I am here because of your colonial might,
Because your flags once flew in lands, not yours,
Drawing borders with ink and gunpowder,
Killing people, stealing treasures, and claiming lands.

I am here because of your ruthless capitalism,
Because my soil fed your factories,
Because my labor built your cities in shadow,
While you called it aid, called it trade,
But it was always a bargain rigged in your favor.

I am here because of your wars,
Fought on my streets, with your weapons,
Turned my days into endless nights.
Leaving ruins for us to sift through,
And ghosts that crossed oceans with me.

I am not your burden.
I am your consequence.
I did not appear from nowhere,
I did not stumble blindly across your borders —
I followed the path carved by your hands,
In the name of empire, profit, and pride.

You cannot tell me,
“Go back where you come from,”
When where I come from,
It still bears your name,
Your language in its schools,
Your debt on its banks,
Your scars in its soil.

I did not come uninvited.
History brought me here
Your history —
Of conquest, dressed as a liberator,
Of treaties broken and governments bought,
Of lives uprooted for sugar, for gold,
For oil, for tea, for power.

I walk on the road your empire paved,
With railways that split our lands,
With ships that crossed oceans
To take more than they ever gave.
I walk it with my head high,
Carrying my mother tongue in my mouth,
My grandmother’s stories in my bones,
And the hope you said was yours to give.

I am not lost.
I am not less.
I am no criminal.
I am not here to beg nor to bow.
But to stand, to build, to plow
To raise your roofs, to tend your lands.
To labor in the hours you shun,
On nights and holidays, you choose
To rest—while I endure the strain,
The labor that you do not see
Hands are worn raw in cold and rain.
.

I am the reckoning long delayed,
The mirror you hoped would fade.
The voice that rises from the dust,
From borders drawn and dreams unjust.

I am not a stranger.
I am what you made of me.
I am flame and root,
Displaced, but absolute.
The echo of your ambition,
The shadow of your flag on distant lands.

I am an immigrant —
And I belong.