“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out;
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out;
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out;
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me; and there was no one left to speak for me.”
—Pastor Martin Niemöller
Everywhere you turn in America today, you are told to choose a side. The media insists you must be either red or blue, conservative or progressive, believer or secularist, Black or white, immigrant or “real American.” Every disagreement is staged as a war, every election as an existential crisis, every conversation as a battlefield.
And yet, when I look around me as a first-generation in the diaspora, I don’t see two irreconcilable camps. I see human beings caught in an elaborate illusion; one that convinces us that our neighbor is our enemy while the true forces of oppression operate untouched in the background.
Pastor Martin Niemöller’s haunting words from post-war Germany echo in my mind when I think about America’s fractured climate. His warning was not simply about Nazis or fascism. It was about the seduction of division; how societies allow themselves to be splintered into isolated groups, each believing the suffering of another does not concern them, until finally there is no one left to resist. The American divide feels real because we live it daily. But I argue that this fracture is largely manufactured, magnified, and manipulated. Like the shifting lines that have torn apart my ancestral homeland, America’s polarization is less about genuine irreconcilable difference and more about elites maintaining control.
As a first generation; my lens is double-layered. I see America not only from the inside, where I live, but also from the outside, with the memory of a country destroyed by the myth of unbridgeable division. I know too well what happens when illusions harden into blood. That is why I write this: to insist that the supposed divide in America is a mirror trick, one that can only be broken if we recognize our shared humanity before it is too late.
To speak about America’s divisions is to speak about storytelling. The country runs on narratives, and right now the dominant story is polarization. Turn on any news channel and you will hear the same refrain: America is a nation split in two, on the verge of tearing itself apart.
But who benefits from this story?
The answer, like in my ancestral countries endless cycle of clan conflict, it’s not the ordinary people who struggle to pay rent, feed children, or survive the everyday grind who benefit. The beneficiaries are those who profit from fear: politicians who fundraise off outrage, media companies who sell advertisements on clicks and views, corporations who thrive when citizens are too distracted to demand justice.
Algorithms sharpen these divides until they feel like reality. Social media feeds us only what confirms our worst suspicions of the “other side.” News channels thrives on caricature, painting our neighbors as monsters. Even casual conversations become laced with suspicion; “Are you one of them?”
As a first-gen, I recognize this dynamic intimately. My ancestral countries clan system was once about kinship and mutual responsibility. Over time, it became weaponized by warlords and politicians. Lines that were once flexible hardened into justifications for violence. The illusion of difference was amplified until the people forgot their shared language, and culture.
America’s red-blue divide echoes this tragic pattern. People are convinced they are enemies because of who they vote for, what they post, or what flag they hang on their porch. But step into their kitchens and you will see the same struggles: parents worrying about their kids’ future, workers exhausted from low wages, elders anxious about medical bills. The supposed divide is a stage performance, and most of us are unwilling actors.
Niemöller’s poem is a meditation on silence. He confessed his own complicity in Nazi Germany; his belief that what happened to others did not concern him until it was too late.
In America, silence takes on new forms. People fear speaking out because of cancel culture, social ostracism, job loss, or worse. Others stay quiet because they fear state violence, surveillance, or being branded “un-American.” For immigrants, silence often means survival. As we learn to lower our voices, to avoid making ourselves a target, to quietly endure racism while hoping it passes.
But Niemöller’s warning is timeless: silence does not protect you. The illusion of division convinces people that if they just keep quiet, the storm will pass. But history shows that once you accept injustice for your neighbor, you have already set the stage for your own undoing..
As a first-gen in the diaspora, my perspective is shaped by both belonging and unbelonging. I was raised to see myself as part of my culture; yet in America, I am marked as Black, immigrant, Queer and foreign. Each label is a potential source of division.
Within my own community, I also feel the pressure of communal policing. Faith becomes less a personal journey and more a surveillance system, where community members monitor and shame one another. In America, I see this mirrored in the way society polices political identity, demanding that people pledge loyalty to their “side” or face exile.
The irony is that whether you’re first-gen, or your family has been in America for generations; we have more in common than we admit. Our mothers sacrifice for our futures, our fathers break their backs working, our youth dream of a better life. And yet we waste precious energy tearing one another down because we have been convinced that survival requires division. This double consciousness allows me to see America differently. When Americans argue about race, class, or politics, I see echoes of my communities clan feuds. When my elders dismiss the struggles of youth, I see echoes of American politicians ignoring the cries of working-class families.
Because both contexts reveal the same truth: the divide is a tool, not a destiny.
If you strip away the noise, Americans share an astonishing amount of common ground. A Somali refugee mother in Minneapolis wants the same thing as a white Appalachian coal miner: safety, dignity, and education for her children. A Black teenager in Chicago shares the same longing for belonging as a Latino farmworker in California.
But this common ground is deliberately hidden. We are taught to see our struggles as separate, even opposed. Immigrants are told that their gain is the working class’s loss. Some communities are told to distrust Muslims. Muslims are told to fear LGBTQ+ people. Rural Americans are told to hate coastal elites. Each fracture keeps us from seeing the truth: that all of us are being squeezed by the same forces of inequality.
This refusal to see one another is the heart of Niemöller’s warning. We think we can afford to ignore “them” because we are not “them.” But in the end, the storm reaches us all.
So you’re probably wondering, what is the alternative?
The answer is solidarity. Not the shallow solidarity of slogans or hashtags, but the deep solidarity that comes from recognizing that our fates are intertwined. If America’s working, poor, immigrants, racial minorities, and disenfranchised middle class recognized their shared struggle, the illusion of division would collapse overnight.
Solidarity requires courage; the courage to speak when silence feels safer, to listen when anger feels easier, to cross divides when distrust feels natural. It requires seeing through the performance of polarization to the humanity beneath.
Niemöller’s words are not just history; they are prophecy. They warn us of what happens when we let illusions of difference keep us from speaking out, from standing together.
As a first-gen in the diaspora, I have lived in the shadow of division both in my ancestral homeland and in my adopted one. I know the cost of believing in the myth of irreconcilable difference. Back home they paid it in blood. America risks paying it in silence.
The so-called American divide is a mirror trick, a shadow-play. Break the mirror, and you will see that the people on both sides are more alike than they are different. Break the silence, and you will find allies where you least expected.
If we wait until they come for us, it will already be too late. But if we see through the illusion now, we can build something real: a solidarity strong enough to outlast fear, a community wide enough to embrace us all.