Dear Women In History (an open letter to the girls in my History classes)

RE: Be Brave

Dear Francine, Susana, Kanisshi, Happy, Lemonoria, Misialofa and Maggie,

This week you graduated and I remembered how we talked in History class about Bismarck and the two contrasting Kaisers. Be brave because women of our complexion are still largely missing from the narratives and discourses that are supposedly "World History." Not two hundred years ago, no one like us had dreams like you- not out loud, at least: law school, medicine, education, classical music. We were not allowed so we went about not breaking the mould, not talking too loud. Fit in, fit in. They told us.

As you fly away, be brave because 'good music' still looks like Beethoven and Mendelssohn. White and male. When you played 'Waltzing Matilda' on the strings that day, you held all of recorded History by its singular thin thread. Don't be careful. Challenge it and challenge them and CHANGE IT ALL. Write your Samoan names on the Berlin Wall (or what's left of it...), and break down the walls that want you to stay small. You are tall so stand tall.

Be brave, most of all, because life is difficult and the world is cold. You know the Cold War was about ideas, so THINK, so DREAM, so touch the sky and plant your own flag on the moon. Many things and people will stand in your way, but don't you be one of them. Get out of your own way and lead the way.

Our ancestors knew every constellation by name. Be brave because you are descended from navigators and seafarers and mathematicians. Be brave for your families, and be brave because it takes courage to remember. And to forget. Such is History. And such is life. 

Love,
Ms. K

With Francine Ausage, my top Year 13 History student of 2023, and her classmate, Susana Lina John.