My father did not tell me for four days after my arrival at Harvard University last month.
On March 27, I joined thousands of other high school candidates around the world, holding my breath, closing my eyes and clicking on the disturbing button of the “view of the application” in my Harvard portal.
My body reacted before my brain made, dispersing a breath of disbelief of my lungs while I was linked to my chair. My mother shouted and my father just looked at the screen.
All I felt was the exaltation at that time … until I realized that my father did not look because he shared my joy. While I was waiting for the fate he was under the break – so that he jumps and congratulates me in tears as I saw other dads doing in the countless “college reaction” videos – I understood that, for him, my acceptance mentioned more complicated feelings than pride.
I grew up in a family of faithful Republicans. My mother, a very traditional republican for life, voted twice against Donald Trump after observing what happened during his first administration. My father and paternal grandparents, on the other hand, followed the Republican Party and Trump on the way to Maga and continue to support him.
I remember having become very aware, even at the age of 8, that my family had divided. Before Trump, visits to my paternal grandparents were characterized by spending time on the lake learning to swim, my grandfather taught me how to fish and takes place early in the morning. After Trump was elected, Fox News burned in the living room of my grandparents while my mother and I cooked ramen in their guest house so that they were not caused by our “smelly food”.
Everything they had previously celebrated, like my dreams of becoming a writer and the identity of my mother's obvious Asian immigrants, became politicized when Trump became president. They even started to be wary of something as innocent as my new Alexa Amazon, that they thought they were a tool that “the deep state” used to monitor our conversations.
Our visits have become less frequent and less comfortable and warm, and I watched my grandparents become socially isolated from us and the rest of our family and their friends. Finally, I exceeded their growing contempt and bitterness for previously accepted ideas and people, in a silent acceptance, but uncomfortable, of what they believed now. When they talked about their politics or made ignorant comments, I smiled uncomfortably and said nothing, afraid of putting more break in my already fractured family.
Over time, I had to abandon the childish belief that I could bring them back. I suppose that the helplessness that I felt in this situation is what inspired my passion to reach those who have different political opinions and, later, to try to understand and master the competence of diplomacy by participating in the United Nations model and the student government in high school. But when my university acceptance began to arrive – first Harvard, then Brown, Stanford, Columbia and many other prestigious universities – injuries have been reopened.
“Harvard? Isn't that a liberal school? ” It was the first thing my grandparents asked when I told them the news for Facetime. “What is it still for?”
Bloomberg / Bloomberg via Getty Images
I was shocked by these six words. After all that I had done to ensure this success, I could not believe it was their reaction.
This, as well as my father's silence, was my point of rupture.
“Harvard has some of the best teachers and students in the world,” I broke them. “It is not to be discussed – it's a fact.”
It was the first time in my life that I really had angry with my grandparents, because this time they had not only attacked an idea or a cause that interested me. They had rejected everything I worked: each end of evening study session, each parascularly in which I dumped, every dream I had stuck in my room. I started to cry, not because I expected that everyone celebrated with me, but because I could not believe that my own grandparents could not share my joy and not toast at my accomplishment. It was as if their answer held the laws of family and nature. What political idea could mean more than the realization of their grandchild?
I was also struck by the number of well -intentioned neighbors, family members and friends who have also expressed opinions on schools in which I have been accepted and whether or not they are aligning their political preferences. I was told that I should not go to Stanford or Brown because they are “too liberal” and that I should change my mind on participation in Harvard because of “what is happening there right now”.
What is happening in Harvard right now is that The university courageously retaliates Against Trump's unprecedented and radical attacks on any higher education institution which refuses to comply with its political requests.
Like our president targets Elite education, the friends of my friends who receive educational support via Questbridge and Federal Pell Grant programs fear that their access to education will disappear completely. Instead of looking forward to the university next year, my classmates and I are concerned about a new fear: what happens if the colleges that we have worked so hard to be admitted can be eliminated or damaged by a pen? And, more importantly, why does it happen?
Earlier this year, before the controversy surrounding my choice to attend Harvard, I refused a appointment to the United States Military Academy in West Point. After the current administration, the administration systematically rubbed the estimated school of its cultural and affinity spaces dedicated to marginalized communities – and after having observed that other potential cadets become increasingly daring with their opinion that, Like Pete Hegseth, they don't think women should be allowed in combat roles – I decided that I could not register there and feel safe. How could I? I had no guarantee that if I was talking about for what I think, I would not be quietly erased like the programs which had formerly helped cadets like me.
I always want to serve. I still believe in this country. I will go to Harvard as a cadet of the Rotc (it is also how I pay my tuition fees), but what I still cannot understand is how an administration that claims to promote patriotism made me feel disillusioned to defend it.
My classmates and I are young adults and at the start of our lives, and instead of celebrating our hard -won successes, we sail in a field of political mines. What is generally a moment full of promises was overshadowed by the deliberate actions of this administration. The college acceptance season, such as vacation visits to my grandparents, has become a period of tension, apprehension and fear.
Creating fear seems to be the goal of the Trump administration. People my age are afraid to speak, to seek education, to ask difficult questions, to wonder what seems unfair, to exercise our right to express ourselves as the generation which will inherit this country. The actions of the Trump administration have clearly indicated that we are no longer sure to dream. We are just political poker chips that can be played in a power struggle.
I want to blame Trump so much only for this destabilizing phenomenon that washed the brain my family and my community, but I know that a deep political fracture had brewed in our country before Trump, and the fact that the media bias and the tirades against the truth about social media and other places are really to blame. Trump did not create the hostility I have known, but he encouraged and capitalized on it. If I am your political declaration first and a girl, a granddaughter, a neighbor, a student and a second friend, something is broken.
This is what is wrong with this movement, and it is not only to talk about Maga – I speak to each adult who is an accomplice of growing extremism and the political bias that exceeds our country at the moment. It was the “Rush Limbaugh Show” that has constantly played on my father's car radio. This is the news of Fox that flourishes in the living room of my grandparents for hours at a time. It is the quiet death of journalism and democratic ideals that occur in the dark crevices of social media which are now moving more and more in the dominant current.
I refuse to remain silent to keep the personalities of authority in my life – those who are supposed to offer support, mentoring and judicious – complacent advice. Over time and that I have to face a fourth quadruple of Julys and Thanksgivings with my family, I am sure that I will be subject to a multitude of comments on the credibility of my education in Harvard.
I will reprimand these comments as I know how: by presenting the facts and sharing my experiences. This situation could make me hate my father and my grandparents, but that is not the case. I love them and I know they love me too. I will not let Trump remove my empathy and my compassion, no matter how embittered one of them becomes. Yes, I am concerned about the additional fracturing of my family simply because of the place where I choose to go to university, but, more than that, I am worried about the fracturing of my nation.
Adults from America, you should wake up. Allowing your political prejudices to create a future where children are treated with hostility during the continuation of higher education is dangerous, whatever the political party you belong. It’s not just Harvard. Or about me. This is the country we build – one where young people are punished for thinking, dreamed and believing differently from the generation that grabbed them.
We are not your cultural war – We are your children. We are the future.
Bella Paz is the pseudonym of a high school that will frequent Harvard University this fall.
This article originally appeared on Huffpost in April 2025.
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