Dear Mr. Donald J. Trump,

Hi.

You probably don’t know who I am, but I know very well who you are, along with the rest of the world.

In fact, I’ve seen you in person before, when you stopped by my lively hometown of Sacramento last summer, just after I had graduated high school. You gave a speech in an old plane hangar at our airport to a crowd of raving fans, all proudly decked out in apparel featuring messages I sometimes found admittedly disturbing.

You also may have seen my name pop across your phone screen every now and then in the form of a Twitter notification. If you have, then you’ll know I’m not the biggest fan of yours, and I’m sure you aren’t mine, either. But that’s okay. I’m not here to subtweet you or spam you with memes pointing out things I believe to be proof of your incompetence to be president. Rather, I’d like to talk to you, person to person, our Twitter-bearing phones put away for now.

I have spent these past few months since your election as our president screaming out into the void of social media on my phone in anger, despair, and tears. I haven’t always composed myself well. But as this week has come and gone, I’ve felt a calmness wash over me. Tranquility. Peace. Love.

Making America great again will challenge us to all be kind again, which I hope to attempt in this letter. I wish to compose myself with grace, compassion, gentleness, respect, and wisdom, so that we may speak not as president and citizen, but one concerned party to the other.

In Filipino culture, we are all family. We respect those older than us with terms of endearment that induct them into our families, such as “auntie” and “uncle.” We are all brothers, sisters, and cousins. We are all friends. I do not mean to assume myself to be of a level equivalent to that of the President of the United States, but to place us on a better sense of equal footing, where we speak with equal amounts of respect, love, and understanding.

That being said, let me formally introduce myself.

My name is Madison Noelle Foote. I don’t go by any nicknames.

I grew up in Sacramento, California, residing in the same house from the day of my birth until last August, when I moved to Los Angeles for college.

I was raised Catholic by my interracial parents. My mom is a Filipina breadwinner, my dad a white homemaker. I’d hope you respect them as much as I do, not only for their hard work, but for their reversal of traditional gender roles. My younger sister is just three years behind me. We look different, due to our mixed descent, but we’re just as close as any sisters are.

I attended St. Francis High School, an all-girls’ college prep school that boasts a student population of about 1200, making it the largest all-girls’ high school west of the Mississippi river. I started to embrace my identity as a woman of color there, as I was surrounded primarily by white peers. It wasn't hard to feel different at times.

I now attend Loyola Marymount University, a Jesuit university that prides itself on a Catholic identity and an emphasis on social justice and self-discovery. I’m pursuing a degree in screenwriting, which I hope to use to continue writing my stories for a larger platform, such as a television show, or a movie, or even a video game. I may be able to join you in the ranks of the “Hollywood celebrities” someday; perhaps we'll be neighbors on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Wish me luck!

I love Pokemon, making people laugh, eating dark chocolate M&M’s, and surrounding myself with friends who love me very, very much. I also love embracing my Filipino culture, especially the traditional tinikling dance. I’m only five feet tall. I walk pretty slowly sometimes (most times), as I like to take my time. “Moana” is my favorite movie as of late. I identify as asexual.

These are just a few details about me you’d learn if we actually spent time together. I don’t believe we’ll be having any one-on-one’s any time in the next four years, so I hope that brief introduction gives you some context for my knee-jerk reactions to your campaign and election for the past few months.

Mr. President, I’m truly unsure of where you intend to go from here. Comparing your live performance last summer to your speech this morning, I’ve quickly diagnosed your first problem: you’re stuck.

Your ranting and raving about “The Wall” just last year was completely absent on the morning of your Inauguration, and I do not believe this to be a coincidence or a mere matter of not having space in your speech for this concept that acted as the driving force for your campaign on several occasions.

And that’s just it—you built a campaign on many, many abstract concepts and vague ideas that left many confused, even those who have supported you. While I was being interviewed after your speech for my personal reactions, one of your loyal fans described you as “unpredictable,” and pointed out how that has its perks and its problems. For me, I’ve mainly experienced your prime “Surprise!” moments as problematic and a reason to slap my forehead in exasperation and exhaustion.

I’m not sure this tactic can power you through the next four years.

I mentioned earlier that anger drove me, after your election, to react negatively.

Perhaps we should unpack those feelings.

