03/25/2026
these past several years post-pandemic have shifted something in all of us. we’re living in a time of censorship, state violence, political unrest, a constant hum of division and disorder. for a while, that weight has felt overwhelming. i carried it quietly, a lump in my throat from holding too much in. if i’m being honest, there’s a quiet dread beneath it all, a fear of being forced out of a place i’ve called home for years. i live here, but i don’t belong to this country on paper. as an immigrant, the search for rootedness has been a lifelong unfolding. i keep coming across versions of myself that are constantly learning how to belong without fully letting go.
lately, this version of me has felt the urge to say the quiet part out loud. because nothing is apolitical, and art does not exist without consequence. club culture is political. filmmaking is political. wellness is political. i am a woman, and i am an immigrant. my very existence in America is political. and still, i’ve lived my life without asking anyone for permission.
my understanding of rootedness has begun to shift. it stopped being about permanence and started becoming something i actively create. it’s in the relationships i nurture, the rituals i build for myself, the ways we make meaning out of displacement. so i’m learning to stay. not just physically, but within myself. to hold on to joy without apologizing for it, to reach for hope through the uncertainty, to gather courage in the moments i feel myself shrinking. because belonging is not found, it is made. and in creating it, we discover that home is not a place, but a practice.