Once upon a time, we were happy little children. We could be ourselves, and we had no worries.

Once upon a time, we were proud to be different.

From strange, cruel lands came our immigrant parents.

Forced to struggle their entire lives,

To retire from the most dangerous of lifestyles.

And to this magical land they came.

The Land of Freedom, they called it.

The Land of New Lifestyles.

The Land where anyone could be anything.

Growing up, this was our sacred place.

This was our land.

The land most accepting and welcoming of all lifestyles.

We went about our days, not a sniff of judgement in our sight.

We made friends and played with everyone. All different colors and shapes, but nobody noticed a thing.

We lived our simple little lives and that was that.

“Oh, America, we’ll always love you,” we chanted!

“Oh, America, You’ll always be there for us,” we thanked!

Our happiness only lasted so long, until we entered the real world. The world that wanted to belittle us.

At first, it was simple little things.

The pale, light orange color we knew as ‘tan’ would now be known as ‘skin color,’ making every other color we previously used incorrect

Unable to match the our colors to the so-called ‘skin color,’ we were forced to turn to the icky brown color for self portraits

Every picture filled with the tan faces and skin, looking perfect on the wall.

Then there was ours. The only portraits with the color brown, looking icky and wrong up on the classroom walls.

The feeling of embarrassment set inside of our souls.

Then, it started becoming about blending in.

Lunchtime was no longer a place for us to chat with our friends, but a place where we hid our stinky food to refrain from grossing anybody out.

We were forced to retire our flavorful food for a couple of bland french fries.

We were forced to give up my lifestyle to make those ‘skin colored’ people feel better.

And there it was again. That feeling of embarrassment that planted itself in our stomachs.

Eventually, it got to the point where we were unfairly characterized in society as bad people.

In class when we learned about terrorists and slavery, the heads always turned

People whispered and stared until we had to leave class to go cry in the bathroom, with nobody following us for comfort.

The feeling of embarrassment became a normal feeling that came alongside judgement. The feeling that made us want to disappear forever. So that’s what we tried to do.

We altered our lifestyles.

We changed our hair and our clothes to look more like the ‘skin colored’ people.

We stopped eating our own food to make the ‘skin colored’ people comfortable.

We finished trying to learn our own native languages to turn ourselves into the ‘skin colored’ people that we could never really be.

In a country known to be filled with diverse cultures and immigrants, how could we be so ashamed to be different? How could I be so ashamed to be me?

Oh, America,

Why did you make me embarrassed to stand out?

Why did you make me feel so wrong to be different?

Why did you make me take away my identity, and replace my lifestyle with that of a complete stranger?

If only you would know how it feels.

How it feels to walk on the street and have people stare and point at you like a criminal.

How it feels to be accused of illegally entering this country that you were rightfully born in.

How it feels to be constantly chosen for a “random” security inspection at every airport.

How it feels to be embarrassed and ashamed of yourself everywhere you go, to the point where not even your own home feels safe from judgement.

Oh, America,

I wish I could make you hurt for one minute like we have hurt our entire lives.

I wish I could make you feel uncomfortable to enter a public setting and be immediately stereotyped by those around you.

I wish you knew what it was like to lose every single part of your culture.

To stop speaking the language and lose connection with your family and relatives just so that you could feel more normal, only to realize that no matter what you do people still see you differently.

If only you felt the pain that we go through every single day of our existence.

Oh, America,

How could we love ourselves when not even you, the most accepting of people, were able to accept us?

Oh, America,

Why did you stop loving us? Why did you stop caring for us? Why did you abandon us in this lonely, cruel world with no protection from judgement?

Oh, America, we’ll get our revenge on you.

We’ll never be able to rest until you accept our cultures.

We’ll never stop fighting for us to be equal with you.

We’ll never stop advocating for the minorities of this country until you make it fair.

We’ll take our revenge on you by changing this world. Spreading love and passion through all cultures and identities until our children get to live in a world where they feel comfortable enough to get the same opportunities as the rest. Spreading culture everywhere so that all people are aware of our existence.

Oh, America, you thought you could win this battle, but the pain you make us feel everyday pushes us harder and harder to fight this war with you until we change you. Until one day you can no longer break us. Until one day we can finally rise up and abolish that feeling of embarrassment once and for all.

Oh, America, our day will come. Just wait.