A year of willfulness

It feels scary to state that 2023 ended—a year of primarily high lows and high highs.

Schools ended, and there are no more 9 AM alarms. Graduation just happened, and now I am moving on from my first job as a Program Manager at a local non-profit.

Most of the high highs have left me underwhelmed, and the high lows have been surprisingly inviting.

Without a doubt, my faith has been shaken, yet my love has not.

My love for animals, people, and places, as well as plants. I see now that love is inconsequential and independent of faith and hope, although it can be interrelated.

Working at a local non-profit for immigrant communities has shown me the unfairness of this country’s democracy.

It has shown me that students can no longer count on human beings but on structures of powers that often leave them with dread and a bareness that I pray no one else goes through. Structures of power that allow for the many to feel unconsolable because of their lack of external control.

Once or twice, I had 1-on-1s with students with undocumented statuses, with their first fear being the lack of control over their lives.

The economy boomed or not, does nothing for them.

Undocumented people and students, especially children, provide this country with an open portal to new stories and new opportunities to reign in an intersectional lens. Without leaving them with a foothold or leverage, we dissipate into tyrannism.

It is not an America I want to raise my family on—Tax dollars that are paid by only the immigrant community.

I ask myself now, is the library truly a free resource? Are we not given it by tax dollars founded on the backs of immigrant fathers who work tireless hours to feed their families? Are mothers not scorned for the heavily accented broken English that most Spanish-speaking students are taught to erase?

I find that although there are inexplicably cruel cases, immigration is one of the most vicious and touchiest subjects in present-day America because of the lack of justice intertwined with the lives of many citizens of this country.

2023 has been a whirlwind of thoughts, praises, and underlying issues.

I want to stop, ponder, and dare ask,

how has it been for you?

Regardless of citizenship, I find this question imperative to the growth of any person, company, or organization. For me, it was a tumultuous horror that I benefited off, and now, I wonder, what will it look like for 7 years from now?

Better, I hope.