Dear Mr. Trump,
I am a young, educated (or at least trying to be, as I have not yet finished my schooling), outspoken female, who happens to be of Mexican descent and part of the LGBT+ community. I am not writing to congratulate you on the win, which has honestly made me sick to my stomach and frightened for my future, but to instead ask a few questions of you. Why do you hate everything about me? Why does every single thing about me as a person deserve to be hated by you? What have I, and others like me, done specifically to you to make you abhor us, as you have made clear in this past year?
Allow me to explain myself. From what you have said about my race, gender, and beliefs, you have made it clear that I, and people like me, are the issue with America. Let me begin by separating every part of myself as a person and provide an analysis of what you have said, as well as my rebuttal to such. I shall begin with my race, which is quite a defining characteristic of who I am. I am second-generation Mexican-American; my grandparents having immigrated here from Mexico. My grandparents, both of whom have lived and worked in America for well over thirty years, came here illegally and have worked their way towards living here legally. This is the story for many members of not only my family, but families of countless other people of Hispanic descent. We are not, as you so ‘eloquently’ put it, “… laughing at us. [We’re] bringing drugs. [We’re] bringing crime. [We’re] rapists” (June 2015). Now, before people who read this try to say that my usage of ‘we’ in that quote in brackets is an admittance, that is simply to make the flow of the quote work better with my sentence, seeing as ‘they’re’ and ‘they’ were originally used in that quote. I can guarantee you, that is a minority of Mexicans who are coming to the United States. Most Mexicans coming to America are working to provide a better life for their children and families back home. I feel that I am safe to assume that you do not know what it is like to worry about having food on the table that night, or even the cost of a simple loaf of bread, so you would not know what it is like for those people. I am well aware of your following statement that you assume ‘some’ Mexicans are good. This does not cancel out your previous statements. This simply shows that you believe the ‘good’ Mexicans, or Hispanics in general, are the minority amongst these criminals you have painted us to be. So, allow me to go back to my questions. Why do you hate me for being Mexican? I asked to be Mexican no more than you asked to be white. This was not something that we chose to be, this is something that we are born with and now have to face hatred for once again. It has been the first day since the election, and my brother, who is younger than I am, already had a person that we have known since elementary school ask him what he’s even doing in this country anymore. This is a high school student in a school where the majority of us are Hispanic. He then proceeded to say that we are taking jobs from ‘hardworking Americans’. Allow me to make one thing clear: immigrants are taking the jobs that no one else wants. We are the ones picking your fruits and vegetables, cleaning your hotel rooms and houses, taking care of your children when you decide that you don’t have time for them. We are not taking high-paying jobs, as a matter of fact, we are getting payed much less than what is legal. And, stop to think, maybe if an immigrant that has little to no education and speaks little to no English is getting a job over you, perhaps you are not qualified for that job in the first place. Before I begin a rant on race alone, allow me to move on.
To continue, I also did not ask to be female no more than you asked to be male. You have called outspoken women in particular names such as ‘pig’, ‘nasty woman’, and accused Megyn Kelly of being on her period when she confronted you about these previous statements. This is not even including your frankly disgusting language which you and your followers have claimed to be nothing more than ‘locker room talk’. First, allow me to address the name calling. It is not becoming of a child, let alone someone who at the time was running for president, to call anyone those names. And to accuse someone who is refusing to back down about these statements of being on their period and therefore attempting to discredit them is simply insulting, as I’m sure you intended for it to be. In addition to this, your ‘locker room talk’ is simply appalling. As someone who has been in sports myself (with male teammates), as well as having male friends who also play sports, I have never witnessed, nor even heard about, people behaving in that manner. And then to claim that “no one has more respect for women than [you] do” is… Well, I have no words for it. That was not locker room talk. Locker room talk is talking about strategies for the game, choosing a place to celebrate afterwards, or even just talking about their schoolwork or own lives, not bragging about sexual assault. Yes, Mr. Trump, what you were ‘provoked’ into talking about is sexual assault. You said that you have forced yourself upon another person, perhaps even persons, without their consent, as shown in this direct quote: “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.” That is talk of sexual assault, not ‘guy talk’, not ‘locker room talk’, and the excuse of ‘boys will be boys’ will not be tolerated here, nor should it ever be tolerated when sexual assault is concerned. If the president does not show respect for over half of the people in the country, as women make up 50.8% of the United States’ population as of 2010, then how will anyone else be expected to? In a matter as serious as this, “I’m not a perfect person” just will not cut it, especially for someone in a position such as yourself.
Now, I do realize that since I mentioned I am a part of the LGBT+ community, that is probably all that people will be focusing on. Whenever I say that I, as a member of this community, do not feel safe with you in the White House, people are quick to bombard me with phrases such as “He’s pro-LGBT!” or “He has a gay guy on his campaign team!” While this may be true, look at your vice president. I’m not sure who scares me more, you or Mike Pence. Mike Pence, if you are not aware, is quite openly and, in my opinion, quite extremely against the LGBT+ community. From his bill to jail same sex couples that apply for marriage licenses to his plan to direct HIV/AIDS research funding to conversion therapy, Mike Pence is not for what you claim to be. In case you are not aware of what conversion therapy is, it is essentially a method to make LGBT+ teens hate themselves so much that they are desperate to do whatever it takes to be straight. This is normally conducted in a two-step process. During step one, whoever is running the program is teaching the person hate themselves in every way because of their sexuality, even using electroshock therapy to ‘shock the gay away’. Most people do not make it through this step, committing suicide along the way. Conversion therapists even encourage suicide because then ‘at least they won’t be gay’. The second step is when the person is so desperate to do anything to ‘fix’ what they have been told is wrong about themselves. As someone who cannot even come out to her own parents, seeing someone like that in such a high position of power terrifies me. Mike Pence is a threat to the LGBT+ community, whether your supporters will admit it or not. You cannot change what he has already proven himself to be.
As of now, that is all that I can say. My questions still stand to both you and your supporters: Why do you hate everything about me? Why does every single thing about me as a person deserve to be hated by you? What have I, and others like me, done specifically to you to make you abhor us, as you have made clear in this past year? This election has caused a division in not only my community and school, but also in my own family. My tía (in English, aunt), posted on Facebook voicing support for you, while dragging Mexicans and people of color in the process. Her husband’s cousin asked if she knew that she was married to a Mexican man, only to get attacked and told that “if [she] hate[s] America so much, why [doesn’t she] go back to [her] own country?” She is an American citizen, born in America. I wish that I could say this is the only experience I have personally been affected by, but it is not. Families of immigrants, Muslims, and people of color of scared for our futures and even our lives. It is not only you but your supporters that we fear. I do not want to be on the news because I was murdered for walking, sitting, existing and being Mexican, nor do I want to see someone I know and love on the news for the same reason. This is not the America that I have grown up knowing, this is not the America I have always been proud of. You built everything on discrediting me as a person, and for that, Mr. Trump, you will never be my president.
To the people who are currently protesting: keep protesting. Keep marching in the streets, keep voicing your opinion. They cannot take that from you, they cannot stop you if you keep protesting peacefully. Make sure the world sees you. If they are trying to silence your voice, make it impossible for them to drown you out, for them to erase you from history. We will go down as the troublemakers, the rebels, the discontent, but we will go down believing in what we stand for. We will not be silenced when our voices matter the most. Unify and support one another, civil justice has not been made because we sat back disorganized and waited for society to change itself, but because people like us have joined forces and forced society to change. Stay strong, stay energized, stay hopeful.
-Anonymous
