Raised and Surrounded by a Community of Immigrants

To set up the context for this article, I must first mention that while I am not an immigrant, most of my family are immigrants. This includes my grandmother on my mom’s side of the family and my father, who were both immigrants from Iran. In relation to the topic of Immigration, I asked my dad to explain to me some of his experiences as an immigrant. One of the more interesting ones to me was when he described how difficult it is to even order food at a McDonald’s. To circumvent a lack of fluency in English, most immigrants try to just say what number they want to order, but then they are asked what drink they want, which makes the entire process extremely difficult. Another example of this is the bathrooms. My dad also explained that most bathrooms in Europe and around the world have a WC label to ensure that everyone knows what they are. However, in America, the bathrooms are not labelled with a WC, which means immigrants who do not speak English have no idea where to go to the bathroom.

The most interesting thing that my dad told me was that he would rather that the federal government help immigrants, especially refugees, even less than they are already, but also direct them to their ethnic communities, as these communities can support each other through their shared cultural understanding and background. He also mentioned to me that one of the most hostile places he ever encountered was in community college, where he was treated as if he was stupid because he was an immigrant who didn’t speak English. This poses an interesting question, is the negative experience my dad had at community college emblematic of a larger issue and does it partly explain why immigrants are less likely to receive an adequate education than non-immigrants?