Our fall-leaf red brick buildings stand on our campus like a symbol of light – the light of education. As a child, I’d been asked: what do you want to be when you grow up? A teacher? A nurse? Something “practical” for a woman were introduced as the options limited to me. Why? Because the big-people adults supposedly know more – or perhaps they haven’t forgotten their parent’s opinions. Fortunately for me, my youthful internal clockwork determined long ago that “practical” and “womanly” could not suffice nor define any inch of my life.
I’ve been an anti-stereotypical-girl since I could speak. If it weren’t for a having a single mother and a little sister for the first seven years of life, I would’ve skipped the sunset-pink matching jumpsuits and sparkly poinsettia red and snow white Christmas dresses. Luckily for me, rainbows of blues have been my outfit of choice since the teenage years, not only because it’s my favorite color but because of the clothing options you can do with blue. Blue also symbolizes my twenty-four-seven mood. Am I attending my favorite class? Wear sky blue. Do I expect to create a rainstorm? Wear navy blue. Will I have to impress someone? Wear periwinkle. Going to workout? Wear electric blue. Music feels blue. School feels blue. And life feels blue… but all in a cotton-candy pink way.
Some of my favorite literature is a salmon pink, like We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. College is the color of boysenberry pie when fall turns the corner, but blush pink when spring blossoms. Summer is pink lemonade. But I cannot have pink without blue. And I’ve learned you cannot be a feminist without red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. The belief in practicality – that a college education will grant you green sheets of paper, that women were created to be less than men, that you can only identify yourself using stereotypical, industrialized nouns – you eliminate individuality, creativity, critical thinking, diversity, and much more. Why when blue OR pink when you can have blue AND pink?
Happee Lee 