It's a weird feeling when you look around and wonder what happened to the country you've lived in all your life. From the time we hit grade school in this country, we are told that we are a nation of immigrants, and that this is a source of pride for us. We are told amazing tales about people traveling from all over the world on steamer ships and the joy they shared looking up at Lady Liberty welcoming them to a new land.
We have put ourselves out to the world as a place of opportunity, a place of safety, a place where someone can find peace, raise a family, start a business, and become part of the bigger dream of living in a place molded together from all cultures of the world.
I remember looking around my classroom when I was in the first grade, and thinking that I was so lucky, because everyone looked different. Everyone had different things they did in their homes, everyone had different food, everyone was originally from somewhere else, and we all looked different and it was a good thing.
The most recent actions of this ridiculous president have ripped at the heart of most Americans. Those of us who celebrate the fact that our parents, grandparents, great grandparents, or maybe, even, we are from somewhere else, yet we chose this country to make our life and livelihood felt a sickness in the pit of our stomachs when we heard about the banning of people from other countries. This ignorant president, not only, shut the door on several nations to appease his nationalist supporters, continued to stoke fears of the "terrorist Muslim", but also was so very callous in cutting off opportunity to people experiencing one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world right now.
During our summer vacation, we saw Syrian women and children all over the streets and in the train stations in Paris. We saw their pain and desperation, and my heart ached for every last one of them. These are proud women forced by a ruthless war to beg and live on the streets, often with their children right beside them. I explained it to my girls that a life on the streets was better than no life at all, and that these people were what desperation looks like. These are the people that our country used to take in and give a new life and opportunity to, but our new president has ended that.
The most disgusting thing about this action was that he did it on Holocaust Remembrance Day. There were ships full of refugee Jews that were turned away, decades ago. They were sent back and most of those Jews perished in the death camps. To make such an action on this day when we remember a time when the world went mad is unforgivable. Then again, with the president's Alt-Right capo writing the nationalist order, it doesn't surprise me.
What did surprise me was the incredible reaction. I was very impressed and my heart filled with joy when I saw nearly 3 million women and men protesting the day after the inauguration. I hoped with all my heart that it wouldn't be a one-off thing. The growing protests at airports and all over the nation show me that this country, and this generation are finally woke. I know I stand on a soapbox often, and for the past dozen years, I've felt like I've been yelling into the wind. I thought this younger generation was apathetic and took all of the things that us Gen-Xers fought for for granted. I would get so enraged, and ask my husband where were they? Where were the next generation that was supposed to take the baton? Change.org petitions, social media boycotts, and bitching about issues online are all well and good, but the only thing that changes the world are feet to the street, and I wondered if this generation had it in them.
Now I see they are finally woke. They aren't able, nor willing, to fulfill some mythical 1950s fantasy where white men are at the top of the food chain and everyone else has to grovel in 2nd place for the scraps kicked down from the Master's table. When Kim Kardashian is woke enough to tweet against it, you know that the next generation is not going to sit by and let some old white guy dictate a future that they don't even recognize.
He may have the office, he may have a bunch of pussies in Congress and Senate who are walking lockstep with him, because they love power more than the foundations this country was built on, and he may have the vicious Alt-Right (i.e. Neo-Nazi) movement, but we have a whole country of people. People who came from immigrants, have green card holders or naturalized citizens in their families, or are new to America or new Americans, and we aren't going to let our friends and loved ones go. They can call us Skypes, Googles, Skittles, and Yahoos, but we call ourselves The People, and we are the ones in charge.
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