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Better to Live as One

 

When refugees leave their home, they move to a completely different world – one with different cultural values and traditions. They leave behind their rights – right of choice, to be exact. Their liberty is stripped from them; their education means nothing anymore. Imagine going to school your whole life and finally reaching your goal of occupation, only to have it thrown away through no fault of your own. In your new home, your educational background does not qualify, so you have to restart your educational path all over again – like you never existed before this moment. That type of powerlessness can lead a person into a state of shock and desperation.

Instead of helping refugees and immigrants, many are yelling to close border lines and kick them out. What type of humanity is this? There are babies being bombed! BABIES! The most defenseless type of humankind there is being attacked and people have the audacity to say “let them fight their own war, they do not need to overcrowd our country.” How can a baby fight its own war? I know many refugees and their stories are very heartbreaking. I understand their story. After all, I am an immigrant myself.

Throughout life, you ask questions that help shape who you are. We look to our families, friends, peers, cultural ways, values, and traditions to help mold us into understanding ourselves and forming who we are. When that is taken away – all these categories that help mold a person – it’s easy to lose sight of who you are.

Moving to America was extremely hard, especially for my mother. My mother lost herself when we migrated to America; I was young and so was she. At first, we lived with my grandparents, so that was a great foundation for her. But, the more she looked at the society she was now living in, the more she began to lose sight of herself. There were many painful nights, wondering where my mother was, even when she was physically with me. I could feel a woman holding me but I couldn’t see my mother. She psychologically fell into a well of darkness and confusion. Those years were the coldest years of love I ever felt. With me feeling that, and witnessing her identity loss, I can only imagine what refugees might feel.

I am glad to see that #unitecloud is a site where blogs shine the light of empathy on different topics. People need to feel empathy to truly have a taste of understanding. It is beautiful to see a place where many cultures and different races come as one to fight for what is right. Like I always say, it’s better to live as one, than to live apart, because someone’s weakness could be my strength, and my weakness could be someone else’s strength. That is exactly what I see #unitecloud evolving to be.

Written by: Lisa, St. Cloud State University student

One of our favorite things to do here at #unitecloud is speak to students, giving them tools to stand up against hate, and allowing them to share their stories with their classmates of what they’ve witnessed and what they themselves have been through. We were invited to speak to a class at St. Cloud State University, after which the students did a self reflection paper on our levels (Moving from Indifference to Action) and responded to either attending a #unitecloud event or reading on of our blogs. We are excited to share a few of the student’s papers on our blog. This is one of them!