Being Muslim, and female, and an immigrant, I belong to at least three of the many groups that were hated and insulted in equal measure during this past election campaign. I had never been the cool kid in school, but it feels as if my popularity would be at an all-time low if a poll were taken right now. (Although, if nothing else, last year's campaign taught me that polls mean nothing.)
There was an episode of "Sex and the City" where Carrie Bradshaw was unceremoniously dumped via Post-it note. "I'm sorry. I can't. Don't hate me," it read. This election was America's Post-it note to me.
I was dumped, unceremoniously. I felt unloved and unappreciated and spent hours eating raspberry chocolate chip ice cream, binge-watching "Game of Thrones" in sweatpants and wondering how I got here. I love this country, but I felt it wasn't loving me back. Unrequited love is the worst.
And then, last week, I went out to get my mail, and among the bills and fliers and junk was an envelope from the White House. In it was a letter from Barack Obama.
Six months ago my second-grader harbored an obsessive love of all things presidential (unrequited love, obsessive love — I recognize a pattern here). So we took a trip to Washington, D.C. We visited the Capitol, the monuments, the museums. We learned that every day Obama's staff has chosen 10 letters from the thousands written to him by the American people, and every night the president has read those 10.
So, of course, I wrote to him. I told him I worried about raising my kids in a time when their differences vilified them. I told him I worried that their Muslim names made them a target. I told him how, although we were big fans of his, we agreed that Michelle was cooler.
And he wrote back.
Love or hate Obama, the man has a way with words. "We are all one American family," he wrote in his letter. "Our forefathers created this country for anybody who embraces its values — no matter what they look like, where they come from, or how they pray."
