Alien: Belonging to or coming from another country: foreign 2. Not natural: unfamiliar: strange.

That is me. I wear a head wrap because it is apart of my religion and I am called a terrorist. Just a boy, 13 years old, a “terrorist”? When I get on a bus, train, or plane people shoot me dirty looks, why? Because of my appearance how I look. I am Muslim but I do not tell many people that. I am scared to do so. I am Basha Usana.

It is six o’clock when my alarm rings waking me to the orange sun shining through my window we are too poor to afford shades this does not bother me though something like that will not stop me from trying hard to survive in a place where I am hated for no apparent reason. I get dressed in the clothes I wore yesterday and the day before that and the day before that. I brush my teeth have an apple and leave today I start at a new school. I was driven out of my old school because of bullies. I walk to the bus when a public transportation bus shows I am taken aback, confused worried. They told me this was the bus I would need to take to school but not that I would have to pay. I panic cold sweat pours down my forehead my arms are too weak to lift them at the moment so I let it come down in my eyes it stings I blink madly as if I had Tourette’s syndrome.
“Come on!” the bald fat white man yells. “Get on the damn bus!”
I walk up.
“You gonna pay?”
People are now looking grunting and laughing, I can’t tell which I dislike more the ignorant grunts or the humiliation of being laughed at. It is because I am an alien to them. I reach into my pocket and not a surprise I feel lint and broken dreams I feel no hope I feel like an alien.
“Get off you freak.” the bus driver, tells me.
I walk back home. My uncle might give me a ride he’s probably too hung over though always drinking, we wouldn’t be so damn poor if he dropped the whiskey and picked up his life. He’s a drunk, a junky, but family the only family.
“Uncle?” I ask in a somewhat worried voice scared he might be mad I have woken him.
“What?”
“May you give me a ride to school?” Even though we are very poor my uncle has a stolen van that he drives.
“Yeah get the hell outta here now I’ll be out in a minute.” This is a surprise but he probably figures if I were out of the house he can be alone he wouldn’t care if I quit school.
“Thank you uncle.”
I go outside on the porch and wait. Five minutes, ten, twenty, one hour and he finally comes. Bu t I am just happy to be going to be able to get an education even if I am an alien that does not belong. It is a fifteen-minute drive there as we both sit in an awkward silence.
“Alright get out.” Uncle says as he pulls up to the school. I walk to the front door sweat now pouring down my face as it always does when I am nervous. I know sweat stains will come. I pull open the door walk into the office and-
“You’re late!” a white woman says in a scratchy voice as though nails are in her esophagus. “Here’s a pass.”
It takes me ten minutes to find my way to the classroom. I walk up to he classroom door finally and a thought crosses my mind I must be the first ever person who isn’t white to touch this doorknob. I walk in and everyone is staring, all eyes are on me because they have never seen a person like me in their classroom, I am an alien.
“ You must be Bashay Uzaynaya?”
This teacher is so ignorant and stupid unable to do something as simple as pronouncing a name correctly which causes the class to laugh.

“Basha Usana” I correct her
“I’m sorry, I am Ms.Norway.” But I don’t care who she is she doesn’t actually care who I am of course she’s not actually sorry so why should I care who she is?
I go to the back walking by blonds, freckles, white. I don’t know the class discussion is about no one bothered to explain it to me, I am glad when it is over. I don’t take notes in any of the classes I’m more worried about how long it will take for them to know I’m poor and me being bullied again. To them I am an alien not human.