1. United States
2. Mass.
3. Letter

Despite never traveling farther than Pennsylvania, my kids and I are renewing the passports we applied for 8 years ago when Trump was first elected. I am second generation Chinese American. My father and grandparents immigrated here shortly after the Chinese exclusion act was struck down. No one bothered to legislate a ban on internment camps like the ones we had imprisoning Americans of Japanese descent. Or the ones Trump created for Latinx people. Where even would someone like us - a mixed race family of Irish and Chinese descent, even go? We are uniquely American in a way that no other country would ever grant us asylum. And it would be in revenge for the thousands whom we reject asylum for, despite hearing, throughout my whole life, that America is a ‘nation of immigrants.’ We’re good enough to clean your floors and serve you food. But our immigrants aren’t good enough to protect or enshrine the safety of. Trump’s election is on you. By staying silent and ignoring young and progressive voters in Massachusetts, we’ve learned we do not have representatives who care about us or our safety. Our leaders have led with their full chests - not every American matters. Palestinian Americans’ voices and safety don’t matter. Jewish Americans’ who oppose sending weapons to Israel - their voices and safety doesn’t matter. Asian Americans, multiracial Americans, disabled Americans - our voice and our safety does not matter. You’ve sat passively back, or even in many cases, endorsed the actions of far right, pro-militant groups who divided our country based on false accusations of antisemitism as we wage war in the Middle East. We send millions in funding to weapons, to police departments, accepting AIPAC money and corporate lobbying perks - all under a Democratic administration. So OF COURSE progressives gave up. Of course Trump won. Our voters saw what happens when we vote blue - genocide, militarism. You’ve destroyed entire generations of hope for millions of voters who want to fund food banks, public schools, and environmental regulations, because no matter how we vote, we’re voting for war, occupation, colonization, and the murder of children. In these last smoldering moments of democracy before Trump destroys us all, I call on you to denounce the carpet bombings, vicious attacks, and ethnic cleansing on Gaza. I call on you to draft legislation to guarantee that internment camps created to target, terrorize, and deny the rights of people of color and first and second generation immigrants and refugees can never be created again.