The most overheard question I get is “Where are you from?”. I always pause before I answer debating if I should just skip the follow up question (“No, where are you really from?”) and give the answer I know people want to hear. I was born in India. But I moved to Monroe, Michigan with my family in 2000.
Just like every immigrant will tell you, moving to the United States was quite the adventure. My family and I have experienced so many things. Wonderful things like Halloween, snowfall on Christmas morning, or even the simple, yet delicious, apple pie. We also experienced not so wonderful things like racism.
Now Monroe is the town that a trendy news site would describe as a "Trump Town". I say this for many reasons. Trump did win this county with a lead of 58%, but there are also many facts that correlate to the percentages of those who wanted to “Make America Great Again”.
According to the US Census, Monroe’s White population was at 77.1% in 2015. While its Asian population, which includes my family, was merely 5.6%, only 29.5% of the overall population had bachelor degrees. The town itself is small with lots of farmland and tractor supply stores. There are many Christian churches but none that I have seen for other religions. In addition, the most exotic restaurant we have is a diner that serves falafel.
Comparing that to the statistics of the election, you see Trump won big in small rural areas with a high white population and a low percentage of those who had college degrees. He won big with all the types of people I had to grow up with.
My parents didn't seem to mind the lack of diversity. They found peace in the town through their religion. They made friends with many people in their Catholic Church. My parents are the type of Catholics who will pray before every meal, but they are Indian Catholics, meaning that, in India, Catholicism is a minority.
When you are a minority you tend to think more liberally. My parents have always been the artsy, hippie types who would attend Mass every Sunday but also drove around campaigning for Obama while they listened to Shaggy. I grew up being told Republicans were morons and that the pro life movement is selfish. Definitely not what you'd heard in a homily.
My parents' relationship to the Catholic community influenced my life in many ways. I attended Catholic School till 8th grade and then choose to go to public school for high school.
Catholic School had its stereotypical future Trump supporters. I was the only person of color in the entire school until I was in 7th grade. This meant that the majority of kids had zero exposure to diversity. The school was filled with rich white boys who discussed women's bodies the same ways their fathers do and ultra-conservative girls who claimed they didn't need feminism.
There were times there where I was told by girls that guys would never find me pretty because of my skin tone and times where parents didn't want me at their kids' birthday parties, again because of my skin tone. Public school on the other hand was a bit of an upgrade.
While there were more tolerant educated people, there were the ones who were racist, and the ones who simply "didn't get it all the way." These types of people would be more accepting of issues like women's and LGBTQ right yet at the same time they didn't understand why the N word is offensive and couldn't grasp the concept of cultural appropriation.
The thing is when I was younger, maybe even up until I left high school, I didn’t really understand how America is actually supposed to be. When I was faced with all this ignorance, I just thought it was normal. I always stood quiet if someone said something that made me uncomfortable. There were occasions when I would tell my parents but they told me to ignore it and I did. I grew up thinking this is how America is.
It wasn't till my second year in college that I realized those types of people don't represent America. I spent time in bigger cities with a more diverse population and saw how America was meant to be. Social activism started to become more popular on the internet, and I grew aware to issues as minorities who were once silenced where given platforms to speak. I moved to a more diverse area soon after that and by then my whole perspective on America changed. I wasn't just the Indian girl anymore, and I gained the confidence I lost in my youth. I grew past the hurt and thought of America as a better place than I once did.
That was until the election of 2016.
When Donald Trump ran for President it made things seem as if the whole of America was the little town I grew up in. He spoke ill of other races, and didn't feel the need to ever apologize. To see a person of power speak in such a sense made me feel belittled. When minorities spoke on how we felt attacked we were told to keep quiet. That we misunderstood what Trump and his supporters stood for. I felt silenced again. I was absolutely devastated when I saw the final result and felt all that confidence I had in myself wash away. All the feelings that I had worked hard to overcome were back. I had to do a lot of reflecting and it took some time until I realized that things are different now.
The United States of America is not a Trumpland.
It is not normal to hear things such as "Mexicans are bringing over rapists" or to want to ban all Muslims from entering the country. It is not normal to touch women without their consent or to disrespect a veteran. It is not normal to be supported by the KKK or to empower neo-Nazis by your campaign.
While I once was told to keep quiet to racism and ignorance, you will never see me doing that now. I used to be told to ignore the remarks of racist people. To try to understand why they behave the way they do. After the election, I was told the same thing.
Being quiet did nothing. Shrugging off those who offended me empowered them. It empowered them to teach others that their mindset is acceptable. It empowered them to think the opinions of minorities don't matter. It empowered them to elect a man who ran on a platform of racism and bigotry.
I always meet other minorities who grew up in diverse places and are sometimes very envious of them. I wonder what it would be like to live somewhere my parents could dress however they wanted or not worry about their accents, but if I did that I would never have understood why it is so important to stand up for myself. I may have taken it for granted.
So for that reason I am thankful I grew up in Monroe. It gave me empathy for groups of people who are hurting. It empowered me to stand up for them. It empowered me to listen to groups like Black Lives Matter, to feel empathy for families who have been torn apart because of immigration issues, and to stand up for a woman's choice to wear a hijab. Just like I will never forget the racism I have had to endure growing up, I will never forget the reason why I strive so hard to fight against racism now.
