I remember the first big gala. Scholarship student, first generation everything. My parents, they worked so hard, sent money back home, just for me to wear some rented suit and feel like an alien. Everyone else, they knew each other, knew the small talk, knew which fork was for what. I just watched, trying to copy, trying not to look… I don’t know… poor. It wasn't about the food, which was fancy but bland, or the music, which was loud. It was about the feeling that everyone else belonged, and I was just a guest actor on a very expensive stage. I got good at it, over the years. The fake laugh, the appropriate nod, the stories that sounded just humble enough without being actually true. I built a life, a career even. My children, they don't even think about it. They just *are* these people, these educated, well-spoken individuals. They don’t remember the shame, or the constant translation of everything, the fear of saying the wrong thing and embarrassing the whole family. I mean I don't even — whatever. It’s their world now, not mine. But sometimes, when I'm at one of these things, one of their charity dinners, the old feeling just… washes over me. Like a sudden cold. I see some young person, eyes darting, trying to figure out which glass is theirs, trying to blend in. And I just think, *You see me, don’t you? You know.* I still feel like that kid sometimes, even now. Still waiting for someone to point and say, "What are *you* doing here?" It never leaves you, that feeling. Never.