Complicated Veteran's Day Feels

[celeste_noelani]

As a mixed Pacific Islander, Kanaka Maoli and Chamorro, watching the manifest destiny of US military involvement unfold in my ancestral homelands, I can't help but have complicated feelings about Veteran's Day.

Complicated because of the anger that bubbles, rage in my throat that spews like roiling, molten earth. Complicated because of the tender devotion I have for this nation that could be so much more if it just got over its allergic reaction to discussing its brutal history. Instead, it breaks out in hives again and again, pointing to us as triggers whenever we even so much as whisper about our alternate United States history. Alternate to its Nation of Immigrants narrative.

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