Manual High Student Poetry: I Have a Dream!

I Have a Dream!

by Gloria Montoya

Students from Manual High School in Denver visited KGNU recently to record some of their poetry. In their 10th grade American Literature class, the students have been writing, discussing, and reading about “The American Dream”. They’ve been inspired to write their own poetry on this theme. KGNU will be featuring these poems throughout January.

I Have a Dream

My dream for everyone
Dream
close your eyes.
relax.
imagine.
wonder.
black.
white.
brown.
is that how we are identified?
Can a wetback dream?
Can a wetback become a lawyer?
Or is this dream not fit for a wetback?
This wetback wants to become a lawyer!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
Giving up a dream
is like living a lie.
a lie is like a snowball,
the longer it is rolled
on the ground the larger it
becomes.
America can’t be America without different people
the accomplishments that different people have made
Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, Cesar Chavez
and our current president Barack Obama
without these people some of America’s accomplishments
wouldn’t have happened without them.
“I have a dream today!
I have a dream that my four little children
will one day live in a nation
where they will not be judged
by the color of their skin
but by the content of their character.”
And so let freedom ring from the mint
Let freedom ring from a mile high
Let freedom ring from the 16 street
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring