Cellphones are not permitted at the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services office waiting room, so I started writing this long-overdue blog update in pen on the back of the 100 naturalization test questions I’d printed out to help my partner, Alé, study for her exam.
Not that she needed to cram on the day of her test. The weekend before her exam, our best friends (and ooey gooey newlyweds) came over to play Mario Party and quiz her on the questions, and she nailed them all. Between digital dice rolls, we DnD dorks rolled a physical pair of 10-sided dice to randomly select test questions, which range from “Who is our current president?” to “What is Benjamin Franklin famous for?” (possible answers for which are: U.S. diplomat, oldest member of the Constitutional Convention, first Postmaster General of the United States, writer of “Poor Richard’s Almanac”, and “started the first free libraries”… I would have said something foolish about kites and bifocals and flunked).
A week before Alé’s test, the citizens of America voted on our new president, and, well… the world saw how that went. I’ve become largely numb to political shock and outrage, despite the constant rawness of my heart. It still feels impossible that we’re reinstalling a man who has been unable to construct a complete, cohesive sentence in the past 20 years, and that’s without even touching on the racism, misogyny, and all-around bigotry of the failed-businessman-turned-fascist-figurehead. And how could I forget those 34 felonies? I suppose those only count if you can’t pay yourself free of your own misdoings.
It felt so strange and funny, then, when Alé returned to the lobby with a great big grin of victory. Alé, an immigrant who has lived here for almost her entire life. Alé, a queer brown woman in Indiana, a state that has made famously nauseating decisions regarding the treatment of each of those labels. Alé, whose friends are planning the most ridiculously over-the-top patriotic celebration in honor of her expensive, stressful, long-battled-for citizenship in a country that wishes to strip her of her bodily autonomy, identity, and community.
In December, Alé’s family and mine and a handful of our closest friends crowded on the stage for photos with her at the Indianapolis War Memorial, where her naturalization ceremony was held. There, under the marble columns and bronze eagles, she became an official citizen.
“She made it just in time,” we joked, inspecting the paperwork approved by President Biden. “A month later, and we could have gotten a different signature.”
It’s not much of a joke. The humor comes from the relief and sense of security that we’re very, very fortunate to have now that the long journey of citizenship has reached its red, white, and blue conclusion.
During the months I’ve spent drafting this, we’ve sworn in a convicted criminal on Martin Luther King Jr. Day (hasn’t this nation brutalized Dr. King enough already?) who immediately set to work signing a slew of executive orders designed to make citizenship an even more arduous process.
And that was just the beginning. The Trump administration has been relentlessly gutting the federal government and the critical services that were meant to support the people who live in our nation. Every day, I learn about a new atrocity. Off the top of my head, I think of the decimation of public health programs, the mindless mass firings of federal workers, the fear-fueled attacks on my transgender siblings, the hobbling of an already sickly education system, the stripping of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion measures, the erasure and censorship of Black history, and so, so much more.
As Trump and his “grotesquely unqualified” cronies turn their sights on eliminating public broadcasting, I suppose I should be grateful I’m still learning about those atrocities in the first place. We cannot, after all, resist that which we do not know is happening, and in a nation where children go to school fearing ever-rising rates of gun violence and now the potential for ICE raids, all while risking dangerous illnesses because of vaccine misinformation campaigns, resistance is crucial.
It’s been nearly two years since my last blog entry, and it’s been nine years since my first one. In many ways, I am literally a different person than the wounded young 20-something I was when I bought this domain. I’m a queer, transmasculine, divorced weirdo in his 30s now. I’ve gone from working at a (generously progressive and community-supporting) wealth management firm to a transitional housing nonprofit. I don’t write as publicly as I used to. I feel less bitter about myself, but more bitter about the world, despite my attempts to keep turning my face lightward like a heavy-headed sunflower.
However, the bitterness does not make this country a better or safer place for me, or Alé, or any of the many, many people whose lives and livelihoods are threatened by this administration. There are practical things I can do, like calling my representatives and speaking up in the face of injustice. I can continue working to unlearn my own biases. I can keep my eye on the news.
And I can take care of my own well-being. I’d like to do that by getting back into writing again, even if I’m typing into the void (or worse: directly into AI’s all-consuming mouth). I’m not sure what that will look like, but maybe if I publish the intention, I’ll hold myself to its follow-through.
I hope that in another nine years, I can look back on this strange and terrifying moment with relief.