1. My dad tells me a lot about when he first got to America. He tells me about how he immediately filled job applications at any establishment that would let him. He’ll talk about seeing the box that will ask him about race, he tells me this is the first time he realized he wasn’t white.
2. The day after I got into an ivy league school one of my friends looked me up and down with those classic beading eyes and will ask me, “You know you only got in because you’re brown, right?” I wonder if it felt like a gut punch for my dad too.
3. I tell a boy in the library my SAT score and GPA that got me my acceptance and he looks at me, with bewilderment, and the first thing to come out of this mouth is, “that doesn’t make sense.”
4. I get to my first semester of college to be slapped in the face by the wonderful class that is general chemistry. On my way to the library on a Friday night, I run into a friend who asks where I’m going. When I tell him, he tilts his head to the side, looking like a confused child, “Why?” he asked me
5. Sometimes, I feel like this whole college thing is a different planet. I was thrown here, but unlike other astronauts (or I guess my peers would call me an alien) I was not thrown here to collect samples- I was thrown here and expected to thrive.
6. In the middle of a discussion group, I notice that every time I start a sentence someone starts to talk over me, stealing the point I was trying to make. It’s like they’re reaching out and grabbing the words and as they float into the air out of my mouth and then claiming it as their own. I realize that my peers have learned a lot from their colonizing ancestors.
7. I’m at the dining hall, having dinner with a group of friends. I bring up having a job and everyone at the table admits to never having a job.
8. Every night I come home from the library, usually, after someone comes up to tell me they’re closing, to find my roommate, who I’ve never seen pick up a book, sleeping. I study under my desk light until 2 am.
9. The college admission scandal breaks. I read the story and cry, not out of sadness but anger. I wonder if these kids ever felt like they don’t belong in college like I do every day. I wonder if these are the kids stealing my words.
10. I wake up to my 8 am alarm, exhausted. I turn over to my phone to see a text from my mom. Usually, it says her plans for the day or a message about missing me. Today, it says, “Hija, I am so proud of you.” Today, I almost feel bad for the kids who bribed their way into college, the kids stealing my ideas, the kids who have never worked. I would rather have a mom that brings me almonds while I’m studying because it's “brain food” than a mom who pays my way into college because she doesn’t believe in me.