How I Went From Having “Foreigner Fear” to Becoming an Expat
It was easier than you think
I traveled.
It’s as easy as that. I crossed an international border and had no choice but to face my fear of strange lands and strange people. Then I kicked it up a notch and moved to a third-world country.
Okay, so it wasn’t really that easy.
As a child of immigrant grandparents, I wasn’t totally oblivious to the world of Johnny Foreigner. I knew there were people from strange lands in my family, on my street, and in my classrooms. I grew up in New Britain, CT, which was a hub of immigrants. I was used to hearing other languages and being around people different than myself, but they were in my town. I had my own little Euro community right on my own street.
In the 70s while some people were asking “What’s your sign?”, my friends and I asked each other “What nationality are you?”. It wasn’t rude or racist, it was genuine curiosity and a normal question to ask. My class was made up of mostly white children of 1st or 2nd generation immigrant descent. I am Irish, Swedish, and German, and my class contained many of the same as well as Italian, Greek, Russian, and Polish kids.
I always had grand fantasy images of what these foreign lands looked like. The Italians were all…
