Essay: When being seen comes at a cost

“Jonah, if you ever plan on coming back to the States, be careful about what you’re saying online,” read the Facebook direct message from my aunt in Montclair.

We hadn’t spoken in months. I read it twice, wanting to brush it off, before closing the app.

I live abroad, which means coming “back to the States” always begins at a border.

The message landed less as a warning than a reminder: Speech travels. Borders don’t protect you from consequence. Even from thousands of miles away, some things are understood to be risky to name.

I married into a South Indian Telugu family in my mid-20s. Our children move between Black and Desi worlds with an ease that feels both ordinary and fragile. I often write from that intersection — about race, borders, and the uneasy proximity between aspiration and power. The posts aren’t incendiary; they’re reflective. But in a political climate where what you say online can follow you to the border, even reflection can feel exposed.

I didn’t like the feeling of being policed by family, by community, by something ambient and unspoken. But I also knew my aunt wasn’t wrong.

It was June 2025, deep into another cycle of Make America Great Again. People I knew stopped posting, stopped flying, and grew careful at the border. Stories circulated of aunties and uncles, Ammas and Nannas, green card holders pressured to voluntarily surrender their status upon reentry. Silence felt like everyone was getting ready.

Even my parents, refugees who fled Uganda in 1975 and built 40 years of life in Chicago before returning to Uganda, wondered whether this would be the year they stayed away from visiting the U.S. Love wasn’t enough to outweigh fear.

With a trip to Florida scheduled for August, my wife, our two children, and I were next. In the weeks before departure, we scrubbed our feeds. At border control at JFK Airport, my heartbeat quickened. A U.S. passport in my hand; ESTA visas in my family’s. We half-expected to be asked for our phones.

Instead, the officer glanced at our documents, smiled and said, “Welcome home.” We were through in record time. What lingered wasn’t the crossing itself, but the accumulation of what-ifs.

Despite the children’s pleas to head straight to Disney, we stopped first to visit family friends, medical school classmates of my in-laws, as we drove south.

We pulled into the driveway without a moment to spare. Our son urgently needed the toilet. Hellos. Quick hugs. Shoes off by the door. The easy choreography of being welcomed by people you hadn’t seen in a while.

Uncle ushered us down the hallway into his son’s room. As I escorted Ajani to the bathroom, a red MAGA hat rested on a closet shelf, brim facing out.

In the bathroom, two books sat on the toilet tank: “Wealth Protection” and “How to Get Rich.” Their spines were creased, the pages swollen from humidity.

I didn’t ask about the hat or the books. Uncle and Aunty didn’t offer. The house carried on.

We didn’t talk politics. Food on the table, conversation circling recipes, retirement and updates about their college-aged children.

At some point, Aunty brought out homemade ginger pachadi, sharp and grounding. We ate, we talked, and then we left.

What was hard for me to shake wasn’t the party politics. It was how easily the hat coexisted with the people I knew. From their point of view, nothing was out of place. Alongside that ease sat a set of beliefs about strength, order and getting ahead, spoken of less as politics and more as common sense. In that frame, politics barely registers. It folds into the background, disguised as practicality.

And yet, while we sat in that living room eating pachadi, other friends — people with the “right” jobs and the “right” papers — were being questioned at airports and swept into enforcement sweeps. This is where the logic gets tested. When enforcement intensifies through raids, arrests, and quiet pressures at airports, values that once felt neutral start landing on bodies. Stability, we’re told. Order. We’ve seen what it can cost to produce them.

For those unlikely to be targeted, enforcement can still feel unfortunate but necessary, the price of keeping things under control. The harm stays distant, procedural and easy to absorb. But when protection can be withdrawn that quickly, it becomes harder to avoid the question of what “great again” demands and who ends up paying for it.

I’m writing this from a position that benefits from proximity to power, even as I know how fragile that access can be. I move through borders others don’t, am welcomed into homes that feel safe. That access makes the question harder, not easier. If recognition in this country comes through alignment with systems that expose others to harm, then being seen comes at a cost. The question is what we’re willing to exchange for it.

Jonah Batambuze is a Ugandan-American interdisciplinary artist and cultural architect working at the intersection of Black x South Asian life, and the founder of the BlindianProject, a platform exploring memory, power, and solidarity across diaspora.

Upcoming events

March 7 – Annual Interfaith Iftar Dinner
4-7 PM
1000 Hoes Lane
Piscataway, NJ 08854
Come learn about Ramadan, meet people of other faiths and break the fast over a delicious meal. There will be Q&A sessions, prize drawings, henna and activities for kids. All are welcome. RSVP here.

March 7 – Eid Bazaar in Edison
12:00-8:30 PM
Moghul Ballroom
1655 Oak Tree Rd, Ste 150
Edison, NJ 08820
Shop with vendors offering jewelry, clothes, decor, and more. This is a free event.

March 8 – Holi Celebration
1-4 PM
East Brunswick Public Library
2 Jean Walling Civic Center
East Brunswick, NJ 08816
Join us for an afternoon for a free Holi event including performances, kids crafts, food and more. Other items will be available for purchase from the vendors. Everyone is welcome! Powder will be provided while supplies last. More information here.

Have an event you’d like us to share? Complete this form.

Reply to this email to chat with us, or join the conversation on Instagram.

Support our efforts by becoming a member or inviting a friend to subscribe. Let's make this a place for all Desis regardless of background, class or creed. ❤️