Slanted Eyes Are Beautiful...Slanted Eyes Are Beautiful! ! ! Poem by Oscar Mireles

a Korean woman
had been sitting
in my cultural awareness class,
for an hour,
and couldn’t understand
how African-Americans
had so much trouble
getting along with whites.

She never had trouble until,
we started talking about stereotypes
that included Asians.

They are always sneaky looking,
shrewd businessmen,
have exotic women
can’t drive well,
but know karate
and they all have slanted eyes.

She almost cried,
before she stammered,
“Slanted eyes are beautiful! '
'Slanted eyes are beautiful! '

and for the first time
everyone in the room
understood
why