My grandfather moved to America first ― leaving behind his wife to care for their children alone. My grandmother would walk down the street once a week to use a neighbor’s phone to talk to him. Eventually, he sent for his family to join him and my grandmother neatly packed up their lives, decided what would come (not much) and what would stay (a lot). Her father, my great grandpa, saw them off as they departed for America. It was the last time they saw him alive.
My mother and her brother went to school with children who talked differently and dressed differently. My grandmother walked to a grocery store that sold different food than she was accustomed to, paying with a different currency than she was used to. But over time, it all became normal. Over time, they got used to it. Over time - even though they visited their homeland once a year - America became home.
My mother comes from a country known for its violent oppression of others. Throughout history - time and time again - they claimed for themselves what wasn’t theirs. They started wars over petty things, they sent boats of soldiers over seas to fight other people’s fights, they brought other people groups into their borders and considered them property.
My mother comes from a country whose majority religion doesn’t treat other religions kindly. A religion who started wars to prove their point, who cruelly tortured people who believed differently, who killed others in the name of their god.
My mother comes from a country who is not a democracy. In fact, it can be argued their government style is outdated and too traditional, stuck in the past and resisting to move forward.
A non-democratic, religiously oppressive, violent nation - yet my mother had no problem getting the required paperwork to move here. She had no problem becoming a citizen, when she finally decided to. She has no problem, today, of being considered a “true American.”
The hate speech thrown at immigrants isn’t aimed at my mother. The cruel “Go back to where you came from!” comments aren’t said to my mother.
Is it her accent - perfectly Americanized now, except when talking to people of her native land? Is it her social standing - her and my father both worked hard to secure my family a place in the middle class? Or is it her skin color?
My story is not the same as most first generation Americans. My dual citizenship, granted at birth, will never endanger me. My skin - olive toned compared to that of my ancestors, yet forever considered white by the world - protects me from the treatment most children of immigrants receive. It’s hard to imagine my grandmother, forever an alien of America, being detained at an airport because of her green card status.
I read headlines about travel bans and immigration control and I can’t help but simply read fear. Fear of other. I hear claims of safety, of protection, of national security and I can’t help but hear hate dressed up in pretty clothes. I feel the heightened tension we have around immigration at the moment, and can’t help but simply feel confused.
For, by definition, these words and rules and assumptions should apply to my mother, an immigrant of England. They should apply to my childhood best friend’s family, whose father immigrated from Switzerland. They should apply to my boss whose entire family fled Russia in the ‘90s.
By definition, they should apply to me - the daughter of an immigrant. They should, and yet they don’t.
By definition, they should. And yet they never will.