SAADA

I have pursued jobs outside of the United States due to fears that the country may not be hospitable towards non-Caucasians. I have also experienced an uptick in racist statements directed towards me.

I was a U.S. green card holder at the time of the 2016 election, and I fully intended to stay a permanent resident and not a citizen for my whole life. After the 2016 election, I began to fear for my immigration status for the first time in my life. I started the citizenship process soon after the election and am a U.S. citizen now. I am still sometimes worried about my citizenship status, especially since I know that naturalized South Asian American citizens have had their citizenship revoked in U.S. history, and I sometimes remind my natural-born American husband where my immigration papers are if I was ever questioned or detained.

I feel like I've woken up and become radicalized. Growing up in the Obama era made me complacent, made me feel like the government was looking out for me. I know that the biggest check on the government is the people. The last four years have been a major civics lesson, and I'm paying attention like my life depends on it, because it does.

I have witnessed my hometown become a battleground over different visions of what the future should like based on a fight around literal relics of the past. The Unite the Right rally, centered around the statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, brought these debates about race, history, and representation to the fore. I channeled my growing desire for a more racially and economically equitable society through my doctoral studies around black Muslim youth in the US. I feel as though the fight for true equity is a cause that I will pursue alongside my community for the rest of my life.

I have not had many personal encounters which were negative. However, I have noticed a general tendency among people either to be defiant about their views or to be over-solicitous to assure me that as a POC, I am 'welcome' in America. Both of these attitudes are galling, at best.

I'm more fearful of traveling outside of the city - suburbs and small towns have shown increase in hate-crimes against BIPOC so I avoid road trips to small towns. I've experienced more racial slurs in the last four years in Seattle, which is known for its liberal views. Lack of leadership from the top has created a health and economic disaster with the global pandemic.

I've lived through this, in disbelief and shock and anxiety .

In some ways, I have felt personally let down by a lot of my peers, friends, and family. I think in a time where we should really be evaluating our own privileges and how we have each in some way contributed to some of the atrocities in America, that there was a lot of willful ignorance. Also, there is something to be said about the onslaught of worries that the last four years have brought on. I worry about the possible overturning of court cases like Obergefell v. Hodge which effects my right to get married, I worry about overturning Roe v. Wade which effects my right to my reproductive rights, health, and privacy, and I worry about police brutality and climate change all of which are concerns that as a woman in her mid twenties makes me wonder if things like family planning are obtuse and a selfish cause when considering the America we live in today.

I'm incredibly lucky and privileged that I've been left relatively unscathed by this administration. I'm constantly stressed out by the administration's policy/rule changes, and am especially stressed about immigration and healthcare. My husband is not a citizen and the green card process is becoming more and more difficult. I am worried about affordable, accessible healthcare for my parents and any future children I may have. I am worried about increasing segregation in all utilities - education, housing, internet, insurance - and how that will continue destroying at risk communities and families. This stress isn't new. I've seen the rhetoric, policy, and impact while working in Jefferson City. I knew the entire system was broken before Trump. I welcome everyone who has recognized that fact now.

The last four years have definitely been a growth period for me. I struggled at times with my own anxiety/insecurities that really held me back from being a better person. I used to let my shyness get the best of me to the point where I would not even engage in a conversation. Then one day I was like ok f***, this I'm going to be unbashfully myself and if they don't like it, then I didn't lose anything. And guess what? Literally no one had a problem with it. The last four years really made me focus on my mental health and how important it is to take care of. I was taught to deal with issues by "praying on it" but that doesn't always help me. It wasn't until I started researching and talking about my issues that I started to get better.

I have felt the past four years in body through increased levels of anxiety and exhaustion. I have felt this anxiety as the daughter of a Muslim immigrant to this country. As a woman knowing her President takes pride in the sexual assault and violence he perpetuates. As an early professional carrying the burden of student debt. As a steward of community archives and working with immigrant communities who cannot rest because they are constantly fighting for belonging in this country.

I've noticed significant shifts in cultural and family dynamics mainly due to politics. This presidency has been far more divisive than unifying and has shed a light on the dangers of unfettered individualism that is part of what founded this country and its privileges.

I fear for my son and his partner, who live in Colorado. I live in Canada now and I'm guilty about feeling grateful for that! The pandemic has only compounded my worry for the future.

I have seen a division in friends that I have known for a lifetime. Everyday life has become political in areas that are clearly not political. Here is a general of distrust in this country of government and of fellow citizens.

I feel anxious and compelled to plan my retirement to be in another country. I worry about how to help care for my parent.

