America, I Am Still Learning Your Grammar

By Austin Wong

I leave my country on June six.
Not because I want.
Because staying become dangerous.
Words at home start meaning wrong things. Silence become survival.
Questions become crime.
I learn early
some sentences cannot be finished out loud.
People say immigrate.
That word too clean.
I was moving away from being tracked.
On the plane, English sit beside me
straight posture, correct tense,
wearing rules like uniform.
I nod.
I say nothing.
Mexico City.
Capital.
No English.
My mouth open.
Nothing come out useful.
Covid climb.
Taste disappear.
Food become color only.
McDonald every day.
I think this is how hope starve.
Someone promise help.
Promise leave faster than us.
Car stop.
We push.
Street think Asian = money.
I am not money.
I am tired.
In the detention lobby,
the American flag too big for the room.
Red, white, blue hanging heavy.
I stare long time.
Wonder if dreams always look down first before letting you look up.
People say good luck.
In languages that don’t match
but mean same thing
Language fail.
Human does not.
Release at dusk.
Interstate Five.
Sky burn orange.
For one second,
I believe.
America begin rough.
Cabin. No signal. No hot water. Rent higher when word refugee appear. By accident, Silicon Valley.
Landlord think we business travelers. We let him think.
Furniture from strangers.
Kindness from Hong Kong people. Proof that history sometimes help itself.
High school confuse me.
Body here.
Brain still alert.
Football save me.
Coach give gear.
I give ten dollars and coins.
He do not count.
I cry quietly.
English still tight.
Kindness is easier grammar.
Work under the table.
Pay small.
Father crash car.
Hospital expensive.
Pain cheaper.
Food almost expired.
We eat anyway.
Friends eat inside.
I wait outside.
Someone notice.
Door open.
Spoon handed.
America taste different that day.

College say no.
Tuition say foreign.
Friends celebrate back home. I stand still.
Then I walk.
Paper after paper after paper. School say yes.
Grammar bend.
Community college I work
and work
and work.
I learn engine.
I learn justice.
I speak with presidents and boards. They listen.
History glitch.
Transfer letters arrive.
USC. UCLA. UCSD.
I choose one.
Someone laugh at my past. I smile.
Fight On is everywhere—
on shirts, on mouths, on loud days. I keep it quiet,
like a coin in my pocket.
I go back to the place with the flag. Take a photo.
America almost two hundred fifty— still arguing with itself.
So am I.
My English break more now.
Sentence trip.
Rule fall away.
But this language finally wear my shoes.
They call it American Dream.
I call it
still dreaming
still building
still here.
America,
you not finished.
Neither am I.

π

By Kyle Sardo

The idea that any one individual truly knows what America is, feels like a massive oversimplification. Reducing America to a single definition, equivalent to simplifying π to 3.14 — an irrational number that continues forever.

I’m 21. America has existed far longer than I have. Before 1776. Before 1492. Before any official beginning. My place in its history is barely a sliver, a faint shade of gray in a story often told in black and white. Even that sliver feels divided.

I’m half Japanese, half Italian. My Sicilian ancestors were fishermen, immigrants who came to San Diego in search of more. On my Japanese side, my grandparents’ families lost everything and were forced into internment camps. And yet, still fought for America, the very country that imprisoned them.

I’m just fragments of different histories, trying to understand a country built on contradiction. I grew up in the overlap of many worlds. I do not fully belong to any one of them, but I can recognize myself in all of them.

I can’t speak for Asian Americans. I can’t speak for Italians. I can’t even speak for all of Gen Z. All I can speak for is my story, growing up in Los Angeles, the intersection of heaven and hell.

I grew up like a rainbow that threw up on itself. A collage of ethnicities, sexualities, and varying opinions on whether In-N-Out is overrated. Everybody’s story is different, and all of them are equally valid.

I fell in love with the Spanish language growing up here.
I can tell you the difference between 4a and 4c hair, and that mine is 2a.
My best friend’s grandma calls me Habibi.
My Chinese friends host Lunar New Year celebrations filled with food and laughter. And when we all get together, somehow those pieces overlap without disappearing.

If I’ve learned anything, it’s that there is no single American story. There is no unifying God, race, or narrative holding America together. The only thing that holds us together is our shared differences. And on the days I feel hopeless about our country and its future, I think about that. I think about its contradictions, its people, its messiness. And sometimes I can see its beauty in all its ugliness.

I don’t know if America will ever become what anyone wants it to be. If America is anything, it is continually writing its own story. So maybe the most honest thing we can do is share our stories, listen to others, and stay open to the possibility that our understanding might change.