On My Sleeve

I wear my identity on my sleeve

Because it is all too often forgotten

I wear my identity on my sleeve

Because I fear one day,

I too shall forget

I wear my identity on my sleeve

To yell from the rooftops

This is who I am

But I forget how inseparable I am

From my identity and culture

Ocean Vuong once said, “Even if I were to write the word the that is still an Asian American the”

My identity is

inseparable from my

culture, inseparable from my

ancestry, inseparable from my

heritage.

Everything I touch, leaves a mark

Every mark, touched by who I am.

Though schools and institutions,

Peers and mentors

Nations and its leaders

May ask me to lay aside my identity,

An identity that threatens:

Their version of the story,

Their version of their nation,