The Democrats are reclaiming and reframing what it means to be patriotic in an authentic way.

Twenty years ago, I became scared of the American flag. Not weary, flat-out terrified. The more flags I saw in a neighborhood, the more physically unsafe I felt. That’s because American flags meant Republicans, and 20 years ago, Republicans meant people who didn’t think twice about hurling racial slurs at me, or tell me to go back to where I came from, because America doesn’t want or need people like me (for the record, “back to where I came from” is St. Louis, Missouri).

It meant people who asked me, what kind of a fucked up name is Safa? (yes, this actually happened), and that if I really want to be an American, I needed to have an American name. Republicans meant people who openly expressed how unsafe they felt around a Muslim, how I made them feel uneasy simply by being brown. Republican meant people who valued their imagined safety as more worthy than my actually threatened one. And American flags meant Republicans.

(Of course, I know that not all Republicans are like this. But the rest are doing a horribly poor job at reminding us of that.)

I could finally feel safe under my birth country’s flag.

The party of Donald J. Trump is nothing new for me. My entire adult life, my American identity has been questioned, scrutinized, doubted, qualified. All by people who felt it was their business to do so. Because to them, Muslim means foreigner (even though I was born here), and I can’t be an American if I’m also a foreigner.

But then the 2024 Democratic National Convention happened from Aug. 19-22, and while it did not undo two decades of fear, it certainly upended it. I saw the same flags, heard the same chants, and for the first time, I felt invited to join. That same exact “U-S-A” chant I’ve heard so long from people who don’t want me here is now being belted out by people who do.

Where the word “patriotism” for me has always been a dog whistle for nationalism, those nights in Chicago it was reclaimed and reappropriated to mean openness and inclusion. Propelling forward instead of slinking back.

We still have a long ways to go, but for the first in a long time, I saw an opening where I could finally feel safe under my birth country’s flag, where my name can live both as an Iranian name, and an American name.

A cynic may write off the reclaiming of patriotism as a political strategy to get conservative voters. To that, I say: Stop trying to kill the vibe.

Someone once asked me how I remember that Democrats are blue and Republicans are red. I told her, the American flag. The red stripes represent the original 13 colonies – our past, fixed in time, the part of the flag that never changes, never evolves. The blue stars symbolize our 50 states – our present and future, shifting as new states were let in, still malleable. In that light, the two parties’ colors make perfect sense: Red wants an America that no longer exists, blue wants the America that lives today and can change for tomorrow.

SAFA SAMIEZADÉ-YAZD is an Iranian-American based in Los Angeles. She is currently a writer and producer in nonfiction TV.