By Moujan Moghimi
Student Change Agent Coalition Leader and Newman Civic Fellow
University of Rutgers-Newark
Published as part of Letters to America, a national youth-driven civic initiative launched by Made By Us through Youth250, in which young people put forward their own declaration for America’s 250th anniversary. These letters are published unedited and in full to showcase the students’ authentic voices and unique perspectives. While their views are entirely their own, we believe their voices, and those of all our student leaders, are a vital part of the conversation around America’s future.
I used to intern
In a congressional office.
There’s a lot of glamor to it,
But an intern's main job is the phone.
It’s a dreaded position,
Hearing the ring
And awaiting the anger on the other side
That’s never really for you,
But sinks its teeth in anyway.
I both loved
And hated the phone.
I’m no longer an intern,
But I still think about the calls.
I think about this man,
His name forgotten
But the bitterness in his tongue
Forever alive.
He called often,
Only to speak of his hatred,
And I his captive audience,
Tongue bitten,
Stuck on the phone.
He ended every call by asking
Why I hated America so much.
He never meant me in the sense
Of me as a person.
He spoke loudly of abstracts
And parties,
Boiling things larger than us
Into simple colors
Meant to divide.
His words became a pattern.
Angry call after angry call,
All echoing his sentiment.
Why do you hate America?
Why are you so unamerican?
Why are you here If you are so ungrateful.
The question is almost laughable.
For there is so much to say.
Like when I was 10,
And my classmates called me a terrorist.
Like when I watched at only 16,
As a black man begged to breathe
But the cops only pushed harder,
Till they drew his final breath.
And so many spoke about punishment and criminality,
But never about what it means to kill a person,
And feel nothing for it.
A man dropped into injustices
That surrounded his every action,
Until it took him away.
Like when at 19 my timeline,
Filled with blood,
As bodies became covered in rubble
From bombs dropped on families.
Names dehumanized,
To appease genocidal leaders
Who reek of inhumanity.
Like when now at 21,
I graduate college into a world
That does not want me.
Who says my place is in the kitchen,
Or not here at all.
Instead in hell for sins
Others have placed on me,
Or in detention centers
For daring to migrate
In a world built on it.
There are 250 years of answers,
All predicated on systems
Designed and sustained
To change we the people,
To hold only the privileged few.
While desecrating and chaining all else
Who are forever considered unworthy,
And unamerican.
They treat me like I am unamerican.
I came here when I was almost 4.
I helped my parents study
For their citizenship,
Quizzing them in cars
On colonies,
While we practiced our grammar
And how to lessen our accent.
My school never had translators for me.
Dropped me in classes,
Passing me F’s
On words I never learned,
And they never taught me.
I became known as the politics girl.
Learned all the history I could.
Felt ignorance was a sin,
And my duty was to teach
With kind words where I could,
And anger when words did not stick.
So I organized protests,
And sit-ins.
Taught my privileged classmates
Of their casual bigotry,
And all the ways it kills.
Hoping to showcase the larger systems
That take us as puppets
In a war against each other,
Where none of us will ever win,
Except for the ones holding the strings.
I encourage all to vote.
Write articles dispensing info
On how, when, where.
With guidance on policies
Over party lines,
Because this is about
What your government can do for you,
Not what donors preach to you.
So I play games,
Quizzing people on president’s names,
And how to contact representatives,
So no one is vulnerable to vague promises,
That spell out manipulation
To cut democracy out of our birthright,
Away from the people
Who marched to earn it in the first place.
I lead with kindness.
In a world where the loudest
Are angry,
The warmth is still here.
Just softer,
It hums below,
And keeps chugging along.
Rolling eyes at cruelty,
While it passes a blanket to those who need it.
So I find myself in food kitchens,
Slicing and dicing,
Or packing boxes to deliver.
Helping children pick out snacks,
While their mothers ask
How many fruits they’re allowed to grab.
So I find myself in detention centers,
Visiting strangers I learn to call friends,
So the isolation does not suffocate,
And their suffering is never alone.
So I find myself wherever I am needed.
Because I am needed most everywhere A person is.
Because this life was never meant to be survived
Alone.
They ask me why I hate America,
And there is too much to say,
But they are also wrong.
I grew up in a small town,
Conservative and often cruel.
I will always hate this place
For its casual discrimination,
And repeated immoral acts
That leave me wary of neighbors,
And foes alike.
But when a hurricane hit us,
Nothing else mattered.
Schools shut down to shelter people in need,
Who were once looked down on
For their vulnerability,
But now shielded from harsher winds.
Our beloved beach destroyed,
So everyone chipped in.
Bought wood
And trucks to carry it.
Brought hammers to build,
And neighbors to hold ladders.
The hatred never left,
The hurricane couldn’t blow it away.
Theysaytohateaplace,
Youhavetoloveitfirst.
To know its roots,
And why it bleeds the
wayitdoes.
Why the roads curve this way,
While those trees exist there,
To hate a place,
You have to know it,
Breathe it,
Love it.
I wish I could answer another call
With another angry voice,
And when it describes to me
Its version of America,
This version that is stripped
Of its beginnings,
And middles,
And future.
Erasing 250 years,
Broken down into simplicity
That could never hold all
This place has been destined to be.
They paint this vision in white,
And leave out anyone they consider
Unworthy,
Unamerican,
Not them.
I wish I could answer them now
And say my hate
Is built on love.
For a place so woven into my everything,
That all I have ever wanted
Is to understand its complicated,
And make it beautiful.
To take its painting,
And fluff its jagged edges.
To hold all within with the loving hands
I have felt from those
Who live here with me.
I hate America,
Because I love it
Enough to try and make it
Something that will love me back.
~ Moujan Moghimi