Wat zijn we trots op PrideStemHaarlem. Op vrijdagavond 6 maart stond de LHBTIQ+-groep uit ons programma voor ongedocumenteerden op het podium van de Schuur. Daar verzorgden de deelnemers een van de acts in de voorstelling Becoming – A Rainbow Family.

De deelnemers van PrideStemHaarlem komen uit landen waar hun regenboogidentiteit vaak niet wordt geaccepteerd en waar uit de kast komen zelfs gevaarlijk kan zijn. Ook in Nederland zijn zij niet vrij om te leven zoals zij dat willen. Nu niet vanwege hun geaardheid, maar omdat zij geen verblijfspapieren hebben. Bij Stem in de Stad vonden zij elkaar en vormden ze hun regenboogfamilie. Hun boodschap tijdens het optreden was dan ook: iedereen zou moeten weten hoe zoet het is om een familie te hebben.

Op het podium van de Schuur brachten zij het prachtig gedicht We Learned To Call Each Other Family ten gehore. De indrukwekkende tekst werd geschreven door deelnemer Marycynthia en door een van de andere deelnemers op muziek gezet. 

Op de foto: deelnemers van PrideStemHaarlem en medewerkers van Stem in de Stad na afloop van het optreden bij Becoming – A Rainbow Family. 

We Learned To Call Each Other Family

Tekst: Marycynthia / PrideStemHaarlem

I come from a place
where loving differently
can cost you your name,
your safety,
your right to stay.

I learned early
how to fold myself small,
how to survive silence,
how to leave parts of me behind
just to make it through the day.

Crossing borders did not end that struggle.
It only changed its language.

Here, they ask for papers.
Back home, they asked for obedience.
Both demanded proof
that I deserved to exist.

Being undocumented means
your life is always temporary
beds borrowed,
nights uncertain,
hope packed lightly
in case you must run again.

Being queer means
even your body feels like evidence
they want to use against you.

Then Stem in de Stad stepped in.
Not with questions,
not with judgment,
but with something radical:
care.

A door that opened.
A bed that stayed.
Food that did not come with conditions.
Time:
time to breathe,
time to remember my name.

They did not save me.
They stood with me.
And that made all the difference.

Inside those walls,
we found each other
queer, undocumented, displaced,
carrying stories heavy with survival.

Different accents.
Different scars.
Same hunger
for safety.

We became a rainbow family
not because life was easy,
but because love was necessary.

Here,
no one asked me to explain my queerness.
No one asked me to erase my past.
No one told me
I was too African,
too queer,
too much.

For the first time,
family did not mean fear.
It meant being seen.
Being held.
Being allowed to rest.

Far from my culture,
far from my indigenous community,
I learned this truth:

Family can be chosen.
Home can be built.
Roots can grow
even in foreign soil.

Stem in de Stad reminded me
that dignity is a basic human need,
not a reward.

And because of that,
I am still here.
Still becoming.
Still believing
that I deserve a future
where I do not have to hide.

This:
this is what it means
to find family
after everything you lost