A Madonna song<\/p>\n
echoed throughout my ears<\/p>\n
as I walked by the spot<\/p>\n
a classmate of mine<\/p>\n
was shot down weeks ago.<\/p>\n
In the place where his body fell,<\/p>\n
a flower grew<\/p>\n
through the cracks of the cement.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We had seen more people die<\/p>\n
than we had seen them smile.<\/p>\n
We were tired.<\/p>\n
We were young<\/p>\n
but we felt like our fathers already.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But through all the blood<\/p>\n
seeping into the sidewalk,<\/p>\n
the screams from children,<\/p>\n
the cries from their parents,<\/p>\n
there was a box TV<\/p>\n
with a fuzzy screen<\/p>\n
and muffled songs playing.<\/p>\n
And there were Americans on that screen<\/p>\n
with jean jackets and cool sunglasses.<\/p>\n
And they were laughing and singing and dancing.<\/p>\n
I wanted to be an American. I wanted to be happy too.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But at home,<\/p>\n
my mother cooked me my favorite food<\/p>\n
and my little sisters begged me to take them shopping.<\/p>\n
My older brother was still my older brother<\/p>\n
and my father was still my father.<\/p>\n
I watched little babies grow into teenagers<\/p>\n
and I watched my aunties and uncles grow older.<\/p>\n
I could understand everything,<\/p>\n
I could speak to anyone and<\/p>\n
they would know what I was saying.<\/p>\n
I could walk to my friends houses<\/p>\n
and we would watch those Americans dance to their songs on tv.<\/p>\n
We sang along,<\/p>\n
we would use all we had left in our voices to sing along.<\/p>\n
We laughed and talked<\/p>\n
and we danced too.<\/p>\n
We danced too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kyu Kyu Thein A Madonna song echoed throughout my ears as I walked by the spot a classmate of mine was shot down weeks ago. In the place where his body fell, a flower grew through the cracks of the cement. We had seen more people die than we had seen them smile. We were tired. We were young but we felt like our fathers already. But through all the blood seeping into the sidewalk, the screams from children, the cries from their parents, there was a box TV with a fuzzy screen and muffled songs playing. And…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"parent":32,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-314","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/314\/revisions\/317"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}