My stories are written in a blue, very old notebook. A notebook filled with dog-ears. The corners of the notebook are torn because of the amount of time I needed to open it. Like me there is so much to my notebook. Stories are presented in many different ways. Some stories are shown, while others are told. Some are drawn, while others are felt. The notebook, while having its own story, expresses mine. There is so much to me but the pages grow thin. My notebook is like my canvas to pore my thoughts about my own history, a thing that would accept my story no matter how biased it might be. One time in my notebook I chose to write about myself; just about who I am, without the happy moment, without the sad moment, without the time I fell down the stairs in 1st grade in front of the guy I thought I liked. I sat down with my pen, “My name is Khatera. I am a woman…” and there goes my identity. I didn’t know me, I read my old Blue notebook that night.In those torn pages “Omg I love cats.” with my obnoxious handwriting  “I love my wavy curly hair”   while reading I learned that identity is a canvas of itself. A canvas empty without human experience. Identity is you and your history. While I don’t have an American identity I have an identity that makes up me. And that notebook embraces all those identities.

– C

Relationship:  Im/migrant Im/migrant