MODERN IFIGENIA

This month is Immigrant Heritage Month in the United States. We are in the middle of a pandemic under an administration that loves corrupted institutions, and living with the most brazen police impunity I have ever seen in my life. As someone who is generally opinionated, I have been speechless. feeling trapped by my two worlds-its not that I don't have opinions or words, its that my two worlds collided so seamlessly that I am ALL, AT ONCE. There is no language I command I can use to articulate how I feel and what I think. It is the first time in the United States I simultaneously feel completely FOREIGN and completely AMERICAN; completely IGNORANT and INCOMPETENT, and completely EXPERT and CAPABLE. I feel so foreign because this moment is not about me; it is about the people who physically built this country still not having a seat at the table. I feel so American because it is about how my separation from "whiteness" brings me closer to their very American plight...

Sometimes I will chit chat with my friends about what it was like growing up. During our discussions it becomes clear we had very different pasts. They dealt with snow and squirrels and I dealt with a cruel heat and monkeys. They got in trouble over stealing makeup, I got in trouble for stealing mangoes. We would look back sadly on those days, they are now long gone and the world will never be the same. But I noticed that I would always be much sadder about this nostalgia and I never quite understood why. After all, we all travel time and space in the same way, so why would thinking about my past make me so sad. A few days ago I took the liberty to Google earth my old neighborhood, so much had changed. I felt so sad, and that's when I realized why immigrants have a different outlook on their past than do people who were born and raised in the same place. When a native looks at their past, they see a time that no longer is, and when they look at their present, they see one tha...

I have always had an obsession with makeup. That obsession has gone hand in hand with the feeling that I am not attractive enough, and my love of colors. I have learned to master the art of makeup for every occasion, but never managed to look beautiful. I have looked pretty. In fact, the times I feel I look my best, my mom would comment that I didn't look good because the photo didn't really convey who I was. I never quite understood what she meant...until last week. Last week I had the opportunity to spend three days with female immigrant rights activists from across the country. I walked into the meeting room the first day and felt immediately ugly. These women were all beautiful, they looked powerful, wise, they seemed to own who they were. I have strived all my life to look like these women, but at best managed to look pretty. As the time went by with them I noticed one commonality, they didn't wear makeup. There were Mexican women, Korean women, Chinese women...