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I took this photo across the street from Vice President Mike Pence’s home, during a peaceful protest of the executive order restricting immigration. Some of my classmates and I joined a gathering outside a Muslim community center near the Chevy Chase neighborhood, and walked with a big group of residents up the street to the house. Many of us were in disbelief last week when we read that President Trump was actually going through with his radical and xenophobic immigration platform, and being in D.C. this week, the place where it’s all happening behind closed doors, only makes it more surreal.
This may have been one of the more surreal 2-week periods of my life. I’m technically studying abroad, but haven’t yet left the country. The 30 people I have been spending my days and nights with feel like my whole world, even though I learned their names less than a month ago and don’t always remember where everyone grew up or where they go to school. The closeness I feel to them is far more based on a shared experience of this journey than on knowing their middle names or majors or what they were like in high school, although it’s been fun learning those things, too. This program doesn’t quite feel like class, but our days are full from 8:30-5 and sometimes longer, and time is flying by even though it feels like every day holds 2 weeks’ worth of conversations and learning. Trump’s actions are surreal to me because I didn’t completely believe he would go through with the most radical of his promises, and also because I’m lucky to not have been directly affected by anything yet. Because of that latter part, I’m trying my best to stay informed and keep thinking about what it means to really be an ally, through action and not just sentiment.
The good thing about being in D.C. as this is going on is that Trump’s approval rating in the city he is obliged to call home is in the single digits, and the solidarity in the city is palpable. There have been protests outside his corporate hotel as well as the White House, and I still see pink pussy hats and signs left over from the Women’s March walking down the street. The political and social climate here feels tumultuous and charged, and reacts to change so quickly that it is more blurry than concrete. The historic infrastructure of the city, the regal architecture and white marble, is the constant that grounds these changes in history; these old buildings with constitutional promises often literally emblazoned on their walls are like roots, reminders of the idealistic and well-intentioned ends behind the turbulent means that might get us there. Passionate motion takes place in pursuit of a future that is more stable and more just.
Like the city, like the nation, I am running to stand still – immersed in change and challenge with the hope of growing simultaneously upwards from and into strong roots, charging like crazy into the future while remembering the end goal, the political and personal foundations of why I am here.
