liberator to the hundreds and thousands of people yearning for equality? I tell you now, I do not know. I worry that as I sit here wasting away in a classroom, someone is out there beating me to the punch. I know, however, that there is no way for me to be the next great educator if I myself am not educated. So, I waste away learning what I can hoping it will one day translate into understanding from the masses.

Education is the key to destroying the beast that is ignorance.

I honestly believe that. What else do I believe? I believe in hope: hope that one day equality will be a reality and not just a concept. I believe in strength: the strength of the human spirit to fight off oppression. I believe in resilience: the resilience I see in the eyes of the oppressed. But, most of all, I believe in myself. I believe that one day I will make a difference. I believe that one day, the world will be better because I was in it.

Back