I’ve been living in this country for a long time, but lately I’ve been feeling like an immigrant all over again. Just how does it feel to be an immigrant?  Feeling like an immigrant is when…  …everyone laughs at a joke, including you, but you have no idea why.…you’re ten and you act as your parents’ translator for official interactions like doctor visits, ant parent teacher meetings. …you show up in elementary school in a dress, and everyone else is wearing jeans…you’re Asian, and your best friend, who is Caucasian, asks how can you see out of those slitty eyes? ...your neighbor tells you he was “Jewed” by his plumber, and you’re Jewish. …a cigar-sucking New York Jewish cabbie thinks he’s paying you a compliment when he confesses that your blonde hair and blue eyes made him mistake you for a “shikse.”  …your bubbie has a carp swimming in her bathtub for Friday night’s dinner. 
 …you’re a black girl going to an all-white school and you spend your monthly allowance on straightening your hair. …you’re gay, but you haven’t yet admitted it to yourself.  …any police presence makes you nervous.  …you find official documents like passports, social security cards, and even school IDs — daunting.  …you don’t share your photos from the old country with anyone — because that happened in another lifetime to another person. By now you’ve probably figured that feeling like an immigrant is to live in a psychological landscape where you are the perpetual outsider, if not overtly, then certainly when you dare to look below the surface. You are the uninvited and unwelcome “Other.”  

– EVA OKADA (Author Name: H.L. Molnar)

Relationship:  Im/migrant Im/migrant