 Thank you, Shizu, for providing us the space to read today. It's an honor to be here. My name is Dana Rod, and this is my essay called Fernway, The Need, Not Desire to Travel. I'm walking to the bookstore, Burden Beckett, this literary magazine launch party being held there. And one of my poems has been selected for publication. At last, I'm a contributing writer, published and stepping over pigeons being gutter and water-like cocktails. I am arriving, stepping over the threshold of something wondrous and new. I have a spring in my step. There's a man waiting at a bus stop, an unlit cigarette between his fingers. His hand reaches out for me as I pass by. He asks me if I'm American. I immediately tense up my defense's engagement. I want nothing to do with him. My mind leaps to the worst possible conclusions. My body remembering strangers stopping me on the walks home from school, asking me if I spoke English. Asking me where I was from as the answer up the street wasn't good enough for their curiosity. Armoring my body against this man who could quite possibly be a tourist, perhaps just asking for directions or maybe even a lighter for his cigarette. But my tolerance for microaggressions has reached less than 10% in 2017. My steps quicken, my breath shortened as he reaches for me and I yell, leave me alone. I rush past as he exclaims, wait, wait. Can you hear his footsteps behind me, my pulse braces? Who do I trust in this landscape? What were once seemingly innocuous questions of where are you from? Now send signals of fight or flight to my nervous system, alerting my subconscious of someone who desires to categorize me, other than me. I used to do the same. For the longest time, I compartmentalized parts of myself into corners of my mind when it was just too uncomfortable to admit the truths in me. There was a time when those words would not have bothered me. I would smile. Don't you know you look so much prettier when you smile. And I would say my parents are from Iran. I would acquiesce, accommodate, educate, all in the name of being seen as a good representation of my culture. I would describe myself as Persian, the outdated name conjuring images of the ancient exotic orient rather than the modern Islamic Republic. I was one of those Persians, like a breed of cat or a decorative carpet. A novelty from a far-fung place, except for the fact that I was born on US soil. As a Persian ambassador, I wanted to show that we weren't all scary terrorists yelling death to America. My parents taught me the importance of taruf, the Persian custom of hospitality, and I always wanted to show the best face of our culture to Americans who have been inundated with state propaganda. However, I want the world to acknowledge complexity within those of us with migration, exile, and intergenerational trauma in our histories. See us as human. See just how painful it is to be split amongst borders and the brutal mistress of geography. Just as dozens of think pieces slew through the headlines in the wake of the 2016 election, pleading with the left wing to understand the plight of the blue-collar Americans struggling with opioid addiction and the pitfalls of global capitalism and why they would vote for Trump, there is an equal and yet achingly bruised hand reaching out with an olive branch for understanding held out by those of us whose lives are at stake. There is complexity in my life as a queer, Iranian, American person. There is love there that deserves to be protected. See me, lest we forget what our humanity and compassion engenders us to feel for others. Thank you.