Always. Always it seems so manicured. A perfect lawn. A square brick building…so many squares. Sharp edges. Harsh lighting. Gray classrooms, uniform desks. Exhausting. Endless paperwork and formalities. 

“Good morning Professor, how are you?”

All the while, I’m going into unimaginable debt. Just to suffer day in and out, in the wretched shared living quarters called "dormitories". Where the bathroom floor is covered in urine, vomit, or some other surprise of the week. Don’t get me started on shy pooping in a bathroom full of people I barely know. My body writhes just trying to pass the subpar, underseasoned food from the dining hall. The place that always has ice cream and cakes on deck, but a decent salad or fresh fruit is practically impossible to come by. 

Performatives. Masks. An entire institution set up to lock us in. Drain us financially, and mold us into workers for pre-set industries. Industries that morally I probably don’t align with. 

Oh wow, let’s celebrate! I’ve made it into Corporate America! I am living the dream! I have landed a 9-5 that allows me to shop for meaningless bags, gadgets, and expensive dinners I can indulge in once a week on my two days off. What kind of scam?

As a school reporter majoring in journalism, of course, I am constantly skeptical, curious, and moving against the mainstream. Like a bird circling above the crowd, I see everything… and they don't see that I am about to… SPLAT! Dropping wet poops on their whole lives.

Maybe I sound like a pessimist. Or a realist. Depends on what you know. My job has always been to uncover the truth. Of course, the truth will set us free, but are people really ready to be free? 

The most unbelievable part of all this is that I’ve barely scratched the surface of the scandal I was about to uncover at this University. There are so many layers to it. Though an onion can make us cry, it’s still essential for a colorfully delectable stew. So let's get to cooking. 

I always wondered why the cafe workers were all people of color, immigrants, and people who barely speak English. The kitchen staff always makes my day. Way more real and down to earth than half the students at this school. They always greet me with a smile, sometimes a hug. They feed me and take care of me every day. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They are family. As a misfit, you know I end up eating near them, be it alone, most days. Just being close by, I enjoy the good vibes, cracking jokes, or sometimes dancing to Latinx music on their breaks. I’d feel normal and balanced in those precious moments. Just two tables over, I’d cringe at the students that cry about the state of the world, while they’re privileged enough to just be learning about it now. As a child of immigrants, I could not relate. My family left a war-torn country. So as they “intellectualize” world suffering, it's hard for the people who are products of it to communicate with those who think they know everything, yet have never left the U.S.A. 

It was a nice day, my energy was high, and I was basically dancing through every stride. I get to the dining hall, not too hungry, but ready to sit with some snacks and dive into my assignments. Speaking English this time, I overheard some cafeteria workers complaining about the food. 

“The green beans came in black this week. How am I supposed to work with that? How can I feed this to the kids?” 

With the average age ranging from 17-24, yes we were still kids. University was like a giant, overpriced, sleepaway camp. 

Black beans? Oh no, sorry, black-green beans? Oh no, they're actually just green beans. Well, they're supposed to be green. But they arrived at the kitchen black, already wilted, spoiled. Where could this be coming from? Obviously, the kitchen staff has no control over the food that's coming in. I had so many questions. The first was; what am I going to eat for dinner? I’m broke given I already have paid for the tarnished, not-so-green green beans 3 months ago, when I was obligated to sacrifice thousands of dollars to be on the mandatory meal plan. I can't take care of breaking scandals and educating my peers until I am fed and healthy. I guess I’ll stick to the salad bar tonight. Some lettuce that I hope was washed properly, though I don't know for sure. Some tomatoes appear all too perfect, and yet taste too diluted and flavorless to be grown naturally. It’s okay to be hungry tonight.

As I left the cafeteria, my friend Diego was walking out at the same time. I say what's up, and he seems simply exhausted. I had seen him in that aberrantly-smelling, fluorescently lit cafeteria every day for the past 5 weeks. Already I knew that this was a human rights violation. It had to be. This was the first time I saw him leaving that place.

