Hot Leaf Juice

There's a big difference between hot leaf juice and tea. Tea provides comfort, warmth, and the water doesn't burn you from the inside. Hot leaf juice is the promise of tea, but the disappointment of getting a fraction of what you'd asked for. 

Living in America is like having a camera that only takes good pictures half the time. It truly is just a battle between the districts, your class being more important than any skill. Through the Renaissance, towards the Modern Age, past the 1900s and straight to the Recession, they’ve all carried the weight of an inherited advantage of being born fortunate.  

Although we’ve only read the first few scenes, Sweat captures the reality of what the poster-child of freedom desperately tries to hide. Underneath the promise that “all men are created equal,” the pursuit of happiness is more of a battle than a path. This country might house a third of the world’s billionaires, yet we are chained by crippling debt. We have one of the best armies in the world, yet 13% of homeless adults served. This country preaches freedom and equality, yet the amount of melanin can determine your job. 

 

Surviving in a country with a theoretical point of view is confusing. I desperately want to support the “Land of the Free” and the “Home of the Brave,” but no one is free, and half our government has the position for the title, being doctors for the money, not for saving the lives. I don’t remember moving to America—I was only 2 months old—but those two months in my homeland have condemned me for the 13 that I’ve lived in the land of the free. Watching our country, especially with the election in a couple weeks, the picture of my future couldn’t be any more unclear. Both candidates are well aware of the ongoing national and international chaos, and instead of fighting for a better country, they’re using the namesake of support to gain votes. At least from the lens of an Indian ‘immigrant’—who couldn’t change the vote even if she was 18, despite knowing more about the U.S. than her own home— I can’t see a path where either of the candidates could clear the battleground that wouldn’t affect innocents. 

Sweat shows the regret people carry, and the desperate attempt to get out into the world, to simply live, but the box is a four-sided shape with no gaps, no means of escape. It’s an arena where making it out from a lower position is considered a miracle rather than a right. I’m not saying people shouldn’t work hard, but for a country whose hardest workers are the ones being exploited, I can’t see freedom even with the flag outside my house.  

The cost of living in America is not being able to live.