Home is where the heart is. But, where is the heart?
I asked immigrants what does homeland mean to them. Most started off by recalling their place of birth but almost instantaneously felt something was off and stopped to rethink their answer.
The way we generally think of homeland as a place of our origin doesn’t tell the whole story. Just as the story of who we are doesn’t end with our birthplace but it merely begins, those who have ever lived in another country for some time can attest that the adopted land sooner or later starts feeling like home, too. A different kind of home perhaps, but home nonetheless.
The idea of homeland has become devoid of layers and misleading in its intent to closely associate the concept of home with a land. Through their immigrant experience, immigrants found that homeland could be any place that makes you feel at home. And that feeling is not reserved exclusively to the birthplace — an arbitrary piece of land selected for us by fate.
Home transcends the limits of the tangible to an idea, a feeling conjured up of memories, people, smells and sounds, a sense of belonging and being who we are. A home becomes a state of being more so than an earthly metric.
The birthplace of home
We all start creating our understanding of what home is from what we are either born into or the ideal of it that we aspire to: being nurtured, accepted, forgiven, cozy, welcomed, understood. Those early experiences implant in us the feel of home:
There’s nostalgia, because Cuba is my place of birth, it is my homeland, I feel that in my bones. The culture and the music and that fervor is innate.
The early experiences of home nestle themselves at the core of our being:
I think about home, what I left behind when I was a kid. I’d wake up in the morning with the sound of the chicken. It was so natural to go to the barn in the morning and collect some eggs to fry. We would cut a goat, cook soup, everybody would get together. I miss that.
Homeland is where I belong, where I was born, raised, and shaped as a human being. All I do now I owe it to my upbringing. Whatever comes on top is gravy. Ghana is the origin, the core, like a tree, you don’t let it bend.
Once uprooted, the idea of home expands
When we start moving and seeing other places, other lands, our eyes and minds open to different ideas of what home can be. For immigrants homeland becomes something that is no longer easy to pinpoint.
As if floating between the origin and the host, the process of acculturation introduces many changes to their worldview. The idea of home morphs from something stagnant, fixed, limited to confines of the drawn borders and takes on a new, almost spiritual dimension.
Home is no longer just a place, a land, a house but also an amalgam of experiences along with the people with whom we feel content, appreciated, loved — at home.
I call Bulgaria the motherland, just a piece of land, not home. Immigrants always feel like in the middle of a flight somewhere over the ocean and don’t know what exactly is home.
I always wonder, is it Bulgaria, is it Pittsburgh? I never thought it’d get like that, but it did. Maybe I’m a nomad, but I don’t care where I am as long as I’m with my wife. It’s about people you want to be with more so than the place.
More so than a place, home is a feeling
Once uprooted, it is near impossible to ever again think of home as only a physical place. With the land that may have instilled the initial idea of home now out of reach, immigrants have no choice but to conjure it up reminiscing on memories, its tastes, smells and people:
Polenta, the corn roasting is a meal that I grew up with. We used to go to my grandma every Sunday and she would make it with meat. And the smell of the fire! We used the wood to warm up the house in the winter. That is something I really missed my first years in Pittsburgh. I was nostalgic, it’s a beautiful memory. (Italy)
For many the idea of home is synonymous with that of a family and safety, comfort, coziness that comes with it. Once the proximity to that carefree existence is as wide as the ocean, the urge to feel protected in the new, unfamiliar land can feel overwhelmingly primal:
Home is where your mom is. The safety of where you grew up, the place where any mess I’ve ever gotten myself into, my parents would get me out of. And here, any mess I make is mine. Living without that safety net is hard, a lot of crying and anger sometimes. When I have to redo, reapply, reread is when I call my mom crying: I want to go home! I’m frustrated about the stuff I would be totally unaware of if I were home but here you have to study, learn, do it wrong so many times. (Iran)
Home is language. Not just being able to fully express oneself, but knowing that others get you and you get them on that preternatural level only those with shared, deeply ingrained cultural traits can. For immigrants the longing for the mellow presence of their mother tongue is one for an increasingly distant and ephemeral home:
I miss Ireland because it’s still home, even though I’ve been here a lot longer. I feel very nostalgic for it… It’s easy to pick up with people because they have the same social and language cues, it’s so much easier to jump back into a relationship. It’s automatic and easy.
I visited recently and one night after we had a mass for my dad, we sat up singing Irish songs until 2 o’clock in the morning. The songs are so moany to start, but I was thinking this is the moment that will never happen again. And as I’m getting older it all feels more precious and fragile.
All the memories, the closeness of family and friends, the coziness of seamlessly fitting in, fuse into that homey feeling that stands for warmth, ease, familiarity. A moment in space and time where we can truly be who we are:
When I think about Germany, it’s a homey feeling, but it’s less about the country and more about the family and close friends I’ve grown up with and that I still have there. These close connections that you’ve made and had all your life are much stronger that anything you could ever make here. Knowing these people well, home cooked food, being at places that I’m very familiar with makes me feel at ease, comfortable.
