May I come to Washington, Mr. President?

I wrote an essay to win a ticket to go to Obama's Inauguration. This is that essay.

I am Japanese Irish hybrid. I call it Jirish.

Black people have connected with Obama because he’s black. Other people (as in races) have connected to him because he’s historical for America: the first black President.

I do not connect to Obama in such a manner and if that’s what you’re looking for when you read these essays then you might as well stop reading mine, because I am not going to alter my thinking on this.

I am a mutt like Obama stated he is. If I were to connect to him I would connect to him through this. I find that he used such a term as a good sense of humor and I like that, but this is not a connection I have with him.

Barak Obama is a man. His skin color is historical and this makes what he is second to that. I cannot look at his skin color and not appreciate who he actually is. I cannot be a black person for one I am not black and second I do not connect to people just because I am of the same race. I connect to people because they are worthy of connecting to.

I saw his speech “Yes We Can” and I got goosebumps. I hear a man talk of hope in a way that no one has for a really long time. He knows how to speak and he speaks well. Not because he’s black. Not because he’s a mutt. Not because he’s a Democrat. He speaks well because he’s a good man and as a human we should

all be proud that such a person exists.

For me seeing the inauguration would be like seeing the Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, George Washington’s inauguration, Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a Dream” speech, John Adam’s constant instance on American Revolution and the reading of Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence’s first draft. It will be a moment that is shared with a few in this world who will actually get to see it in person. It will be a moment to tell my children about. It will be history for history deems it to be so.

I did not vote. I did not vote for I do not think the saving of mankind as being in the hand of any one man for we are all imperfect. What I see in Barak Obama is a good man who has stepped into a situation that is bigger than him. People are raising him up to be something he is not. The higher they rise the higher the fall is for someone who just wants to do his best. It’s not fair.

I want to see Barak Obama before people take him and thrash him about. I want to see him be at his peak and feel the energy of everyone who is excited for him for all the wrong reasons. I want to see the man behind the words I hear from the news and I want to view him without a TV screen infiltrating my line of sight. I want to see him gesture. I want to hear his words. I want to see a man who is willing to sacrifice so much for people who don’t even get what he is and who he will be. The American public is far too selfish to see anything but the outside for those that like him will flip if he deviates from any promises he has made.

I am Japanese and Irish. I am a hybrid. I am what I like to call Jirish. I, like Obama, am a mutt. I, like Obama, am just a man. But he’s a man with so much to live up to and before that takes him and changes him I want to see him for who he is, for who he will always be and for who history will remember this moment for. I want to be at that inauguration for a moment that this United States can only give and for a chance to see it I would be eternally grateful from depths of my heart. And to get to say the words I’ve always wanted to say, “Mr. President” and shake said person’s hand would be a moment that no amount of money could ever afford me.

I may have not voted. I may not be of the same race. I may not be a Democrat. I am only a man, but, as far as I can see, so is Obama. The only difference is that he is historical and [I believe I have failed to mention this so better late than never] I love history.