On Being An (Invisible) Immigrant
I’m an immigrant. In fact, I’m three-times an immigrant: once as a child, twice as an adult. I’m the child of immigrants. I have only hazy memories of the country I was born in; I’ve spent a lot less than half my life in the country most people think I’m from (but that I’ve never actually been a citizen of); and I’ve spent comparatively little time in the country of my “natural” citizenship.
Nowadays I speak my native English with a foreign accent, wherever I am. In fact, I’ve spent most of my life with a foreign accent: I certainly don’t sound like I come from my birthplace, nor do I really sound like I’m from either the country of my primary citizenship, or the country I now live in (the USA). Or even, any more, the country I grew up in (and that most people probably think I’m from). More than that, even, I’ve been a foreigner in every country I’ve ever lived in.
The experience of being an immigrant has shaped my life and world view in absolutely fundamental ways. But I’m really not what most people in this country seem to mean when they talk about “immigrants”. I’m not a refugee. Some form of English is my first language (but it’s not my only language). I didn’t get here hidden in the back of a truck, or half-dead in a stifling shipping container, or walking desperately through the desert. Or even via winning the green card lottery. Immigration wasn’t a life-or-death hardship for me, even though it wasn’t easy. To most observers, I’ve usually seemed to be some sort of local almost wherever I’ve lived — until I started speaking, at least. And even then, again, I don’t seem to be an immigrant as far as many locals are concerned.
People somehow seem to know that I’m a foreigner who’s made his permanent home here, but at the same time they don’t think of me as an immigrant.
I’ve been in several surreal conversations with native-born Americans about immigration without them ever really twigging that, hey, I’m an immigrant. These conversations sometimes involve a deeply-unpleasant conspiratorial us-against-the-immigrants tone. And, to this immigrant at least, they always make it abundantly clear what many people in this land of immigrants or the descendants of immigrants are really objecting to: religious, ethnic, racial, or cultural Otherness (no surprises there). After all, they’re not objecting to me, are they? I once had a conversation which started with something like “Do you have immigrants where you’re from, too? Are they overrunning it like they are here?” (for the record, this was some time ago, in Columbia, SC, but it could have been almost anywhere). A conversation like that can only go downhill, I guess.
I’ve also actually been in political discussions over the years where my right to speak up about immigration and immigrants has been seriously questioned, because, you know, what would I know about immigration?
Again, people usually seem to know I’m from somewhere else, but they don’t think of me as an immigrant, with all that that entails.
And what does that entail? It’s too easy to say that immigration is a state of mind. It can be, but it’s never just a state of mind (no one who’s actually immigrated would say it’s just a state of mind), but I think it certainly plays a part. But there are real-life things about it that have serious physical, economical, political, and social impacts as well, of course. Immigration means always feeling like a foreigner (especially whenever I start talking…), regardless of my citizenship status. It means always trying to fit in, to be unobtrusive, to not stand out, but never — even in my case — quite being able to do it (and being criticised if you try too hard, and criticised if you try too little). Once an immigrant, always a foreigner, I guess (internalizing the distinction between being a citizen and being a foreigner is one of the marks of a long-settled immigrant). Even as an almost-invisible immigrant, you never really forget you’re not from ’round here; and “back home” isn’t home any more, and almost certainly never will be (if it exists at all anymore outside of your imagination).
In my case, one of the more subtle effects is that I have no past. Or, rather, I have a past that weighs heavily over everything for me, but isn’t visible or comprehensible to anyone I now know — they often don’t even suspect I have a past that shares little with theirs. This lack of a past is, of course, a common part of the immigrant experience, but the lack of recognition that my past is invisible is odd (and betrays a certain privilege on my part). At its most benign, it means not getting the cultural referents that someone my age should get. People will blithely assume I get references to American TV shows and movies that someone my age who grew up in America would know (I didn’t see much TV when I was a kid, let alone foreign (i.e. American) TV). People innocently ask if I remember some person or event in (relatively) recent American history without understanding that that person or event would never have been a part of my worldview growing up in UnAmerica, despite how important they or it might seem to Americans my age. No, I didn’t know who Walter Cronkite or Dan Rather were before I came to this country (why would I?). No, I’d never heard of OJ Simpson before all that exploded across the media back when I’d just moved here. And my memory of Punk (as a movement and as music) is unrecognisable to Americans my age (and vice versa), even though Punk was a huge influence on me. No surprise there, of course, but it’s still surprising that people who ask me about Punk and music don’t seem to cotton on to the fact that I’m not from round here, musically or otherwise, and wouldn’t share their experiences. I’m an immigrant, dammit.
Conversely, of course, people here don’t have any feeling for what in my past weighs me down, or what referents mean something to me (or someone like me) and what don’t. And why should they? I have a political past, for instance, but it means nothing out here (and why should it?). I get irritated when people make assumptions about my politics based on my current existence, without them having a clue about the political realities of growing up where and when I did (but then, they usually don’t think of me as growing up there and then, do they?). My political past and inclinations would brand me as far left in this country, even though I’m from the mainstream of political culture back where I’m from. As a young child with a not-from-’round-here accent I was beaten up mercilessly in school, which (obviously) left its mark on me and my verbal interactions — but who would have any way of knowing that was par for the course back there and then after my first migration?
When I lived in Berkeley I was once interviewed for a high school project on the immigrant experience by the daughter of one of my neighbors. I was apparently one of the first people she thought of when she was asked to do the project (she was smart and intuitive). But I was pretty sure that wasn’t what the school wanted — what they probably really wanted was someone grittier, something more along the lines of, oh, I don’t know — maybe “refugee” or “undocumented”? So I asked her if she really wanted to interview someone like me that no one seemed to think of as an immigrant. But she knew I was an immigrant, and she intuited that even I would have some of the experiences and feelings shared by almost every immigrant: an uncertainty or ambivalence on where “home” might be, a difficulty adapting to local customs and mores that so often seem self-defeating or simply hypocritical, an impatience at the way non-immigrants rarely understand just how culture-specific their ideas about supposedly universal things is. And, always, that enduring sense of being foreign despite also being a citizen. When I told friends about being interviewed, several of them were surprised — after all, I’m not an immigrant, right? No, I guess not — I’m just a foreigner who’s lived here half his life. That crucial step — immigration — seems to be the thing people miss about my life, despite that fact that those three acts of immigration still dominate my life and my sense of who I am or might be.
I’m really not complaining — my last two immigrations were freely-chosen acts for me, and I can’t pretend that I’m not part of the privileged bits of ’round here nowadays — but it’s an odd experience being that foreigner who lives here who’s somehow also not an immigrant.
