What's your port of entry?

Tell me what you’ve crossed to get here. Tell me what you still carry.

On the very first morning of this year, I hurried past the Freedom Tower, the former World Trade Center site, toward a moment that felt impossible just half a generation ago: the inauguration of New York City’s first Muslim mayor. Like every Muslim New Yorker, I feel a sharp dread whenever 9/11 is mentioned in the same breath as Muslims—it is an ache that has shaped decades of our lives, our policies, our fears. But there I was, on January 1st, walking past that horrific memory and into something new.

Thousands of New Yorkers stood in line for the inauguration block party. I was lucky enough to be invited to the ceremony. As I entered, an iconic 90s Bollywood track, Chaiya Chaiya, blasted through the speakers, and I cheesed hard. Our first South Asian mayor greeting us in the language of our joy, of our diaspora, felt like a fever dream. And then Sean …