Read Me

The following is taken from the Preface of my Master's thesis: "Who's Health Matters? An Autoethnographic Study of Aotearoa New Zealand's Covid-19 Vaccine Mandates"

Read me

like a country you cannot pronounce

but whose soil grows under your tongue anyway.

Read me

like a story whispered across three continents

and four decades,

buried in the folds of a mother's sewing machine,

between stitches that kept our lives from falling apart.

I belonged to no country,

just the back seat of my father's car;

concealing a box of Lego,

a sewing kit,

and every fragile thing

we weren't supposed to take camping.

My first act of resistance

was staying up late playing poker in an Italian summer,

when my parents finally had time

to look me in the eye.

I learned English

by pairing words with pictures,

by watching lips move

like riddles I had to solve before interval.

I learned how to disappear

so well

I almost forgot

how to speak.

This is not nostalgia.

This is navigation.

These memories are not decorative.

They are methodological.

They are data points

in a thesis of survival.

When I tell you I believe in health autonomy,

it is not theory -

it is the scar on my wrist,

the ten-year old daughter ignored in a clinic,

the GP who listened

and saved my life

with nothing more

than belief.

You will not find my ethnicity on a form.

You will find it in the Sunday lunch stories,

seasoned with paprika and opera,

in the passion of my father's voice

retelling our family history

as if it were scripture.

I am not telling you my story,

I am handing you

the mosaic window

through which this thesis must be read.

So hold it gently.

Each piece is sharp,

because it is real.

Each edge

a country we left,

a name I changed,

a room I entered and made mine.

This is the lens.

This is the map.

This is the me

beneath the method.

Now, begin.