Built for Rough Roads

Laughing and Listening My Way Through the Next Four Years

I had been watching the campaign with an odd kind of distance. Many people in New York kept asking me if I had voted. I reminded them that I can’t. Despite my accent, I am not a U.S. citizen. I already voted in one Presidential Election this year.

Americans complain about how exhausting the election had been, but the media very much presents it like entertainment. A suspenseful dramedy, perhaps. When I expressed worries about the upcoming changes in immigration, the Americans I speak with often say, “oh no, you’re fine. They don’t mean immigrants like you,” with a “you’re one of the good ones” implied.

I deeply dislike this sentiment. I’ve never been comfortable when Americans marvel at my very American accent by saying “but you have no accent at all!” I’ve aspired to move to the United States since I was a child. My father, who went to graduate school in Indiana, had always wanted me to come to America. It took a year and a half of hard work and a very good immigration lawyer to finally realize this dream of mine. I want to make a life here, and these comments suggest that I’m allowed, that I belong.

People who make these comments don’t think of me as one of those immigrants. That’s not the compliment they think it is. And when the majority of them voted for someone who is threatening to deport millions of immigrants, it’s hard not to take that personally. How is it anyone’s right to decide someone’s worthiness? But that is the immigration system in a nutshell. It rates and categorizes humans based on arbitrary qualifications. I’ve been deemed an “alien of extraordinary ability,” but I fail to see how that makes me more worthy than someone escaping political persecution, or simply seeking a better life.

So I woke up yesterday with a heavy sadness. And then I started scrolling on my phone and got angry. It felt like the American dream that my Dad had wanted for me died. I worried about what will happen to Taiwan in the coming years. I was fully wallowing, my mind conjuring up worst case scenarios. And then I got to work. I did some translation, a few Zoom meetings. I tried to move on with my day. All while feeling like absolute sh*t.

I had tickets yesterday to go to a live taping of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. I specifically requested tickets for the day after the election, cautiously hoping for a celebratory episode. I forced myself to shower and dragged myself out the door. The streets of New York were eerily quiet. As I queue up with a friend outside of the Ed Sullivan Theater, I thought to myself, “maybe expecting Colbert to cheer me up is too high a bar.”

Before taping started, Stephen Colbert held a quick Q&A. One audience member asked, “what’s the mood like in the writers’ room today?” And Colbert responded, and I’m doing my best to paraphrase, that they gave themselves 30 minutes to just feel all the feelings. Before the 30 minutes were up, they were already writing jokes.

And the jokes worked. I cheered, I laughed, and I walked out of the theater feeling lighter. There have been many dark times in my life, such as the Shanghai lockdown in 2022, or losing my father 10 years ago, when I wondered if I’d ever laugh again. But I’ve done a lot of laughing since.

As Colbert himself said in this clip below, “no one gets into this business because everything in their life worked out great. So we’re built for rough roads.”

So yeah, I may have picked a very interesting time to pursue my American dream, but I’d like to move forward while imagining my sense of humor buffering me, like good suspension on rough roads.

And upon some reflection, I don’t believe “they” hate “us.” I think the majority of Americans voted for what they think is best for themselves and the people they care about. There’s heavy nostalgia for “the way things were,” however misguided, sexist ,and racist that sentiment may be. OK, some of the white supremacy is loud, but the extremes are always the loudest, and the extremes spin stories that prey on everyone’s fears. I believe the American information environment is deeply fractured and polarized, and that the people have a very understandable distrust of both of the government and the media, which make them susceptible to mis- and disinformation. A narrative war has been fought in America, and the Democrats lost, this time.

We wallow, we laugh, and we move on. I will be spending Thanksgiving in Michigan (swung pretty red) with my boyfriend’s extended family. I plan on asking questions and listening. And eating a lot of turkey and yam and deviled eggs and falling asleep watching a football game.

For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it; great men have done great things here, and will again, and we can make America what America must become.
— James Baldwin