When I think about my relationship with America, I can’t help but hear that old Chris Rock joke: “America is like your uncle who put you through college… but molested you.” Problematic as it is, the joke gives this country far too much credit.

I always bristle at the neat, tidy framing people like to use: “We all chose to come here from somewhere else,” or “We’re a nation of immigrants.” Those phrases are intentional erasures—of the land’s first peoples and of the kidnapped Africans who were forced here and whose descendants make up much of today’s Black population. My people didn’t “immigrate.” We were shackled, shipped, and stripped of our humanity. Black Americans have been here since 1619, and yet every generation has had its citizenship denied, threatened, or questioned. Like any abusive relationship, how can I possibly feel “at home” when my government keeps me in a constant state of fight-or-flight?

That fight has always been the story: fighting for rights others take for granted. Fighting against redlining, workplace discrimination, inequities in health care. Fighting just to live, let alone thrive. Every battle chips away at our quality of life, and every victory feels fragile, temporary. I often ask myself: What do I want my place in this country to look like? Which fights are worth my energy? What does real quality of life even mean here? If America is the standard, the answer feels painfully clear: not this.

And so, the thought creeps in: what if “home” is somewhere else?

This isn’t a new idea. From the founding of Liberia, to Black enclaves in Costa Rica and Mexico, to Ghana’s “Year of Return” in 2019, generations of African Americans have packed up and left in search of something freer, safer, more affirming.

Growing up in Santa Barbara, I was often told to “go back to Africa.” It was meant to sting, to shame—but it never did. Even as a child, I knew too much history to take the insult at face value. Later, at UC Berkeley—a campus known for progressive politics and civil rights legacies—someone called me the n-word for the first time. Maybe that shock is what pushed me to study abroad in Barbados.

Barbados was revelatory. In Bridgetown, there were no sidelong stares, no double consciousness, no constant awareness of my Blackness. I was just another girl, moving through a sea of faces that reflected back the beauty and diversity of Blackness. It was the first place I felt free enough to question the American standards of beauty I had internalized, the first place I understood that my perspective didn’t have to be tethered to America at all.

Years later, I spent a month working in Ghana. The echo of “go back to Africa” followed me as I stepped onto the land my ancestors had been stolen from. The conditions were challenging, the work demanding—but the people? The welcome? The laughter, the jollof, the safety? Unmatched. For the first time in my life, I felt protected by my surroundings, not endangered by them. That sense of belonging was priceless.

So here I am now, asking myself: Am I ready to be an expat? It’s a privilege to even contemplate. Do I have the courage to leave behind the comfort of the familiar—family, friends, conveniences? Could I navigate a new bureaucracy, find work, build a community? More importantly: is there a place where the lofty promises of equality and dignity actually align with daily life?

A decade ago, I wouldn’t have seriously entertained the idea of leaving. But America’s political trajectory—always hostile, always retrenching—is exhausting. The erosion of rights isn’t new, but it feels more relentless, more brazen. So I pulled out a map, marked the 2026 midterms as my self-imposed deadline, and began to wonder where else “home” might be.

With nearly two billion Black people worldwide—yes, even those who swear they’re “not Black”—surely there is a place among them where I could find peace. Ghana? The Caribbean? Mexico? Portugal? Somewhere that offers that childhood-game feeling: hand on base, breathless but safe. Home.

Maybe America is my home. Maybe I’m almost home. Or maybe, for the first time, it’s time to leave—just to see what life feels like when “home” doesn’t mean surviving but simply being.