My father did not speak to me for four days after I got into Harvard University last month.
On March 27, I joined approximately 385,000 other high school applicants around the world, holding my breath, closing my eyes, and clicking the ominous “View Application Status” button in my Harvard portal.
My body reacted before my brain did, dispersing a breath of disbelief from my lungs as I fell back in my chair. My mother screamed, and my father simply stared at the screen.
All I felt was elation in that moment… until I realised my father was not staring because he shared my joy. As I waited for the spell he was under to break — for him to jump up and tearfully congratulate me as I had seen other dads do in the countless “college reaction” videos online — I came to understand that, for him, my acceptance evoked more complicated feelings than just pride.
I grew up in a family of staunch Republicans. My mother, a very traditional lifelong Republican, voted against Donald Trump twice after observing what took place during his first administration. My father and paternal grandparents, on the other hand, followed the Republican Party and Trump down the MAGA path and continue to support him.
I remember becoming acutely aware, even at age 8, that my family had divided itself. Before Trump, visits to my paternal grandparents’ house were characterised by spending time on the lake learning to swim, my grandpa teaching me how to fish, and early morning runs together. After Trump was elected, Fox News blared in my grandparents’ living room as my mom and I cooked ramen in their guest house so they would not be provoked by our “smelly food.”
Everything that they had celebrated before, like my dreams of becoming a writer and my mother’s obvious Asian immigrant identity, became politicised when Trump became president. They even began to distrust something as innocent as my new Amazon Alexa, which they thought was a tool that the “deep state” was using to monitor our conversations.
Our visits became less frequent and less cozy and warm, and I watched my grandparents become socially isolated from us and the rest of our family and their friends. Eventually, I made it past their growing contempt and bitterness for previously accepted ideas and people, into a quiet, if uneasy, acceptance of what they now believed. When they talked about their politics or made ignorant comments, I would smile uncomfortably and say nothing, afraid of putting more strain on my already fractured family.
Over time, I had to let go of the childish belief that I could bring them back. I suppose the helplessness I felt in this situation is what inspired my passion to reach out to those with different political views and, later, to try to understand and master the skill of diplomacy through participating in Model United Nations and student government in high school. But when my college acceptances began to arrive — first Harvard, then Brown, Stanford, Columbia and many other prestigious universities — the wounds were reopened.
“Harvard? Isn’t that a liberal school?” was the first thing my grandparents asked when I broke the news to them over FaceTime. “What is it even good for?”
I was shocked by those six words. After everything I had done to secure this achievement, I could not believe that was their reaction.
This, as well as my father’s silence, was my breaking point.
“Harvard has some of the best faculty and students in the world,” I snapped at them. “That is not up for debate — it’s a fact.”
This was the first time in my life that I had ever truly gotten mad at my grandparents, because this time, they had not just attacked an idea or a cause I was interested in. They had dismissed everything I had worked for: every late-night study session, every extracurricular I had myself poured into, every dream I’d taped to my bedroom wall. I began to cry, not because I expected everyone to celebrate with me, but because I couldn’t believe that my own grandparents couldn’t share my joy and wouldn’t toast my accomplishment. It felt like their response defied the laws of family and nature. What political idea could mean more than the achievement of their grandchild?
I have been equally struck by the number of well-meaning neighbours, family members and friends who have also expressed opinions about the schools I was accepted to and whether or not they align with their political preferences. I’ve been told I shouldn’t go to Stanford or Brown because they are “too liberal,” and that I should change my mind about attending Harvard because of “what’s happening there right now.”
“If I’m your political statement first and a daughter, granddaughter, neighbor, student, and friend second, something is broken.”
What’s happening at Harvard right now is that the university is courageously fighting back against Trump’s unprecedented and sweeping attacks on any institution of higher education that refuses to comply with his political demands.
As our president targets elite education, friends of mine who receive educational support through Questbridge and federal Pell Grant programs worry that their access to education may completely disappear. Instead of looking forward to college next year, my classmates and I are preoccupied with a new fear: What if the colleges we worked so hard to gain admission to can be eliminated or damaged by the stroke of a pen? And, more importantly, why is this happening?
Earlier this year, before the controversy surrounding my choice to attend Harvard broke out, I turned down an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. After the current administration systematically scrubbed the esteemed school of its cultural and affinity spaces dedicated to marginalised communities — and after I observed other prospective cadets becoming increasingly bold with their opinion that, like Pete Hegsweth, they don’t think women should be allowed in combat roles — I decided I could not enroll there and feel safe. How could I? I had no guarantee that if I spoke up for what I believe in, I wouldn’t be quietly erased like the programs that had once helped women cadets like me.
I still want to serve. I still believe in this country. I will enter Harvard as an ROTC cadet (this is also how I’m paying for my tuition), but what I still cannot fathom is how an administration that claims to promote patriotism has made me feel disillusioned about defending it.
My classmates and I are young adults and at the beginning of our lives, and instead of celebrating our hard-earned successes, we’re navigating a political minefield. What is typically a moment full of promise has been overshadowed by the deliberate actions of this administration. College acceptance season, like the holiday visits to my grandparents’ house, has become a time of tension, apprehension and fear.
Creating fear seems to be the goal of the Trump administration. People my age are afraid to speak, to seek education, to ask hard questions, to question what seems unjust, to exercise our right to express ourselves as the generation that will inherit this country. The actions of the Trump administration have made it clear that we are no longer safe to dream. We are simply political poker chips that can be gambled away in a struggle for power.
I so badly want to blame Trump solely for this destabilising phenomenon that has brainwashed my family and my community, but I know that a deep political divide had been brewing in our country before Trump, and mounting media bias and tirades against the truth on social media and other places are what is truly to blame. Trump didn’t create the hostility I have experienced, but he encouraged and capitalised on it. If I’m your political statement first and a daughter, granddaughter, neighbour, student, and friend second, something is broken.
This is what is wrong with this movement, and this is not just talking about MAGA — I’m speaking to every adult who is complicit in the growing extremism and political bias that is overtaking our country right now. It’s the “Rush Limbaugh Show” that incessantly played on my dad’s car radio. It’s the Fox News that blares in my grandparents’ living room for hours at a time. It’s the quiet death of journalism and democratic ideals happening in the dark crevices of social media that is now moving further and further into the mainstream.
I refuse to stay silent to keep the authority figures in my life — the ones who are supposed to offer support, mentorship and wise guidance — complacent. As time passes and I am forced to face uneasy Fourth of Julys and Thanksgivings with my family, I am sure I will be subjected to a multitude of comments about the credibility of my education at Harvard.
I will rebuke these comments the only way I know how: by presenting the facts and sharing my experiences. This situation could make me hate my dad and my grandparents, but it doesn’t. I love them, and I know they love me too. I will not let Trump take away my empathy and compassion, no matter how embittered any of them become. Yes, I am worried about the further fracturing of my family simply because of where I choose to go to college, but, more than that, I worry about the fracturing of my nation.
Adults of America, you need to wake up. Allowing your political biases to create a future where children are treated with hostility while pursuing higher education is dangerous, no matter what political party you belong to. This is not just about Harvard. Or about me. It’s about the country we are building — one where young people are punished for thinking, dreaming and believing differently than the generation before them.
We are not your culture war – we are your kids. We are the future.
Bella Paz is the pseudonym of a high schooler that will be attending Harvard University this fall.
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