Dear Statue of Liberty,
My heart broke on November 9th as I watched my Nature Writing professor stomp into class wearing all black attire. Her hair was pulled back in the messiest way possible. She dropped her back on a chair as if it was burden, and turned the projector and the sound system on with anger. This is professor that dressed up for Halloween and rocks color blocking like no one ever has before.
It’s not until I saw her that I felt so angry that the USA wasn’t able to give you your first female president and that for the next four years things would drastically change. She wasn’t the only one. There were many students that came in—their eyes puffy. You could tell that hope had drained out through their eyes. It had been absorbed out of them after each electoral vote went to the other side. I had never seen such fear in the eyes of such young people.
But I want to say Statue of Liberty, that it’s going to be okay. From one third world kid to another first world kid, it’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay because while you lift your chin up slowly, we will remind you why so many immigrants chose the New World over all the other countries in the world. We, the world, will remind you why so many immigrants still choose the USA today. We will remind you that you continue to try to create a safe environment for different ideas, peoples, cultures, and religions. You are the ultimate melting pot.
Statue of Liberty, we will remind you why students from across the world leave their parents for four years or more sometimes to come learn from you. We will remind you why at such a young age my parents chose the American curriculum for me over the French one and the Senegalese one. Statue of Liberty, the world will stand by you to remind you that there is no reason to be great again because if the ideas of the Founding Fathers are still applied—you will always remain great.
Love,
A third world kid living in the new world
