Ajala Sen is the current Long Beach Youth Poet Laureate and former LA County Youth Poet Ambassador (2025-2026). She is a senior at Long Beach Polytechnic High School and is a published poet and musician, active with her community. Ajala is jazz guitarist at her school and lead singer/guitarist in local band, Sugar-Skulls, as well as a classical Indian Dancer. She passionately uses her platform to convey messages of political change and social justice.
When asked for a book recommendation, Ajala endorsed The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. “The book tells an immigration story of coming to the United States from India, much like the story of my own family, and grappling with the duality of an American identity with one's cultural heritage,” she explains. “It's important to consider the immigrant perspective, as this is a country consisting of people from all different backgrounds, and built by immigrants, yet people are being blinded by hate and censorship.”
Her personal copy of the book tells a story of its own. “My copy of the book was purchased by my grandmother in India and brought here. The book has been read many times by different people in my family before it fell into my hands.”
Book: The Namesake
Author: Jhumpa Lahiri
On why she encourages others to read The Namesake, Ajala says, “Reading the book has given me a new perspective and understanding of my own identity and connection to my family. I think the book can inspire others to form their own identity and appreciate their history what it took to get them here.”
“I hope readers can gain perspective on what the ‘American Dream' really is and understand the challenges immigrants and minorities face in the U.S.,” continues Ajala. “I hope people can realize how difficult it can be to find oneself and find a balance of their mother country's identity along with an American identity.”
“I think reading is important because it exposes people to the greater world that they otherwise might not see,” Ajala adds. “Books can transport people to different times and places and give them perspective on different issues.”
2026-2027 Long Beach Youth Poet Laureate
Ajala Sen's Selected Poem
Who Made This
By Ajala Sen
Los Angeles
A city with freeways that run like my veins
And a soul the breeze of an open PCH passed the pier
But I fear every new crack in the road
Is a new obstacle
And it’s full of potholes and dents that you won’t fill
So when I lay in bed and sleep
I dream
Of my parents and grandparents before me
who fought to give me
The thread of my story to weave
Because they chose to believe
In Los Angeles
Stepping off a plane or ship
Fresh from the South Pacific
Into the unknown
With nothing but their skin bone and hope
Into A city built by brown hands
From days in the dirt and sun
A concrete river of flowing sweat and tears
With monsters of personified fears
Los Angeles, America
Was built by immigrants
Paving our own path
And making yours too
Yet you can’t see
The children and innocent families
You tear apart quick at the seems
And the wounds you let bleed
For your own sake of selfishness and greed
And the pain in which you feed (off)
And dump lives in that river of abandoned dreams
You cover your stained red hands in gloves
And your devilish grin a mask
Because you never stop to ask
Who made this?
The first amendment applies
Only when it benefits you
Even when you chose to
Do nothing when bullets go right through
The people that gave you this country
Their pockets are empty
Gave you all they had
Their life
Their souls
All mixed up swimming through your bedroom’s fish bowl
“This America, use English” Whenever they speak so
As if they didn’t name La Cienega, La Brea and Pico
And you sit and plan how best to dispose of people
People like rats scrambling through a sewer
Because we skewer
Your vision of a white America
You thrive
While we’re ostracized and villainized
And washed your hands clean
From the tears of the children that cried
For their mothers and fathers
Being ripped away for a cash prize
So let each star on the sidewalk
Be wiped away and let there lay
The names of the lost who gave their
Hands to raising this city
Just to be dragged away by the sleeve
With their face pressed against the boiling concrete
There can be no white America
Without it being tainted with a bloody red
Lest our bodies lay at the lowest seabed
Abandoned with a rope or a gaping hole in the head
As you hide your relief so it won’t be you instead
