This is a letter to the United States of America. My country. A country that I don’t even recognize anymore… 

I’ve always been incredibly proud to be an American. A citizen of the United States.

It’s taken me a while, however, to sort out how I feel about what is going on right now in my country.

Although I am hundreds of miles away in what many would consider a tropical paradise, word of Trump’s appointments, policies, and presidential decrees have indeed reached my ears.

Plastered all over every TV channel and newspaper is more like it… 

Never, did I think that within two weeks of Trump being the President of the United States, the entire country would be protesting, awake, alert, enraged.

Okay, maybe I could have predicted that..

But never did I think, or at least hoped, that Trump would actually implement such measures. Insulting Mexico, banning Muslims, forwarding the Dakota Access Pipeline. Fake news is getting faker, real news is getting censored, and only independent news organizations are able to rise above the strangler fig that is the Trump Administration.

All within two weeks. 

I feel like I don’t even know my country anymore…

“Mom, I’m scared..”

“I know sweetie, we all are. We just need to stay strong. Keep fighting.”

What are we fighting for anyway?

For Equality? For Human Rights? For Social Justice? Antiracism? The Environment? For Peace? For all of the above?

Fighting for peace, now there’s a funny thought… 

What about love? What about the harmony? What about the Human Race?

I don’t even know anymore. 

What happens now?

Is that good, strong people – who I have looked to for advice and guidance my entire life – are terrified for the future of their country.

People, good people, educated people, all over the world who have worked their entire lives to establish connections in the United States now may not even be able to get a work visa, to make their life long dreams a reality.

And this is not exclusive to Latin America, or to the Muslims of the world, but to everyone who opposes what our current president says.

When disagreeing equals “Terror”, we end up fighting ourselves. 

But this is what I do know…

What I do know after living in some very different corners of the world, and speaking three different languages, is that different humans are still humans. 

We all have problems and insecurities that we need to work on.

We all have passions, people we care about, causes we  will die for, jokes we all laugh at.

Humans are humans. 

We laugh.
We cry.
We hurt.
We believe.
We fight back against those who say we can’t.
We LOVE.

And as corny as it sounds…

We love most of all.
Even when the pain clouds out the love with hate; we hate because we love.

And if we don’t start loving and accepting each other, our fellow human race… then the end is much closer than any new beginning any politician can think of.

I still go back-an-forth between being terrified, infuriated, or oddly optimistic about America’s future.

I think we all do. 

But, the future is not in the hands of any politician, but in ours.

Our hands.
Not his.