Hello friends, and welcome to another summer blog post. In years past, memories of the Fourth of July have been nothing short of fond, filled with the excitement of being on summer vacation, being able to stay up way past my bedtime to enjoy a captivating firework show (and oftentimes taking part in those shows), and eating all the traditional American-slash-Filipino food to my heart’s content. We were in a vastly different political climate at the time. It was a far simpler time. This year, my social media feeds were overflowing with posts that fell into two categories: those in protest of celebrating the holiday, and those who fully embraced it. Where did I fall in the Venn diagram of “should I or should I not participate in the festivities?” It was a battle trying to figure out which end of the spectrum I wanted to fall into that ultimately forced me to confront the internal exchange that I’ve been having. And I’m here to share that with you all.

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