Loving Kindness & True Justice for Young Men Whose Color Resembles the Color of the Earth
One of the most important ways I engage with the world, as Thích Nhất Hạnh invites us to do, is through my illustrations. They often emerge from my own suffering in response to injustice—particularly the injustices that take place in the continental United States, where I live, and in Puerto Rico, where I grew up and where I spend a great deal of time caring for my elderly mother. I understand that injustice exists everywhere, but in this country alone there is more than enough suffering to inspire a lifetime of illustrations.
In my illustration, I depict the sun and the moon offering equal light to boys of all backgrounds—boys who have experienced discrimination. They are surrounded by male figures who inspire, protect, and speak words of encouragement, especially to those most affected by the school-to-prison pipeline. These figures offer the boys precious gifts of dignity, wisdom, and hope.
Thầy stands among them with his book A Pebble for Your Pocket open, offering a pebble to a boy whose skin is the color of the earth and saying, “Meditation, not detention, for you.” Above him stands the Buddha with Svasti, the untouchable boy, offering him a lotus flower. On the other side is Gandhi, presenting the spinning wheel to an Indian child.
Next to Thầy is Mr. Rogers, who welcomes a child whose skin is the color of the earth into his neighborhood, offering him a map and a red sweater that mirrors his own. Nearby are boys of mixed races playing together in a pool, a reminder of the moment when Mr. Rogers washed the feet of a Black man, their feet resting side by side in the water. On the other side is St. Nicholas, offering love, freedom, compassion, and true justice to a young boy.
Below St. Nicholas stands Bishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa, dreaming of schools that do not teach servitude to the darker segment of the population, while holding a child wearing the national flag. In parallel stands Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, whose work on Brown v. Board of Education transformed American education. He holds a child wearing the American flag. Behind them, the school in Topeka, Kansas, welcomes all children, and a bus sign reads: “Kansas schools where all children belong.”
Below this scene is Jaime Escalante, empowering young Latinx students through mathematics. On the other side is writer Gary Soto, who wrote many stories reflecting the Latino experience. The son of a farmworker, he is shown sitting in a milpa, reading—a favorite pastime from his youth.
Beneath them is my father, speaking tenderly to my two precious boys, my eldest, Andrew, and my youngest, Zachary, telling them how special they are. On the other side stands Janusz Korczak, the Polish Jewish educator who was offered safety when the Blue Police man recognized him as the beloved author of his childhood books. He refused to abandon the 192 children from his orphanage and chose instead to accompany them when they were deported from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka in 1942.
On the other side of the Buddha stands Jesus Christ, himself depicted as the color of the earth. Behind him are masked ICE agents. Jesus calls on them to stop harming children and questioning their christianity, while the tears of the sun and the moon flow down over the agents’ faces.
