Graphic by Isa Renée
I was 17 when I went into an immigration office to renounce my Argentinian citizenship in favor of a shiny American one. In retrospect, it could have happened any time, after all, I’ve been living in the U.S. for almost the entirety of my life. It was overall a day of mixed emotions. I was genuinely excited to join the democratic process and make an impact on the city and country I knew and loved. However, the turmoil began when it came time to take the verbal oath. In hindsight, I knew it was going to be some patriotic nonsense about how now your allegiance is to America and to no other country … so that part came and went with no surprise. The moment that caught me off guard, however, was when I was asked, rather commanded, that I had to wholeheartedly defend the laws and Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. At that moment, I had no depth of the nuance that request entailed and instead went ahead proudly waving the miniature American flag I was given along with my certificate of naturalization. This was nothing I had to worry about, after all, I’m basically the poster child of everything “the American dream” represents. My mother worked hard when she emigrated here and because of that, I’m going to college and pursuing my dreams. I should be thankful and consider myself lucky that I was given a chance in this American society to succeed and follow my passion. While I am extremely lucky and privileged to be raised here, the more I learn and experience the oftentimes backward ideals and practices of this government, the more my rose-colored glasses begin to fall until I’m no longer sure I can say that I love my country.
In only two calendar years, my view on my new citizenship has shifted dramatically. I can still remember walking into my language arts class after getting naturalized and hearing the congratulations from my friends. At that moment, I have never been prouder to call myself an American. My own personal American dream had been set in motion. I dedicated myself to learning more about what was going on in the political and social spheres, not to say I wasn’t already invested but I found myself reading news headlines and coming to my own conclusions rather than getting the facts from the sources themselves. The harsh new realities I was obtaining were what shook my perceptions. I kept reading and learning about the egregious injustices being carried out daily, and whether they were a result of individual will or years of systemic abuse of power, I was shocked at exactly how much I didn’t know.
It was two years into the Trump administration and I thought I couldn’t get any more surprised by his blatant bigotry, but what surprised me was how many people had the same train of thought regarding hatred and bigotry and saw nothing wrong with it. My culture shock didn’t end there — I learned the extent to which the Nixon administration used the War on Drugs to promote the disruption and mass incarceration of Black communities, I learned that there are still countless laws that oppress and discriminate Native American communities, as if taking their land and committing mass genocide on their race wasn’t enough. I discovered that qualified immunity protects criminal cops from facing justice for their actions and I understood the exact depth of the horrifying, inhumane conditions of immigrants kept at the border camps. With every new disgusting act I uncovered, my distrust in this government only grew. I felt burnt out, disappointed and almost betrayed. How could I have been taught my whole life that the U.S. values freedom and justice for all when it chooses to not care for those who need it? How can minorities have trust in the system that does nothing but set them up for failure?
I tried to find solace in like minded spaces both online and in person. Finding people that were just as appalled with these policies as I was and wanted to make their voices heard was simple enough, after all, similar minds think alike. But even in those spaces, people found ways to invalidate and undermine the realities that have been occurring. There would always be comments ranging from passive aggressive to borderline verbal abuse from people with opinions and beliefs that differed from ours. Eventually people with hateful agendas find others with the same agenda. Up until that point, I always figured that this group was the loud minority and yet their ideals became more and more solidified as they found other like minded people. Polarization is drastically increasing, people are finding similar ideals within each other until they create a massive echo chamber which only reinforces those ideals. We are forced to pick a side or face scrutiny for sympathizing with the opposition and when we do pick a side we are constantly berating each other for making the wrong choice. This eventually extended itself towards media outlets. Journalists and media sources find whatever breaks the story first and get the facts out while filtering it through their own agendas in the process, eventually becoming an issue of whether the facts align with your beliefs and if they don’t align, then what? Who do you trust?
I wanted to be proud of my citizenship. It took me a long time to accept that my immigrant identity was something to celebrate and while I do celebrate my roots, how am I supposed to, expected to, be a part of something that doesn’t respect me or people similar to me? My generation has been taught that Americans are the rebels of the world, we fought for our own freedom despite all odds and that we created an unheard of new system that worked for us. Turns out our history is much more complex than the patriotic propaganda we’ve been taught would have us believe. Not unlike every other country, we’ve had our moments of progress to accompany the moments of failure. It could be worse, of course, but that shouldn’t mean it can’t be better. How can I wholeheartedly defend the laws and constitution of this country when this country is constantly showing me that immigrants should be in cages, that Black lives don’t matter, that trans people shouldn’t exist and that women shouldn’t have control over their own bodies? I can only commit to protecting something if it protects me and the people I love first.
“How could I have been taught my whole life that the U.S. values freedom and justice for all when it chooses to not care for those who need it? How can minorities have trust in the system that does nothing but set them up for failure? “
We are currently living through an extremely turbulent time in U.S. history and world history. All of us right now want nothing more than to get to the other side of everything we’re facing. We all want to live to see things not just get back to normal but to get better because we can’t go back to living how we were before. Sometimes it feels to me like we’re regressing back in time. It feels like nothing I do is going to matter in the grand scheme of things because what can one 18-year-old do? It’s easy to feel overburdened and like we are obligated to have an opinion on every new controversy that arises. We feel like we need to care about everything all the time and while it is good to care about social and political topics there is only so much you can do at once. What we can do however, is hold ourselves and each other accountable for our actions and set the stage for each other to make our voices heard. I can’t say I have trust anymore for the Constitution or for the politicians who are supposed to be the voice of the people. I am too tired of being disappointed by their efforts to be anything but faithless in their policies. As of writing this, I cannot condone the behavior of this administration or this country.
As disappointed as I am within the current social/political sphere, I have tremendous faith and hope in individuals who bring positive change to this nation. The people who have been protesting, voting, speaking out against injustice and educating themselves and each other on polarized subjects are the people that bring me hope that even if big corporations and crooked politicians aren’t here for us, as cliche as it is, we’re here for each other. We can trust in each other to hold policy makers accountable for who they are really impacting and we can inspire each other to search beyond we know for new solutions. To those who have been actively speaking out and fighting for your rights, thank you. You invigorate me. You make me proud to be here among you and to learn what we need to fight for next. We’ve come a long way and we still have a long way to go so let’s make it count.
grain of salt 