You never thought there could be anything remotely cool
about being an immigrant, and most people would agree with you – some more
loudly than others.
But when you come across an article on immigration in Financial Times, linking, of all people, Philip
Roth and Zlatan Ibrahimović,
and managing to hit the right notes in the process, you know you’re on to
something.
Yes, you’re an immigrant. You have a past you’d like to talk
about but soon after arrival in your new home country you realise it doesn’t
make for easy conversation, so you keep it to yourself. In fact, you learn to
keep most things to yourself as you decide to steer clear of the gloomy stories
the West has come to expect from immigrants just so they feel better about
themselves.
You’re grateful to feel cocooned in the lofty world of
academia while you’re working towards your degree. You meet many immigrants and
you become a collector of life stories. Your get-togethers are full of life and
‘the locals’ are just about the most open-minded, interested and interesting
bunch you’re ever going to meet. In fact, you soon forget the ‘us vs. them’
mindset and quickly relate to the human side of us all. It’s still not easy to
make emotional connections though, and you find yourself gravitating towards
people with a similar past – wounds and all – and replaying the familiar
scripts from your culture and family of origin.
You get your degree and immigrate a few more times, from
contract position to contract position. You’re a high-flying academic
footballer – a hybrid between Philip Roth and Zlatan. Finding your bearings
gets easier each time as you start to see past cultural differences. ‘I could
get used to this’, you think to yourself.
But life happens, you settle down and get your first job in
the ‘real world’. Things quickly change. The empathy quotient drops abruptly
and you’re quickly being reminded of the ‘us vs. them’ paradigm – and judged
through this reductionist but convenient lens. You find that, in most
circumstances, underneath the value and hard work, there’s a game to be played.
You try playing the first moves and you get labelled ‘amoral’; you stop playing
and you get labelled ‘asocial’, ‘awkward’. And that’s just the letter ‘a’. In
time – years after you’ve pushed yourself past your endgame – you learn which
parts of the game you’re good at and which you should stop caring about. That’s
when a few timid voices start calling you ‘cool’. You go from idealising ‘the
locals’ – we’re back to ‘us vs. them’, remember? – to seeing the cracks in the
façade, the limitations, character flaws, bigotry.
As an immigrant, you also swallow the bitter pill of having
lost the most fundamental connection of all – the one with your family. You see
them from a distance, with foreign eyes. You also get the sinking feeling they
vaguely resent you and all your complications. You’ve come too far to be called
‘a failure’ but then you’re not exactly a success story either. You’re not
Zlatan or Philip Roth. So how are they supposed to be thinking and talking
about you?
You learn to look beyond your personal experience but when
you lift your eyes the bigger picture is even scarier. You see big historical
mistakes being made right in front of you. ‘No!’, you think, ‘this is precisely
what I’ve been running away from all these years! I don’t want my children to
have to be immigrants, too!’. You’ve worked so hard at letting go of the past –
must you let go of the future, too? Why – when everyone knows future-proofing
is what keeps immigrants sane?
But an immigrant’s resourcefulness is seemingly endless and
you learn to stop worrying and love the word. You ponder: ‘Could it be that
being an immigrant over and over again has given me a depth of perspective and
a chance to break away with those parts of me that were stuck playing unhelpful
scripts? Could it be that, with every step, I’ve come closer to who I really
am? A privilege that locals simply do not have?’ You look at the cards you’ve
been dealt – those cards you’ve carefully kept close to your chest all your
life – pick the one called ‘freedom’ and throw it on the table, face up, for
everyone to see.
Now that you’re not stuck in the past anymore, nor in the
future, you start to live more for the present. Funny thing is, your children
pick up on your new vibe as only children are apt to do, and feel more relaxed
themselves. ‘I’ve avoided the trap of the immigrant’, you muse, ‘I am actually
bringing up my children to be at ease with themselves …’. You become smug:
‘I’ve also escaped the trap of the locals! I’m bringing up children who are not
pressured to conform!’ Little do you realise that human nature is inescapable,
and, in the process of survival, you’ve created some powerful, custom-made
traps of your own to fall into. Nobody’s perfect – not even an immigrant …
You observe children more closely and something short of a
miracle happens: the long-forgotten child in yourself finds her way to the
surface. ‘Hey, little girl’ – you greet her – ‘you’ve been through some things
children are not supposed to experience, and yet you’ve stayed a happy child.
What was your secret?’
And then you do something no self-respecting immigrant ever
does: you pat yourself on the back and give yourself permission to be happy
again.