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I pulled out three glasses, while my parents prepared something to eat.

Carefully put a teabag in each and waited for the water to heat.

Cotton-like clouds in the murky water as the milk drops splashed in.

I always knew it was ready when it steeped to become the color of my skin.

I stretched to grab the sugar jar, only to a spoonful left behind.

They told me to take it and reassured me that they didn’t mind.

The silver scratched the bottom as the spoon collected the last few.

I wondered how they would drink it when sweetness was all they knew.

I took the drinks to the table and thus began all the stories.

Their stories of voyages, excursions; of taking over territories.

At this point, it must have been the millionth time that I heard.

But I listened attentively as if I didn’t anticipate every word.

An immigrant is like receiving an invitation that’s insincere.

My father was not asked to come for refuge, but because they needed engineers.

Our home was always a little nation separate from the one in which it’s immersed.

My parents had their own dishes, habits, and quirky little foreign outbursts.

Yet when they stepped out, Taghrid turned into Teresa, and Farid into Fred.

Not because they wanted to, but because it’s what people’s expectations led.

They woke up in silent nights when they came from loud and lit street conditions.

Listening to hours of vibrant, rhythmic pulses, to minutes of single-beat repetitions.

They tire and fatigue as they take on long day hours and night shifts.

Coming from a people of collectivists to a country of individualists.

Maybe this is why they can’t grasp when we want to leave and live on our own,

Because they come from a place where no one would ever choose to be alone.

They left home with the risk of never finding it again,

Promising our families to visit, but never knowing when.

I saw them disguise their voice when their siblings were on the phone,

Only to hide their cries of wanting to go home.

Imagine trading your language that shapes your inner voice, thoughts, and prayers.

We complain that they didn’t understand our struggles when in reality, we didn’t understand theirs.

And although it becomes heavy, there are always two homes in the hearts of all immigrants.

So, may we celebrate the beauty of carrying both and remind ourselves of their significance.

Here’s to filling out forms in the waiting room and being 5-year old translators.

Here’s to paving our path from nothingness and coming out as creators.

Here’s to not being allowed sleepovers, unless it’s our cousin.

Here’s to waiting to come home to the smell of homemade in our oven.

Here’s to switching between two remotes, one for the international channel.

Here’s to waiting for multicultural day so that we can show off our ethnic apparel.

Here’s to knowing certain words only our language, like cursing, card games, and spices.

Here’s to importing that heavy blanket with the red flowers, you know which one that is.

Here’s to correcting the substitute teachers, professors, and during our interviews.

Here’s to watching soccer games with painted faces, even if we know we’ll lose.

Here’s to the 3 am telephone calls, and international money transfers,

Here’s to the doctors, and engineers, that became entrepreneurs.

Here’s to the phone being handed to you and it's mama’s fifth cousin once removed.

Here’s to spending all day making plans only to get them disapproved.

Here’s to slapping watermelons in grocery stores, and never fully finishing a family tree.

Here’s to hearing success stories of our cousins, as they hoped that’s what we’ll be.

Here’s to mispronouncing half of our vocabulary, merely from their dictation.

Here’s to crying at our grades, because a 98 wasn’t the aim, it was the expectation.

Here’s to dinner table math problems with yelling and screaming as we multiplied wrong,

And here’s to all these moments that made our characters strong.

We did not see them as they slept in cars when they came to pick us up,

Or notice them try to learn our slang and trends to be able to keep up.

We may not be there if someone’s rude when hearing their foreign accent.

We did not watch them devote their whole life for us or even understood what that meant.

Yes, we often felt like stretched ropes as the little threads tore.

Each side pulling even harder like it's a game of tug of war.

Yet, we should take pride in being a bridge between the two worlds of our own.

And never forget that their childhood stories became today’s backbone.

They brought authentic hospitality, cultural richness, and merely intellect.

This is why we carry their names with honor, pride, and the utmost respect.

May we speak our mother tongues, and about our fathers with pride.

May we always look for home when we see a map worldwide.

I stretched to grab the sugar jar, only to a spoonful left behind.

They told me to take it and reassured me that they didn’t mind.

The silver scratched the bottom as the spoon collected the last few.

I wondered how they would drink it when sweetness was all they knew.

A first generation is the perfect way to define,

The bitterness of their tea for the sweetness of mine.

Melissa Rezk