“It is a heavy burden, to be two things and nothing all at once. A daughter of immigrants, I was raised to be a delegate in order to navigate the camps that seem to be at war with each other, to reconcile two different worlds. In the end, I become more and more like a traitor, loyal to no one. My skin is too fair, my tongue too sharp and dripping with precision. There is no accent to be found. The mother language that I used to cherish gets caught in the back of my throat, trapped behind my teeth. At the same time, my eyes are too angular. When they say my name, it is rushed, careless because the sounds do not come easy, unlike the reverence my father gives it. Foreign. Foreign, foreign. That is what I am. A stranger to my homeland, a threat here. Too different to be claimed by anyone. A shell that has washed up on shore, I belong nowhere.”

I think it’s completely disrespectful and unacceptable when someone underestimates someone else’s sadnesses or problems and values them as nothing compared to theirs. Just because you think you went through a harder experience doesn’t mean my difficulty doesn’t exist, and just because you value your problem as much greater than mine, doesn’t mean I have no right to be sad. You haven’t lived in my mind nor walked in my shoes, you know nothing about the way I feel and think and see things, and you have no idea how my problem affects me and my life so you might as well stop talking about stuff you don’t understand and stay in your lane.