23/06/2026
There are things people forget are privileges.
•If you arrive in this country and never worry about being misunderstood, that is a privilege.
•If you live in this country and your skin never changes the way people treat you, that is a privilege.
•If you live here and have never been told to go back to your own country, that is a privilege.
•If you live in this country and no one has ever come up to you speaking a random Asian language, that is a privilege.
•If you live in this country as an immigrant and have never been taken advantage of by a local, that is a privilege.
•If you live in this country without the fear of being asked to leave, that is a privilege.
•If you live in this country for school or without a job and can still go out at night or on weekends, that is a privilege.
•If you step off the plane into a job already waiting, that is a privilege.
•If you live in this country and can afford to be selective about the work you take, that is a privilege.
•If you live in this country and have the comfort to complain about inconveniences, that is a privilege.
•If you live in this country and do not have to fight to justify your right to stay, that is a privilege.
•If you live in this country and never have to shrink yourself to stay safe, that is a privilege.
And above all, simply being able to come to this country in the first place was a privilege too.
But I never took it for granted. I worked hard for every inch of the life I have now.
I am “privileged” today only because I survived the opposite.
The version you see now is built from every one of those struggles and more.
So when people think I am cold, it is not because I do not understand their struggles.
It is because they do not know mine.
If you live in this country and have never had to drop your ego just to survive, just to stay, just to build a life, that is a privilege.
Maybe that makes me strange. Maybe that makes me alien.
Or maybe it just makes this moment feel a little supernatural, a quiet strength that grew from everything I had to become just to stand here.
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