For Every Immigrant Speaking Their Second Language

There is so much beauty in where you come from. So much that it terrifies some of the people in this foreign land because they do not come from there. They do not understand and instead of taking time to learn, they misunderstand you in their ignorance. In their minds, it is easier to stereotype than it is to try and learn about who you are and why you are here.

You make this uncomfortable. This, the way you adorn your lips with their language when they cannot even begin to speak yours. This, the softness with which you carry both your culture and other one you are learning. These, the shoulders on which you bear two countries. It’s easier for them to dismiss your hard work to learn, to dismiss your hardships with their slurs. This is expected of you, they think arrogantly, expected if you want to live in this country, so instead of helping, they make fun of the way the words that are already foreign flow from your lips.

And even when their words taunt the way this second language sits in your mouth, you hold your head up with pride. You wear your words so beautifully, even on a foreign tongue they flow with majesty. There will always be something regal about the way you are able to speak two different languages whilst they only take the time to learn one.

Splitting oceans and continents apart, you have grown in another land, and you are made of such survival, you have built a home in another. Your ancestors are proud, they are, of everything you have done, everything you have become.