I spent election night 2024 in the library stacks at my college, reshelving books as the results were coming in. As the electoral map got redder and redder, I knew what that meant for the United States: a potential rollback of even more reproductive rights, a lower chance of decreasing gun violence, and possibly devastating impacts to the climate fight. But in that moment, all I could see was an image of my dad — specifically, my dad at my age, clutching an English dictionary as he navigated his own college experience; it was him and that book against the world.
I know I’m lucky to have not one, but two immigrant parents who kept their heads down and worked to give my siblings and me a life they could only hope for, one in which college was a real, tangible option, and not some far-off dream. I know that whenever someone calls me brave, bold, strong, or persistent, it is because of them.
That college-age version of my dad with a dictionary in hand wouldn’t have imagined that his kids would have to fear for their safety, or that their intelligence and character would be challenged, in a country that he found security and success in.
And yet, that’s what’s happening. Since election night, when it was announced that Donald Trump is the president-elect and will return to the White House, we’ve already seen a rise in hateful speech and actions, similar to the ones we saw in the past during the first Trump term. American far-right livestreamer Nick Fuentes shared extremely misogynistic and harmful messages as a direct response to Trump’s win, and almost immediately, men and boys began reiterating Fuentes’ threatening words of “your body, my choice” not just on social media, but in real life as well. Across the country, Black people — some of them young children and teenagers — have been receiving anonymous text messages with racist threats evoking the country’s disgusting history of slavery. On Nov. 6, a group of men unaffiliated with Texas State University entered school property and held a demonstration in which they spewed homophobic and misogynistic messages.
The timing of these incidents cannot be coincidental; Trump’s re-election has emboldened hateful people to say the quiet parts of their beliefs out loud. As a woman of color, some of this rhetoric directly applies to me, and it’s scary because it’s reminiscent of the racism I dealt with in high school during Trump’s first presidency — and all the bigotry, harassment, and violence that people across marginalized communities had to endure. But now, I’m angry, too. We knew what would come with a second Trump term, and people chose him anyway.
All I want to do is give my dad — and other immigrant parents — a hug.
All I want to do is give my dad — and other immigrant parents — a hug, because I know this isn’t the country they thought they were coming to for a fresh start and a better future for their families. I think of all the dreams he must’ve had that he had to give up in order to survive and live in a completely new place, and all the lessons he’s given me in order to succeed here: He’s taught me to work hard, to be passionate, to speak up, to question, and, most importantly, to never stop trying.
With my dad’s lessons in mind, I am choosing to push forward. Like many others, I don’t know what my exact next moves are, but I do know that complacency isn’t it. We’re allowed to feel our feelings, but we shouldn’t let that stop us from moving forward. Let’s turn to our communities, let’s keep advocating for change, let’s keep going. I’ve heard many stories of resistance and struggle from my immigrant family, and most importantly, I’ve heard stories of how they overcame those obstacles. The obstacle ahead is certainly a big one, but if my dad could get a college degree with just an English dictionary in hand, I believe we can get through this.