Today you explain immigrant labels assigned that do not come in your size
The masks that you don manufactured by hardened minds who cannot realize
That their reality coat belched from a factory of fear scratches at your throat
You no longer seek to wear it so those more privileged can gloat
Over finer coats of exceptionalism stitched with flimsy fabric of faded work
You can ascend beyond falseness' safe limits and never shirk
Your commitment to precious dreams of possibility
Which provokes our establishment to irrational hostility
This links you to our woebegone forbearers coming here without a lot
Whether the land of the free should choose now to admit it or not
Yours is the allegiance which matters
While today's battles for survival leave all surety in tatters
For it is you and those like you
Who remind us of which American identity remains true.
“we shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will. And we shall continue to love you.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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