This week D-E hosted special assembly programs for Middle and Upper School students featuring Spoken Word Artists Carlos Andrés Gómez and Caroline Rothstein.  The two artists were presented as part of recognition of the still-ongoing Hispanic Heritage Month, and they focused their performances on breaking gender, race, religion stereotypes.

 

Introduced by INSPIRE (Introducing New Solutions to Promote Integrity & Respect Everywhere) student club official Jalen Watson ’18, Carlos Andrés Gómez gave the first performance, delivering powerful poetry performance by sharing his personal memoir of growing up with an Hispanic heritage. He also gave a performance that brought attention to the “Princess Industry” that the media was delivering (and imposing upon) his daughter.

 

Caroline gave two poetry performances of her own. Inspired by her unique background of Judaism faith and sexual identity, Caroline presented a unique view of “looking at God through a queer lens” and another performance where she shared her experience of overcoming her eating disorder due to her “strong” feminist character.

 

The poetry performances were followed by animated Q&A sessions. Throughout the Q&A sessions and the performances, all D-E students and faculty/staff were encouraged to embrace who we are, to view gender as a spectrum, and to challenge society’s stereotypes to better the world by voicing opinions through an artistic medium.

 

More information about Carlos Andrés Gómez can be found at http://carloslive.com/ and about Caroline Rothstein can be found at http://www.carolinerothstein.com/