Dublin’s Student of Color Association (SOCA) got active at the Associations of Independent Schools in New England’s (AISNE) Students of Color Conference this past weekend where aside from participating in workshops and affinity sessions they arranged a performance piece for the closing ceremony. The performance, which sought to address themes of unity within communities of color, incorporated elements of spoken word poetry, classical piano, and modern dance. 

Freshman Khaleena J.'s spoken word poem “Is That What You Want Me to Believe” was a major element of the recital. Performed by Khaleena, Robert L. ‘28, Star N. ‘26, and Tyreis M. ‘25, the recitation had a circumambient quality that filled the room, their superimposed voices formed a bristling harmony that forced the audience into attention. By no means conciliatory, Khaleena’s poem staged an unavoidable interface with visceral and sometimes upsetting truths about issues of race in this country. 

Here’s a short excerpt from Khaleena’s piece: 

They want our history to be a mystery
Putting videos in black and white 
So we think it’s old
And not new
But one thing about us 
We’ll make it 
Through 

Jin F. ‘25 then followed “Is That What You Want Me to Believe” with an evocative piano piece about her hometown in China, followed from there by an interpretive dance choreographed and performed by Juniors Berkeley L. and Star N. 

Dublin’s SOCA chapter joined peer organizations from independent schools around New England for the conference, an event aimed at building community and cultivating leadership amongst historically marginalized and underrepresented independent school student populations. 

Outside of their performance, member’s of SOCA spent their day participating in workshops and affinity group sessions. Roy J. ’27 and Jin. F. ’25 both participated in a creative writing workshop that challenged participants to reflect on the ways food figures into their identities and experience as people of color. Jin wrote about a tomato and egg noodle soup dish, a staple of her household growing up. Roy chose to write about Haitian spaghetti, a pan-fried spaghetti dish, not to be confused with the Italian spaghetti al’assassina, that utilizes Haitian epis as a seasoning base and scotch bonnet peppers. 

Creative expression was core to the conferences, which Roy says was part of the conference’s whole gestalt. 

“Well, to sum up the whole point of the conference, I’d say it was about being expressive in your own way of being as a person of color at PWIs, to learn to be yourself unapologetically, to practice this in the conference setting and then take those learning back to your schools.”