United States - home to the world?

The Immigrant experience


By Sujatha Raman

I’ve been looking at the pictures of Jiverly Voong, the immigrant that shot and killed 13 people in Binghamton before killing himself. Here is the underbelly of the American dream: the immigrant that does not make it in the New World , whose isolation is not mitigated by achievement, whose anger at a lack of social acceptance is fueled when he loses his job and his wife and kids leave him.

What propels anyone to move thousands of miles away to a strange land, an alien culture, isolated from anyone that they know, and anything familiar? It must be a strong overpowering desire that beckons a person to move away from the land of their birth. Or perhaps it’s the refusal to accept the limits and constraints of your current landscape and cultural boundaries, the deep yearning for a space or place to truly be yourself or true to yourself. A moving away rather then a moving towards…

In moving towards something – creative fulfillment, better professional options, marriage – the goal is clear. You’ve moved a million miles, often paying a dear price, so you break your back trying to achieve your goals or dreams. You do what it takes. This can often mean going back down the job ladder and starting fresh maybe even as an intern. This was the case with my friend Malina who had moved to New York from Singapore when her husband got a job here. She had a prestigious job in the Singapore Foreign service as a Diplomat but despite years of experience and a great education, she found herself, at 35, fighting for an intern spot in one of the large Human rights firms in New York. For the first five years or so in New York, she led a bi-continental life, supporting herself through free lance consulting or writing with organizations in Singapore while she worked as an intern or volunteer in New York to build her resume here. But her struggle was softened by a happy marriage and a successful husband as well as an interesting social life not to mention support from former employers and network.

Similarly, the overwhelming presence of South Asian and Asian computer professionals in the US speaks to the successful immigration of highly skilled young professionals. In Silicon Valley and some suburbs in Seattle, you might be forgiven if you thought you had been transplanted to India. The buying power of large numbers of successful immigrants have transformed food outlets and choices, entertainment options and lifestyles to give the new inhabitants a comfortable replica of their homeland. Successful immigrants are also able to replicate social networks from their homeland. They bring parents, siblings and other relatives, and sometimes they even import maids.

What about immigrants moving away from their homeland because of personal loss or failure? A divorce in some countries still has shame attached to it and can be the catalyst for a search for a new place to make a fresh start unfettered by painful memories or a sense of failure. My father was a scarce fifteen when he stealthily left his home town in India and travelled hundreds of miles to the nearest port to board a ship to Singapore where his brother was living. He had just failed the equivalent of high level exams and was unable to face his father, a very autocratic man who prized academic excellence over all else. His father had built and ran two schools and had high hopes for my father who he considered his star pupil. My father excelled academically but the stress of preparing for exams had taken a toll on a sensitive stomach; he had become sick just before the exams and been unable to complete them. My grandfather was widely respected as a pandiji (a wise man) because of the schools and his career as a school teacher and principal. His own son failing his high school exams was an unbearable embarrassment. Although he would return to India for visits, my father lived the rest of his life as an immigrant in Singapore. He worked as a clerk in the British Civil Service and I remember his immaculate, starched, long sleeved white shirts and perfectly creased pants, his hair smoothed back with hair cream. Even though he came from a small village, my father was literate, in fact well-read and had a perfect British accent. He always felt that his job was beneath him; that he was destined for better things. While his compatriots who immigrated from India enjoyed promotions and were able to move from one room apartments to houses with backyards, my father stayed in the same job all his life, finally retiring early at 50. He was similarly disappointed with his family life. Even though his young bride had been the toast of her village and considered a beauty, he soon became alienated when she produced five baby girls. My father often expressed anger and disappointment with his chosen land.

Jiverly Woong lived in a country where violence often broke out. I had just moved to the States when Columbine happened and I remember the outcry and sense of shock that reverberated through the country. In a school? By School kids. We were unable to comprehend how it could have happened. It was a tragedy of epic proportions and today ten years later we still feel haunted by the despair and unhappiness that drove two young teenagers to kill their fellow school mates.
President Obama is taking on the thorny problem of the broken immigration system. By trying to come up with a path to help long term immigrant residents become legal, he hopes to take them out of the shadows and give them a clear place. To those concerned about the already high unemployment rate, he points out that his solution will not increase number of immigrants but address those already in the country.
While poor immigrant families have found economic success in the past, many analysts say today’s generation faces steeper hurdles, especially because good jobs now require more education. The children of those with the least education — most notably Mexicans and Central Americans — are considered especially at risk. ( New York Times) But obviously there are risks in schools as well, as evidenced by the shooting at Columbine and the American Civil Association in Binghamton.

Today, one in eight Americans is an immigrant. In our individual search for the American Dream, we have to work together to come up with a system that recognizes that everyone – whether immigrant or citizen – is accepted by virtue of being here.