I think I've been radicalized in a way. I come from an upper-middle class family and grew up believing the meritocracy was real and that personal responsibility was all that mattered. I believed this probably up until 2013 and since then I've been seeing more and more that the systems our country is built on is not resilient enough to empower people to live their American Dream. The last four years have only confirmed and sped up this change in my view of the US. We don't have any major force in politics that fights to make the country better for BIPOC and working-class people. We're leaving millions of our fellow Americans (immigrants included) without access to healthcare, education, and the tools to live a good life. I'm more determined than ever to change these systems.

There has been some added stress. I went to some protests early on and as a SAHM, my daughter was young enough I felt safe wearing her to some of the protests. As she got bigger that felt less safe and also the constant churn of news meant I retreated back to just focusing on our family for awhile. Although the events of the last 7 months have kind of eclipsed the 4 years. I feel pretty burnt out from the last 7 months of crises and incredibly anxious about what the election will bring.

I've gotten much less hopeful in the leaders and government, and I think it just shows that we need to take things into our own hands if we want to create real change, since those in power are not doing it for us.

I have become more indifferent to politics since the 2016 election. It has been so chaotic and hectic dealing with the ideas of this administration that I have stopped putting effort into actively knowing what is going on.

It has been mentally draining and politically disheartening to witness. There was an ounce of hope provided by Dave Chappelle's SNL monologue right after the election. I had hope that possibly, in someway, Trump would hear us, but alas his four years have divided us more. The battle for the next election felt like it continued and never ended. The world continued to yell over each other. People of color continue to question everything.

As I lay in bed nursing my newborn daughter that night in November 2016, I saw the news about Trump's victory. It seemed so impossible, and led my mind down uncharted pathways. I looked over at my partner of almost twenty years, sleeping beside me, and I wished for him that his slumber would never end. That he would never wake to the horror we were surely facing with a Trump presidency. I looked back to 2004, and remembered my disgust at waking up to a second George W. Bush victory. This was worse. I felt paralyzed. I didn't get out of bed the next day. I reached for a gift some one had given us when our daughter was born, "Letters to my Baby" and I wrote to her about the world I wanted to give to her. I focused on the strength of her community, her village. The effort to write, to imagine a world in which she would find love and encouragement as a girl, as a woman, as a leader and independent thinker, made it possible for me to get out of bed again. We, the adults who love her, would have to create that world for her. I knew that if I could keep my sights local, limited, that I could do it. But as time has worn on, and I've narrowed my focus, I have also been reckoning with what it means to self-isolate, to empower and nurture local community, to deal with the challenges of the now, the immediate. Isn't this the same strategy that those who argue against global interconnection advocate? My self-protection is also exclusionary, narrow-minded. I needed it in 2016, nurturing that tiny, delicate baby. As she grows into a head-strong, independent girl, equally obsessed with camping and Elsa, I am reminded that I can, we can, and we MUST also be both. We must nurture our local communities, cultivate strength in our cities and schools AND be good global citizens: supporting the struggles of others, working to reduce our carbon footprints, and constantly resisting the efforts of those who would argue that singularity is strength. Our strength comes from connection, from locking arms and struggling together. For me, that is now clearer than ever.

I have been more vocal about my point of view and also make more of an effort to engage in conversation with others on all the above. I'm fortunate that my work, health and personal circumstances remain stable since 2016.

I haven't been impacted personally in an economic or material sense, but I have been changed in terms of outlook and emotion, which has caused a big change in my level of interaction in my community. I have applied for positions on commissions in local government, have become more involved in the PTA at my school and, more generally, tried to be more engaged on local and national issues. I attended my first protests in the past four years. I volunteered to be a poll worker in my county. I'm making sure to model local community engagement to my kids and educate them on everything I'm learning now so that they won't be ignorant of their privileges and responsibility.

I have spent it very worried. I have started truly not liking some people that I did before. Obsessed about the news even though it makes me depressed. Overall a feeling of anger and frustration and a call to action!

I've found small ways of supporting causes and creating dialogue because the stakes appear to be much higher than they ever were. It's been useful to find a voice that stands up for personal values, especially as a minority. I'm not sure I would've been as vocal, or as involved in my various communities, if the 2016 election had gone in a different direction.

I work at a black institution and for the most part have felt protected by the fact that the work I do and the place I work in, does good work on behalf of black and brown people. However, I also live in the south, in a red state, where over these four years I have seen fractures between communities and the police, communities of wealth and poverty and also fissures in the relationships between black and brown people.