Barbarian, a term Ancient Greeks applied to anyone who did not speak their language. It was a critical label for someone who was not one of them. When a person voiced their thoughts, feelings, fears, the Greeks only heard “bar, bar, bar.” Under the neon lights and reverberating bass, words pierced the air; however, to my ears, they only amounted to bar, bar, bar.
In Manhattan, I live as the Ancient Greeks. I communicate. I understand. I feel the weight of the words people use. Eloquence fosters connection against the background of sirens and city skylines. In New York City, I am never someone who is misunderstood.
Yet, as I increasingly enter into a world foreign to me, one where my words are entirely dismissed, I begin to understand how isolated the rest of ancient society must have felt. Despite the gold jewelry, despite the expensive clothes, despite the depth of my vocabulary, I am solely perceived as the unrefined other. To their society, I am a barbarian. My presence, however polished, is an intrusion. My voice is reduced to negligible noise.
I am not like the Persians. I do not want conflict. I want to understand. With each syllable I learn, I contort my tongue and force my thoughts into assimilation. English becomes a deranged animal to sedate: it desperately claws the insides of my brain until the words become too mangled to understand. It is better fitted for the onlookers in a zoo. They gawk and they whisper, and I whisper alongside them. The cold metal of the key is a heavy weight in my pocket.
I can no longer stand the silence, so I must become more than I am. I will shed this skin and inhabit a new one until its scars appear to be my own. I will pore over the pronunciations, the inflections, and the conjugations if for no other reason than to prove I am not the other. I am not surrendering my fluency, I am merely evolving beyond the depraved barbarian. There will be no more polite nods. There will be no more silence. I will be better than my predecessors. My language, my culture, my lived experience within my society will not fall: Eu terei paz.