Prologue 

The phrase “I want to go home” is essential to teenage vocabulary. It's a statement we say, to kill boredom, a conversation starter. I say it a lot, my friends do too. But nowadays, I find myself saying it more than usual. I would be spaced out sitting on my couch, watching the news - another hardworking family being kidnapped by ICE. Nonetheless, a Latino con el nopal bien puesto en la frente arresting a Mexican man, traitor to his own community. 

As I watch, my mind drifts — imagining what life might be like in El Salvador if IT ever happens. I love my mother country and have often thought about moving there, making my dream beach home, owning my own hotel near the ocean, and living the life my parents deserved to have before their beautiful country was torn by rebels. 

But in my mind I would say the phrase, “I want to go home” and stop for a minute. I am home, but I’m not. 

I want to go home 

I say it in my head, 

I say it out loud as well. 

At school, at work, in the car 

I want to go home 

I say it as I am sitting on my 

couch… 

At my house 

I want to go home 

I am home, aren’t I? 

I’m not

Physically, yes 

Mentally, emotionally, no 

Home is an environment, a mindset.
It’s the state in which the world around us is in.

If the world outside your door is horrible,
your home is no better when you are the target.

In the world outside, you can hear the yells of the carnicero
from your go-to grocery store,
the one that always calls you mija.

The plea of a mother,
when all she asks is for her children to be taken care of.

I want to go home.

I walk around my hometown, Waukegan,
a city I used to believe had no beauty to it.

But now, driving around the lonely, apocalyptic streets
makes me believe that I was raised
in the most beautiful city,
with the most beautiful people.

I want to go home.

I want to be in a state where I know
I have the potential to realize all my dreams,
to know that I have a future.

I want to be in a headspace where I know
mi pa will come home,
to know that mi mami will be there in the morning
after her night shift.

I want to go out knowing that I won’t be racially profiled
for speaking the most beautiful language I know—Spanish,
for the color of my skin,
the melanin that makes no biological difference
between us and our oppressors.

I want to go home.

But unless the idiot
of a “PRESIDENT”
is out of the Oval Office,
I am not going home.

The same “PRESIDENT” who was
IMPEACHED
and CONVICTED—
the two qualities that shouldn’t allow a man
to be president.

I want to go home.

But I can’t,
because home can’t exist
in a country that hates
the people who built it.