Stateless 

As the reality of a second Trump presidency draws near, I am moved to share a poem that my friend Brenda shared with me and others yesterday evening.

I understand that border security was a critical issue that helped get Trump elected. I also understand that I write and think from a position of privilege, because whatever is happening at the border, whoever and however many people are crossing into America, does not impact me personally, or at least I cannot tell if it does. But many people feel threatened by the “flood of illegal immigrants,” and Trump successfully fanned the flames of these fears.

At one point, he and his running mate (now vice-president-elect) J.D. Vance widely propagated the lie that Haitian immigrants were rounding up and eating people’s pet dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio. It was an obscene, hateful, baseless claim, which should have been obvious to anyone who made any reasonable attempt to learn the truth. And it should have been disqualifying to the shameless individuals who propagated it. But it was not.

It feels ironic to me that the writer of the following poem, Danielle Legros Georges, is of Haitian origin.

Thanks for reading. I hope you’ll pass it on. (Perhaps to a Trump-loving relative or acquaintance.)

A Stateless Poem 
by Danielle Legros Georges

If you are born, and you are stateless,
if you are born, and you are homeless,

if your state and home are not
yours—and yet everything you know—

what are you? Who are you? And who
am I without the dark fields I walk upon,

the streets I know, the blue corners
I call mine, the ones you call yours …

Who am I to call myself citizen, and
human and free? And who are you

to call yourself landed and grounded,
and free. And who is judge enough?

Who native? Who other?

And who are we who move so freely
without accents of identification,

without skin of identification, with
all manner of identification. With

gold seals of approval. With stamps
of good fortune. With the accident

of blameless birth. Who are we to be
so lucky?