Dear Mr. Obama, Yes We Did.

[I've been neglecting my blog for a while. Life gets in the way of self-expression sometimes. As do elections. And playing the ukulele. And I promise I will post pictures of our family visit SOON! We had a great time and I will write about it soon. But this is the inspiration of the moment so here goes...]


Dear Mr. Obama,

Actually, may I call you Barack? We've never met, but you seem like a first-name kind of person. Ok, I'm going out on a limb here and I will address you as "Barack."

Dear Barack,

I am very excited that you are going to be our next president. Oddly (or not) the first-African-American-president achievement is somewhat of an after-thought for my own personal excitement. Of course, that is a remarkable thing. We talked about the magnitude of it in my social studies class today, in light the short 40 years that have passed since the civil rights movement and the short 140 years since the end of the Civil War. Its amazing (and wonderful) how much students take race for granted these days. At least out here in Hawaii, they don't seem to think of race as any sort of obstacle. Of course, you know as well as I the beautiful diversity of Hawaii.

Anyway, I heard your speech back in 2004 while I was visiting my parents in my hometown of St.Louis, Missouri. We were watching on our little kitchen TV and I watched in awe and announced to my family that I was absolutely certain that you would be the next president of the United States. I waited in anticipation for the next four years for my dream and prediction to come true. I really should have bought some of that "Obama" stock you can apparently buy. With my "earnings" I'd be able to pay off my 100K student loans...but I digress.

To the point. I am ecstatic that you will be president. Mainly because your life reminds me of my own. Even though I'm 14 years younger than you, our paths have criss-crossed and paralleled a few times. I see my life reflected in yours. Maybe you can see why.

I grew up in suburban St.Louis, Missouri where I was the minority in my neighborhood. Oddly enough, I look pretty much like your average thirty-someting, middle-class, young professional white woman. However, in my youth, I was one of a small number of white kids in my mostly black neighborhood. I remember riding the bus to school with my sister and she and I - and occasionally a few others - were the only white kids on the bus. When I arrived at school, however, the picture was different. I blended in easily with the majority-white student population. Even, there, however, I never felt like I blended in. Not because of my race, but because of my lack of wealth. My parents were not (and are not) poor, but compared to the money many of my classmates came from, I often felt unable to "keep up with the Joneses." So, I tried my hardest, often in ridiculous and unsuccessful ways, to fit in. In the meantime, my parents supported me in my academic life and I participated in school in just about every imaginable way: music, theater, sports. Graduation came and I went on to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

In Ithaca, I studied lots of things, but I majored in music and spent every ounce of spare time singing. It was a time of major personal growth and self-discovery. After college and a very short-lived "career" in musical theater, I headed off to law school. Now here is where our paths diverge a bit. I went to Catholic University in Washington, D.C. - a wonderful school - but no Harvard. And while I was a member of our law review, I was not editor-in-chief material. (As an aside, I wish the non-legal world realized the enormous academic honor of being named editor-in-chief of a law review. Even at "little" CUA law school, the our Editor-in-Chief was an intellectual powerhouse and an absolute workhorse in our class. I can only imagine what that honor would be like at Harvard!)

Anyway, after a bit of wandering in the legal world - a clerkship in D.C. Superior Court, work for a small education law firm in D.C. helping states implement the newly-passed NCLB, I eventually concluded that traditional use of my law degree was not for me. Who knows - maybe I'll get back to that someday, but in 2004 - around the time of your first famous speech - I decided to become a teacher. I went back to school to get an M.Ed. in Multilingual/Multicultural Education. I got married to a great guy in the Army somewhere in there and got stationed your old home state. My first year out here in Hawaii, I taught ELL at Kahuku High and Intermediate School. I loved ELL, but my principal noticed my law background and now I'm teaching social studies: Hawaiian History (ha!), AP Government, and a class on Constitutional Law. Kahuku High School is worlds away from the University of Chicago, but the Equal Protection Clause of the XIVth Amendment reads the same in the Hawaiian Time Zone as it does in Central Standard. Besides, I like to think that I'm giving my students the foundation to go on to a University of Chicago someday, should they so choose.

I doubt I will go on to become President, but I am inspired to let my voice be heard in a way I never imagined before. After my husband leaves the military and we are settled somewhere a little more permanently, I can imagine myself running for public office. If not that, I will proudly continue as a public school teacher doing my part to serve America, by ensuring that the students I encounter understand the importance of their vigorous and educated participation in our democracy. Without our young people, who will pass on the democracy to future generations of Americans?

I've never met you, but maybe you can see why I can relate so well to your life. I like to think I'm the ordinary "Jane" version of your life. I really feel like you are my president. You so beautifully and eloquently put into words the feelings I have about our country and the direction we need. I'm so happy, for the first time in my life, to somehow see my face to wonderfully reflected in the face of our new president. I hear my dreams for our country in your voice. I see my own optimism for America and the world in the sincerety of the expression of your face each time you speak.

For all of this, know that you will have my complete support as proud American who has never been prouder to be part of this great nation than I've been since you became "President-Elect, Barack Hussein Obama."

Many mahalos and alohas,

Lisa Rodvien