Page 39 of Something in Between

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True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.

—CLARENCE DARROW

THE GROUP TOURSthe Jefferson Memorial after a boxed lunch of plain sandwiches and potato chips. I’m not angry at Royce anymore, just sad and confused, and now I miss my family. I just want a bowl of Mom’s adobo and to pinch Danny and Isko on their ears. Just the other week I was feeling homesick for Manila, but now I can’t even imagine going back. LA is my home.

I walk inside the memorial. It’s magnificent. Bright lights illuminate a passage from the Declaration of Independence etched into the stone of the dome. While the other students walk around the statue, I read the inscription. As I begin reading, I start to tear up again.

There are those words again:

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.

That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

But who really gets to pursue their happiness? Do those words even apply to me anymore? My family moved here for a better life, a chance at the American dream.Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, it says on the bottom of the Statue of Liberty.That was us. America is a beacon of hope around the world, promising a better way of life, if only you can make it here.

I’ve been thinking about the scholarship. I may be here enjoying a tour of the Capitol and looking forward to meeting the president later, but I keep getting a sinking feeling in my stomach as I look at all these gorgeous buildings. If I can’t accept the scholarship to go to college and later grad school, then what’s the point of all this? If my family can’t live without fear of losing their home and having their entire lives uprooted, then my coming here hasn’t done anything to make our situation better.

I tune in to what Suzanne is saying. “Thomas Jefferson was just as important to this country as George Washington. Consider the immensity of this statue. Now think of the immensity of just one of the documents he wrote and how it influenced not only the creation of America, but both you and me this very day. This man wrote the Declaration of Independence. Can you get any more important than that? This is the challenge we all face. What can we do to better ourselves and this country? What can we do to be remembered? Who do we want to be?”

The group moves on, but I linger, and I hear a step behind me. I glance sideways. It’s Royce. We’ve been shadowing each other the whole tour. I was acutely aware of where he was the whole time, and he must have been aware of me too, because here he is now, even though I was pretty cold to him back there. I feel bad for blowing him off earlier.

“I know what I’d do,” he says.

“What’s that?” I say, still staring at the statue. Trying not lose my resolve, I count eight buttons on Jefferson’s vest.

“I’d tear that statue down and put up one of me,” he says.

I snort. “Of you? That’s sort of egotistical, don’t you think?”

“Not at all,” Royce says. “I think I’d look pretty good. I wouldn’t have that hipster haircut though.”

“Ha.” I let out one single laugh, then purposely cut it short.

“You don’t believe me?” Royce asks.

“No,” I say as I walk around the statue. I’m not looking at Royce, but he follows me anyway. I kind of wish he would leave me alone. He makes me feel too many things—excited, angry, sad, happy. Ugh.

“Do you know why I’d want a statue of myself?”

I shrug like I don’t care.

He tells me anyway. “Because it’s something my dad will never have.”

I feel myself softening. “What makes you so sure there won’t be one of him?” I ask. “Maybe he’ll have one twice as big. You never know.”

“I doubt that—there always seems to be someone mad at him. Don’t you follow the news? They say he’s a surefire deal breaker on most things. He may be the house majority leader, but he’s not inventing a new America, or writing some declaration of anything that’s going to change the ideals we’re built on. He’ll never have an ‘I Have a Dream’ type speech either.”

“Now you’re being harsh,” I say, though I’m not sure how much I like his father either. The group heads out for the steps, and I should really follow them.

“I’m just telling the truth. I’m tired of being in his shadow. You have no idea what it’s like.”

“And you have an idea of what my life is like?”

I start to walk away, but Royce catches my arm. “I didn’t say that,” he says. I look up at him. His eyes are sincere. Soulful.

“You didn’t say it, but you were thinking it,” I respond. “You don’t know how hard I had to work to be here. You and your rich friends think this is all a joke, some kind of boring sixth-grade field trip, but it’s not.”

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