I look at the outlined boxes that are my options
White
Black
American Indian
Chinese
Filipino
Vietnamese
Asian
Indian
Korean
Japanese
Native Hawaiian
Samoan
Chamorro
“Some other race”
What am I?
Who am I?
Some other race?
Some other race?
Do we not count?
I look at the woman in the picture frame.
The woman that left a home with the risk of never finding another one
The woman that was seen as a threat
The woman that was seen as worthless.
That woman is my mother.
That woman raised me to become the woman I am today.
And for her, I resist marking white.
And for her, it hurts to mark “some other race”
As if she is worthless like the world told her.
Because for them it doesn’t matter.
Because when they tell you to “go back to your country”
Or when they ask you “you got a bomb in there?”
You are clearly being “othered”
So maybe I am just “other”.