I want to write about the beauty of pressed flowers and Polaroids next to each other.
I want to write about the Vermont fall foliage and the cerulean of the Florida sea.
I want to write poetry about Paris and Rome, about San Francisco and New York City.
I want to write about aesthetics, about love, about friendship, about magic.
I don't want my writing to be treated as inferior because it's in my second language.
I don't want people to judge my writing based on my nationality.
I don't want to be treated like I'm second-class, like scum, like a rat.
I don't want to be oppressed in the land of the free.
I need to write about feeling pride about soaring green mountains and crystalline rivers.
I need to write about my passion for being Latina, but not the caricatures you have made of us.
I need to write about the fire in my veins and the magic in my mind.
I need to write as a reminder that I am a person, and that I want to be treated like one.
I am writing about the things I love.
I am writing about my country, that I love.
I am writing about my identity, of whom I feel proud of.
I am writing about myself. A Latina. Not a fetishized creature in your fantasies. A person.
