Ofia Begum Ali

I want to sink into my couch, and I want to watch Saturday morning cartoons with a giant bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Because everyone knows the milk is the main event.

Instead, my weekends are filled with doctor's appointments, visiting a juvenile jail, and translating adult problems.

My childhood felt less like a playground and more like jury duty.

At school, kids would talk about Disneyland and Six Flags, and I want something to add without killing the vibe.

But nobody wants to listen to stories about correction officers yelling at my mother to remove her burka.

So I stayed quiet.

My family is from Bangladesh, so that means I speak Sileti at home, English at school, and survival in between.

My parents never sit me down and explain the Bill of Rights, but they teach me the rules of survival in Queens.

My mother teaches me how to move without asking for permission, and my father teaches me how to fight without raising my voice.

And those lessons follow me into every room I walk into.

20 years later, I am at my legal internship.

And they hand me an assignment on something called an outlay hearing.

And I go all in until it makes sense, because behind the case law is a 19-year-old kid looking at prison time.

Then I get a call from my niece.

She tells me that my father's in the emergency room and he's diagnosed with cancer.

I don't know what kind, how bad it is, or how much time we have together.

So I go to the hospital to get the full story.

And when I'm on the R train, I replay everything my niece told me.

When the doctor spoke to my dad, it's all in English.