Living as a biracial American is teetering on the crossroads between privilege and marginalization. Although you are considered to be "normal" in the eyes of the Eurocentric society we live in, at the same time you feel "othered" by also being a person of color.

Growing up in a predominantly white society all my life, I have learned to develop a thick skin when it came to racism. I learned to become comfortable with not only racism towards Asians like myself, but at the same time with racism with other people of color. Looking back, to a degree this was a shameful part of my life, that I believed that how American society glossed over racism like that was somehow okay.

Then came the 2016 election. I was a senior in high school, in the heart of rural America. By then, I was one of the most vocal progressive people in my school and I knew I was the irksome figure among my majority-conservative student community. Given the polarizing nature of the election, I was used to the pointless spats both in real life and on social media. But then in one vocal scuffle, one person told me something that hit a different chord: "Go back to China."

Go back to China. Now, I know that I was entering the racist hellscape that was the xenophobic Trump fanbase, but something about saying that made me feel violated. I felt infantilized. I felt alienated. I felt like as if that the country that I love yet the one that is so broken will never change.

It was a very low point for me, but as I found out that I was not alone in this fight, I realize then was irrational thinking. We could build a more equitable and just society, and these United States is a country for every person of every shade.

Fast forward to 2019, and surely enough Donald Trump is unsurprisingly hurling these racist narratives at 4 progressive Congresswomen of color. I know that Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are undeterred by such an insecure man like the president. I know they are because I was in their shoes once: the punching bag for a group of people who cannot accept the fact that people who look different from them deserve the same enjoyments as they do.

Yes, speaking from experience, Trump's tweets are racist, the president is a racist, and this White House is racist. But that cannot stop us and wallow in subjugation. We have the power of solidarity on our side; let's use it.