immigrant

repeat after me:1. our immigrant families are not just __omophobic_ they are also __olonized._2. our parents have histories, genders, and sexualities, too.3. they are just as broken as we are (but we have the words _ i mean the english _ to say it)4. the diaspora responds to racism with heteronormativity5. trauma seeps through generations

The immigrant artist shares with all other artists the desire to interpret and possibly remake his or her own world. So though we may not be creating as dangerously as our forebears__hough we are not risking torture, beatings, execution, though exile does not threaten us into perpetual silence_ still, while we are at work bodies are littering the streets somewhere. People are buried under rubble somewhere. Mass graves are being dug somewhere. Survivors are living in makeshift tent cities and refugee camps somewhere, shielding their heads from the rain, closing their eyes, covering their ears, to shut out the sounds of military __id_ helicopters. And still, many are reading, and writing, quietly, quietly.

All the way, Zoe kept her chin up and pretended she wasn__ mortified, but his sour expression stayed with her. She wasn__ good at making American friends. She changed her language, conduct, and clothing, but it didn__ seem to matter. Whether she wore modest Middle-Eastern clothing or cute Western fashions, everyone knew she didn__ belong.

In my entire life, I never once heard either of my parents say they were stressed. That was just not a phrase I grew up being allowed to say. That, and the concept of "Me time".

Let me put it this way. Canada is not so much a country as a holding tank filled with the disgruntled progeny of defeated peoples.

One day, I will look up and all the people I know will be dead or abroad.