2020 was the start of a new decade. A new slate. A new chance to take leaps forward, to share our voice.
And yet, it seems like during these months of quarantine, we’re only going backward.
When my parents immigrated from China in the 2000s, the ideas of wealth and glory were the only things that plagued their minds. The idea of striking up rich made them giddy and tremble with excitement.
The rumors of America had spread. The richness, the vastness of it… Everything was great in America. There, you could have millions, when others had none.
Five years later, they had me. And the next 15 years were eye - opening for me as part of Generation Z.
Fifteen years later, I have realized that the country is corrupt: corrupt with the school shootings, corrupt with the racism, corrupt with the inequality that still surrounds us today.
Fifteen years later, a pandemic struck us - instead of banding together to fight it, we put the blame on others.
“The Chinese Virus,” they whisper. “Don’t get too close - they might infect you.”
WE, AS ASIANS, CAME TO THE COUNTRY FOR A NEW LIFE. A NEW WAY TO REINVENT OURSELVES.
“You probably can’t see, can you? Your eyes are so tiny…” They say, mocking us.
YET TWENTY YEARS LATER, FOX EYES ARE A TREND. WHERE BEFORE YOU MAY HAVE MOCKED US, NOW IT’S A TREND.
And I say enough.
Enough with the stigmatizing. Enough with the racism. Enough with the unequal pay, the unequal wages, calling women “whores” and “sluts”, and saying that they were asking for it just because they were wearing a short skirt, enough with the brutal attacks against people who don’t look white, enough with the words that can pierce through our heart like they were made of steel.
Enough.
We came to America for a chance to reinvent ourselves, but instead, we were spat at, laughed at, mocked at.
We came for a new life, but instead, we found that America hid their horrors from the outside world.
We came for a new opportunity, but instead, all we got were crushed dreams and hopes.
We came for the rumors. We came for the chance. We came for the change.
We came for the promised things.
But where are they now?
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