I can’t claim to empathize completely with those on the other side of the border down south, but I can only imagine how such chants of “building a wall” really punches many of them in the gut. I can’t claim to empathize with those whom you antagonize as “illegal”s, but I’m still a person of color whose country of origin has moments that leave citizens, families, with no other choice but to escape, legal or not, to protect the lives of their children. I do not doubt you would do anything to protect your family, and, for that, you are already so much more alike to those you label “illegal” than you think.

Are we a country for ourselves or for the world? We can’t continue to live with a foot planted on each side if it means antagonizing all who’ve traveled here illegally without trying to understand their reasoning or amend the problem in a less pulverizing way than deporting them, no questions asked. Moving to LA, I have encountered several of these “criminals,” and I honestly can’t tell them apart from those who moved here legally or were born here.

Can you?

And the ones I’ve met aren’t trying to “steal” our jobs. No, they’re just going through college like me, trying to receive the proper education that will enable them to bring financial success to their families, who may have been driven out of their home countries by crippling poverty caused by an abusive government. I cannot speak for all who have come into our country this way, but I do know they are not, as a whole, as villainous as you’ve made them out to be.

I come from immigrants on both sides, in fact. On my Filipino side, my grandparents moved to the US in the 1960s. On my white side, one of my ancestors came over circa the Mayflower era—which, if I’m not mistaken, would make him an “illegal immigrant” to all the actual Natives here.

I digress.

I believe myself to be making a fair statement when I condemn your campaign for being one built upon hatred, bigotry, and hypocrisy.

You’ve referred to several countries as “terrorist nations”, such as the Philippines, by the logic of “they have terrorists there!” Well, buddy, I hope you’re ready to add the United States to that group, because we’re a breeding grounds for the Christian extremists who shoot up Planned Parenthoods or those who terrorize schools.

I’m not clear on your personal stance on the LGBTQ+ community, given your seemingly indifferent attitude about it, yet choice in Mike Pence as a vice president. He’s not exactly a friend of mine for supporting homophobic legislature in the past. And I’m sure he doesn’t believe asexuality to be real.

As a woman, I don’t think I need to really explain why you creep me out at times. Whether it be the “grab her by the pussy” debacle or the way you speak of your daughter and her physique (which I could NEVER imagine hearing from my own father when he speaks of me or my sister), I have a hard time trusting you’ll support women, especially in our reproductive rights. My body, my choice. You can’t control my body and what I do with it. I’m not doing that to yours, am I?

Please do not forget that as president, you’re leading by example, by serving your country. If we want to bring religion into it, look to Jesus, who only sought to serve those around Him. Try to embody that.

With that, I’d like to suggest a song for you to think about: “Yahweh” by U2. Its religious title comes from not a musical string of Bible verses or lines of directly praising God, but of pointing out examples of selflessness, compassion, and mindfulness—all qualities that exist independent of religion.

The final verse is my favorite: “Take this city / A city should be shining on a hill / Take this city / If it be your will / What no man can own, no man can take / Take this heart / And make it break.”

Think of the city as a metaphor for America and, well, that’s pretty self-explanatory. I think it speaks to your "Make America great again!" ideology.

The last two lines are especially important to me, as I struggled to understand exactly what they meant for years. Why does Bono want us to break our hearts?

Empathy. He sings of the virtue of not simply feeling sorry for those less fortunate, but of relating to them, trying to understand them, being one of them.

You can’t truly understand the immigration crises, the threats to women’s rights, or the struggle for people of color, without being them. But you can get close.

Take your heart and make it break for them. Feel pain for them. Put yourself in their shoes.

After doing that, could you still write the legislation for the wall, for defunding Planned Parenthood, for ignoring the cries of black people being shot by police in the streets?

I truly wish you the best for these next four years, Mr. President. Both for my best interests and yours. I hope we can find common ground and trust, perhaps even learn from one another. I know I’ve been learning a lot for the past years.

Look to history. Be critical, curious. Ask yourself, “Why has my election prompted this response in comparison to elections of the past?”

Surround yourself with those whose opinions you cannot understand from your external point of view. Learn from them, consider them.

Love, love, love. Love until it hurts, love with your whole self.

In the meantime, you’ll see me on the streets, fighting, fighting, fighting, until I feel I have a full grasp on the rights I deserve as a human being, created in the image of an all-perfect, all-loving God.

Thank you and good luck,

Madison N. Foote