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On January 20th, two million Americans braved the freezing cold,
long lines and long waits just to be in Washington, D.C., for the
inauguration and celebration of the first non-white President of the
United States, Barack Obama. Most who went were lucky if they even
got to see it on the big screens set up across the National Mall.
Most didn't care. They were just excited to be there and to be a
witness to history.
Even more watched on TV and the internet, not just in America but
around the world. Stony Brook grad student Julia DenBoer, whose
mother is French and father American, was home on break in Lyons,
France, with her parents. Like most, she watched for hours and hours.
SBU alumnus Babak Movahedi, a former D.C. officeholder, was
fortunate to have a seat in one of the viewing stands and took the
photo above. He wrote in Facebook the next day that he was "so lucky to have been part of
an amazing history. CHANGE is here and yesterday, you could
really feel it."
Below, SBU AA E-Zine staff and writers told of what they felt about
this election and inauguration. To the world, most of which is
non-white, America was finally seen as practicing what it preaches -
equality for all. Yet as we enter a global depression that deepens
by the day, the sobering reality is that 'hope' and 'change' will be
sorely tested. But no matter how trying these dire economic times
will be, nothing can turn back the clock. We have a new view of what
the future can be for any person who dares to dream.
Min Ping Mei
"When they announced Obama had won the election I got up paced
around my dorm room for two seconds and at the top of my lungs
roared “Yes” and a few moments later “We Can”. Progress had begun."
Kenneth Yu
"Obama's peculiar path to the
presidency has enraptured the aspirations of a country. All there is
left is to deliver the expectations; a path more arduous than the
campaign itself."
Herman Lau
"Obama's stimulus plan is meant to be a cushion, not a solution to
solve the economic recession. But this massive spending of hundreds
of billions of dollars is the risk we have to take to reinvest in
the economy and make it jumpstart forward not backward."
Jack Jobe Xiang
"Growing up in the 90s we were always told to aim high and that
there was no goal you couldn’t reach… but along the way you learned
that race and prejudice were facts of life that would stop you… the
election for me is symbolic of a turning point where these barriers
have been overcome."
David Lu
"It is hard to imagine in a country that has deep roots in racial
issues that I was able to witness this milestone. Where Martin
Luther King Junior's dream came true and his word rang that much
louder on the same place where he fought for the equality of so many
people. When people of color struggled to see how there could be any
more progress in their fight for equality, when the people of
America struggled to see any hope for the future, when the people of
America struggled to see how the American Dream could ever exist in
this day and age, the senator from Illinois was their answer.
President Barack Obama does not just bear the historical
significance of being the first African American President of the
United States of America; to many he bears a personal significance.
He inspired hope and change across many generations regardless of
race, religion, and class. He is the American Dream."
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