Whereas when you move to a new country you’re just starting off and you do small talk for a while because that’s how you build relationships, you don’t start with the deep stuff right away. At home you don’t need to do any of that. They know me inside and out, I don’t have to pretend I’m somebody I’m not. I can just be me.
The making of Home
Despite all the melancholy memories assembled to near romantic perfection, an epiphany slowly emerges. Immigrants find unexpected yet sweet delight in garnering just as deep, if slightly different feelings for their new home:
I have a soft side for Nepal and I don’t think it’ll ever go away. The other night I was looking at the old pictures of me growing up with my cousins. So many memories. I was tearful. We lived in the same house for 35 years, lots of things happened there, familiar corners, friends.
But then when I landed in Pittsburgh, I was thankful I’m home. I know so many people, I know everything around here. Both places are home but in a different way.
The illusion of an inborn homeyness created simply by living on a “special” piece of land, clears away with the newfound awareness that even though it felt spontaneous, the homeyness was created by myriad of tiny pieces coming together. What seemed an organically generated homey magic of the birthplace became to immigrants a refreshing encouragement to cultivate their own in a new place:
America is very much a soul home for me. I planted that tree out in my backyard when it was a sapling, and look at it now! Home is a sense of building, something that you grew. (Ireland)
Growing a home means cultivating comfort but also meaningful work, mutual nurturing, an appreciation for who we are and what we do. For many, especially those orphaned and deprived of the motherland’s protection and love, America becomes a refuge and a safe haven, the new home where immigrants feel welcomed, accepted and motivated to contribute, create and thrive:
We came to the US to have a permanent home because we were stateless for so many years. We wanted to have statehood, a sense of belonging and we got that by coming to the US. Owning a land, owning your own house gives you a lot of pride. It makes you feel that you belong, that you are accepted and that expands your possibilities and creativity.
Bhutan is my motherland, Nepal my ancestral land. We call the US in our Nepali language karma-thalo, an adopted country where you toil and contribute. Motherland is like a mother who gives birth to a baby then karma-thalo adopts and nurtures her. The child always hears the story of her mother and is attached to her in some ways, but home is where you immerse yourself in your duties, where you do your actual living, where you make your material and spiritual life.
A child needs not to be with her mother forever to know mother is always there. The birthplace is not the only way to get a fix of that homey feeling. Making a home is taking the mother-child fondness anywhere and building on it, shaping a new stability, putting down new roots, creating a new family, fostering new connections:
I wouldn’t move from Pittsburgh at this point. This is home, I’ve been here for almost 20 years. I have roots here. All my friends are here, they are like my brothers. I have Guyana tattooed on my shoulder, that’s the motherland, where I was born. But America is my home, my homeland.
Home is owning our story
While motherland is only the starting, though often foundational point of identity, the immigrant experience helps us recognize that all of humanity is connected. The strength of that web of humanity relies on a clear sense of origin merged with the newfound sense of home and belonging:
Kenya is home because my parents are gone and when I visit I go back to that presence of them, to my childhood, me with them, the belonging. It’s an attachment to my past. Belonging is important because it gives you identity. The longing for identity is important because it is your root, the one that maps you out as a human being.
Humanity is a connected web. But you want to know where your root is in that connection, where exactly do you join with the rest of them, so that the web is holding together. Even the biggest web is holding together in some place and that place is that sense of home and belonging that we all seek.
Immigrants or not, finding home is where past meets the present, the origin we happened to be born into with the choices we have since made along the way. What makes this merging of identities especially poignant for immigrants is the permission they receive from the host community but also give themselves to celebrate the many layers of who they are:
Last year was the first year we had the big Lunar New Year celebration in Pittsburgh. When you looked around there was the sea of humanity in there not just the Chinese folks, and I remember thinking: I’ve come home. I felt like I’ve pulled off the mask, the fog cleared and I was accepted and celebrated.
The community was there to celebrate what I have identified with — my Chinese self — and to have my favorite holiday out in the open talked about and anticipated was a moment of acceptance. Every immigrant looks for that moment, when I’m now one with what I’ve chosen to be. Until that happens you keep searching.
Owning our story (a term coined by the wonderful Brené Brown) in its entirety: where we come from, where we are, along with everything in between, clears our path living forward and opens us to embracing whatever comes next and weaving it into the home we grow. Beyond any land, home is an internalized sense of acceptance, compassion and love. Or as my Zambian interviewee put it: Home is me.
Thanks for reading! If you liked this piece give it some 💚. As always, excited to hear your thoughts!
This post is a glimpse into the insights that emerged from my research on the immigrant experience in the US. I spoke to women and men who immigrated to the US from 33 European, African, South American and Asian countries. My one-on-one hour long exploratory interviews dove deep into how the immigrant experience impacts one’s beliefs, value system, worldview, patriotism, sense of identity and belonging.
If you are interested in a complete study report drop me a note at bergitabugarija@gmail.com