I scanned him, my heart felt so much. I can't even describe it if I tried. I looked into his soul, deeply, and his eyes widened. He could feel my sincerity before I even opened my mouth.

“Are you okay? They’re really working you in there.”

“Yeah,” he said, forcing a smile, though it was genuine, I could tell even smiling took a lot of effort. I wondered how much sleep he was getting.

Since childhood, I always pushed for more. I invariably needed to get to the root. I pined for truth. I pushed harder. I knew he was drained, but I had to unsheathe it out of him. It was a desideratum. This is my friend. My food. Paramount to humanity; people and nourishment, is it not? My instincts told me to dig deeper, and I always listened to my gut.

“I see you in there every day! Working so many hours. Is that even legal?”

He grinned in a painful chuckle. Oh dear. Something was about to bubble up and burst. I could feel him holding back a little, but we’ve built a relationship at this point. I am beyond grateful he felt safe to open up because what he was about to say was going to change everything. This university made a mistake in admitting me. 

“Yeah well, you know that we are all undocumented.”

We all. Undocumented. What? At a prestigious institution like this? How could this have not been revealed yet? How could this truth be so obvious yet so undercover? Even I was in the dark until now. I've been here for months, developing friendships with most of the staff, and I was just seeing the truth now. Me! The natural-born reporter!

The university is giving us overpriced rotten foods and abusing undocumented people to serve it to us. Forget the school newspaper, I was about to blow up this whole place. The whole country will know what they’ve done. Little did I know what I was getting myself into was far bigger than just my university. This was embedded in the history of the whole country. This wasn’t just about a school. This was a 400-year epidemic of indoctrination and slavery. 

Yes, slavery. Yes, it is that deep. I am a journalist after all. A budding one, but still a journalist with a deep story and a heart just as deep, full of compassion. Because it always goes beyond a shocking story, it means societal change, progress, equality, justice, and finally, peace. 

Always. Always so manicured. But that fake image of perfection is also, always, a polluted underbelly and corrupt egotistic driving force. 

Once I got to the source of where the food was coming from, how it was processed, and who was running the whole operation, I quickly uncovered more than I bargained for. Bit off way more than I could chew. So, I ended up swallowing it like an iron pill instead. Letting it sit in my stomach to, hopefully, dissolve with time. As much time as it would take. As it turns out, this was the system, the status quo, the matrix, “the man”... or whatever you want to call it. And I still have to study for the midterms! Somehow my problems seemed so small. Because I am meant to serve what is bigger than me. I am meant to deliver a message. Because my parents fought to come to this country. I have the privilege and opportunity to uncover major national and, well, international scandals. An 18-year-old freshman, naively empowered to do so. The full story of my journey is much longer and painful to recount, and even harder to put into words without overextending myself. 

I’m 24 now, and funnily enough, you probably already know my name and even my face. So I don't have to explain much. Multiple news sources, arrests… it got out of hand. You should have heard my mother’s voice when the first time she’d heard from me in weeks was from the Channel 5 News. Who invented phones anyway? I set the truth free, I got it out, so I did what I was meant to do. Trust me, I didn’t make many friends in the process. It was worth it, still. I don't regret any moment of it, not one bit. I don't even regret going to that scam of a university. It was the foundation of my career. Not because they taught me anything useful in the classrooms, but because of the real experience I had in uncovering one of the biggest and most telling scandals of my generation, and how it all ties into every other world issue. I am proud of myself, especially because I never got sucked down the University to Corporate-America pipeline. Even if I am in $50,000 debt. 

You can google me now, I’m sure you're curious. 

Keywords include American Universities, food poisoning, & modern-day slavery. 

The truth will set us free, and ignorance is only bliss for people who are not ready to see. Living blindly will not survive in the modern age anyway. It will all unfold. Every last rock will be turned. Every bug and worm dissected. It's just a matter of time.