I can recall how carefree I was as I skipped from one aisle to the next, my brothers by my side. From the moment we walked into the homely Dollar General store, we tikes had set off on our quest to discover the timeless word searches and coloring books. My mother sighed in defeat and resolved to aid us on our expedition, walking us hand in hand around the store.

Not too long into our decided mission, I felt my mother’s hand tense around mine. Annoyed, I tugged my eight-year-old hand from the tightening grip that had disrupted my valiant search. Yet my mother held on, oblivious to my efforts. Giving up, I turned upward with a scowl, only to freeze in my tracks at the look etched into my mother’s face. Every feature indicated her discomfort as she glanced over her shoulder warily at a man standing not far behind her. I remembered seeing him when we had walked into the store, and it dawned on me that he had been behind us our entire trip.

We continued on, though less joyously now. Every so often my mother would glance back, and he would be there without fail. As I focused on the glaring man I saw that he was an employee, but he didn’t look too friendly. His beady attention was captured by my mother’s hijab, and every moment she peeked back, he’d busy himself with various knick-knacks, yet keep watch out of the corner of his eye. The man trailed us throughout the Dollar General, as if we were safety hazards to be monitored, until my mother rushed us out in a frenzy, abandoning our expedition.

That day marked my learning of a new word: discrimination. I had been in love with words and their abundance, and that love has only multiplied over the past years. As I familiarized myself with the definition of this newfound word, I began to use it to categorize instances in my upbringing. Whenever family outings were greeted with prolonged stares and uneasy treatment, this word would reverberate within my thoughts until I realized that it was not so foreign to me after all.

After frequently making use of the word “discrimination” as I experienced its negative connotation, it became more apparent to my younger self that words do hurt. These infinite inventions of the human tongue that built endless possibilities within a child’s imagination were just as likely to form an arsenal of the most powerful and easily accessible weapons for any person to wield. But as terrifying as this was to a child, it fascinated me nonetheless. The thought that I could make others feel the way this unforgettable word made me feel by uttering a mere sentence was enough to convince me to choose my words wisely. And yet words can break barriers that seem otherwise impossible to scale, as I learned when studying famous speeches.

Words - these sounds put together to form coherency that no one could actually see with a pair of eyes - held so much power that even a child could gain. My curiosity in language spiked. I pushed myself to read higher levels just to discover words I did not come across everyday. I kept new words I didn’t understand in a journal, to be defined when I had the chance. I willed myself to speak Arabic with my parents to broaden my range of communication. With preparation, I slowly spoke out against the hate geared toward my family - the inane questions I’ve received in bitter tones, the jeers my mother’s attracted, the racist slurs my brother’s endured - with the deflecting words I’ve collected along my shield. I built up my own arsenal in a kingdom within me where defiance against prejudice reigned. I resolved to combat the hurtful actions that surrounded me the only way I knew how - with words.