Vulnerability

Vulnerability is always the most painful to render on paper–whether you’re writing the story of the bully that torments others in order to feel strong or the child struggling to protect their abuser. To write against the cult of purity and religious fundamentalism is extremely divisive—it cuts through families and forces one to realize that loyalty to ideology can trump kinship. It’s painful and personal and difficult.
The fear of being misunderstood frequently silences. As an adolescent, the big goal was to seem American–to be accepted as American–so that we could stay. Every action, from choice of clothing to flag care, was expressed on binary of American or un-American. I listened as people spoke for me–as teachers and politicians explained what immigrants wanted, who immigrants were. To question or challenge propaganda is not what American schools encourage. The history I learned in school was the history of the physical victors (and ethical losers).
I have always been overly sensitive to–and fearful of– the story that others tell about me, the narrative they force between my lips, the things they say in my name, the cleverness of their dehumanizing interpretations. We do wear masks to be seen, but I also think in the US we often wear masks to be overlooked, to disappear in a sea of familiar hat-wearing heads, to be accepted, to feel safe. There is something so tenuous about existence—and how I learned to be human in the borderlands between native tongue and American flag, how complex and fragile these multiple identities.

https://formercactus.wordpress.com/2018/06/15/interview-with-alina-stefanescu/