I'm Shira Erlichman and this is The Slowdown.

Before I was officially an American citizen, I was termed a resident alien.

To become an American citizen, I had to be naturalized.

Is an immigrant unnatural?

Is an immigrant unfamiliar and so disturbing?

Does the government's language amplify humanity or strip it?

We live in the balance between this kind of dehumanizing language, the dead rhetoric

of the politician, and what I'll call little language.

I mean little like apple, candle, or comb, the stuff of everyday life.

Little language is inherently intimate.

It honors the blood and bone of its speaker and the listener.

It's the language of nicknames, of preference and delight.

Because it's nuanced and personal, it reflects humans, not regimes.

To walk through any American city or town is to see monuments and street signs devoted

to people who have committed genocide.

Your hangs in the open air with a touch of ease.

Poets know language can stand in stark contrast to structures of power and control.

So we often wield little language in all its deceptive power.

Its intimacy pricks and challenges authority.

But perhaps most importantly, little language enriches those of us who are vulnerable enough

to speak it.

Just the other day, my bodega dude called me sweetheart.

...