American Born

Our children here are born to your name,

but how naive we were to believe

they could possibly be the same.

You chipped off our culture,

then destroyed it whole,

replacing it with what you called your own.

An erosion of what made us special,

we sacrificed it all,

to conform to a society

where our numbers are still deemed too small.

We dotted our i’s and crossed our t’s,

forgotten our language to be better in yours.

We spoke like you,

we dressed like you.

We swallowed your patriotism,

and dreamt your dreams,

but being an American is not as easy as it seems.

The climb keeps getting longer,

the rules keep changing.

My English is perfect,

you’ve admitted it yourself.

But it is my yellow skin,

my almond eyes,

my black hair,

that you wished I was without.

To be an American

is all I ever asked for,

and on these papers,

I am born to your name.

But how naive I was to believe

that I could possibly be the same.