Refilling my water in the sad windowless room that passes for a kitchen on the 4th floor of my office building. Someone said the sun came out a few hours ago, I haven’t seen her for days.

I was raised in rural Michigan, by a Caucasian father and Filipino mother. I was 14 or 15 years old when I first realized I was seen as other. I think he meant it as a compliment when my high school boyfriend told me he didn’t like me at first because I looked “different”. I stared in the mirror for hours after he said that. What do you mean I look different? Different than what? I thought I just looked like me.

“We will not forget that Liberty has here made her home. [Her] light shall pierce the darkness of ignorance and man’s oppression until liberty enlightens the world.”

rich men lie, smug in their cozy graves lined with gold and the sweat of others, oblivious to our pain.

See, this thing that we’re doing - it’s an obstacle course.  It’s all an obstacle course. The journey is, to find the in between.