Kelly Burch

While I would like to think that I paused for a minute or two to think about what it means to be American, I was mostly focused on looking forward to the fireworks show.
But all of that changed for me last year. Three weeks before the Fourth of July, my husband became a citizen of the United States.

My husband brought home his first gun while I was at work. When I came in he pointed to it proudly, while I stood firmly on the other side of the room, looking at the firearm like it was an unpredictable animal that could spring up to bite me at any moment.

Our culture is so preoccupied with The Other, and the obsession with falling in love with a foreigner is just another manifestation of that. But I quickly found out that falling in love with someone from another country is not all fun and glory.

My toddler was twirling in her tutu bathing suit while I shimmied into my plus-sized polka dot bikini.

No having a community rally in support, like it is supposed to during a crisis, can make a family in mental health crisis feel shamed and stigmatized.

Someone yelled out a racist comment, and Trump said, “Hey, I can’t say it, but he can.”

A family's day of celebration became a nation's day of mourning.