love and appreciation for students each time she passed them in the hall. And it’s
there, always, embedded in the hearts of children. Kids wake up each day
believing in the goodness of things, in the magic of what might be. They’re
uncynical, believers at their core. We owe it to them to stay strong and keep
working to create a more fair and humane world. For them, we need to remain
both tough and hopeful, to acknowledge that there’s more growing to be done.
There are portraits of me and Barack now hanging in the National Portrait
Gallery in Washington, a fact that humbles us both. I doubt that anyone looking
at our two childhoods, our circumstances, would ever have predicted we’d land
in those halls. The paintings are lovely, but what matters most is that they’re there
for young people to see—that our faces help dismantle the perception that in
order to be enshrined in history, you have to look a certain way. If we belong,
then so, too, can many others.
I’m an ordinary person who found herself on an extraordinary journey. In
sharing my story, I hope to help create space for other stories and other voices, to
widen the pathway for who belongs and why. I’ve been lucky enough to get to
walk into stone castles, urban classrooms, and Iowa kitchens, just trying to be
myself, just trying to connect. For every door that’s been opened to me, I’ve tried
to open my door to others. And here is what I have to say, finally: Let’s invite
one another in. Maybe then we can begin to fear less, to make fewer wrong
assumptions, to let go of the biases and stereotypes that unnecessarily divide us.
Maybe we can better embrace the ways we are the same. It’s not about being
perfect. It’s not about where you get yourself in the end. There’s power in
allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using
your authentic voice. And there’s grace in being willing to know and hear others.
This, for me, is how we become.