GET TO KNOW THE PEOPLE BEFORE YOU JUDGE THEM

I grew up in a small and crowded city in a refugee camp in Nepal where I saw people judging each other by how they look, how they act and their family background. I remember my neighbor; he was a drunkard. He always drank and came to the house to beat his wife, children, and get mad with neighbors. One day I was playing volleyball with his daughter and suddenly the ball reached where a woman was washing plates. She started yelling at my friend, “You are like your father, always wanting to bother us you stupid girl. You smell like your father, better move from this place.” My friend was upset; she cried a lot saying, “Why do I get blamed because my father is a drunk.”

Look at people! Why are they so mean to each other? Just because they don’t like someone in a family doesn’t mean that they should hate everyone in that family. They should respect the dignity of other members if they don’t like someone. When that woman got mad with my friend, I did not feel good about the way she talked to my friend. I took my friend to my house and told her to take it easy. “I am with you,” I said. “That woman is so terrible.”

My family and I were also judged by local people in the refugee camp where I lived for seventeen years. The local people of Nepal did not like us because we are not from Nepal. As I was born in Bhutan, it was a little difficult for me to show my skills and abilities in my Nepali community. Although I was Bhutanese, my tradition and cultural practices were similar to local people of Nepal. I have my experience and education, but I did not get a chance to show my talent in our community. I was looking at the people and wondering why they were judging each other. I asked my parents why I could not say a speech; I knew how to say the speech. My mom told me we are not citizens of Nepal, so, you cannot say the speech. My own brother was a teacher, but he could not go to boarding school to teach because the local people did not want us to work in boarding schools because we could get a good salary. They thought that we were refugees, so we had to stay where we were. We could not show our skills in local areas.

This was true not only in my country, but when I move to the United States I also found discrimination and judging of people by color. When I moved to the United States, I thought that I would not see racism and discrimination; I would have a better and comfortable life. On June 12, 2008, I moved to the United States and I saw change in my life. School here is the best place; teachers are fabulous. Still I have found more racism and discrimination between people because I found more diverse people blaming each other. Some of them were judging by religion, color or dress. On the first day of my schooling, students asked me about my religion and they started to criticize me saying that they didn’t like my religion. “Why you are wearing a ring on your ear and a nose ring? Only gays can do that.” I don’t know why they spoke to me like that. When my classmates judge me like that, I knew that even in the United States we can see discrimination and judgment by color and religion.

When I see discrimination and judging of  people, I think we need to  unite together to stop  judging and  bring  equality which  provides all a chance for the pursuit of happiness. We can bring great change in our communities and in our country if we work together and respect each other without blaming. We can change our world. The most important thing is that we all have the same red blood, so why do we hate each other? We need to understand and realize what we are and who we are: we all are human beings. Let’s work together from today and teach our offspring that we are from the same family, living in different places.