One big disadvantage of being an immigrant in an unfamiliar place is feeling like a foreigner. The concept of otherness brings me strange memories and stories from my family’s past. I wonder most days what it means to be American and whether or not I should feel ashamed of that part of my identity. I consider myself a mix of so many backgrounds and identities that it’s quite blurry by now. I have the European and Jewish essence from my ancestors that brings me my favorite traditions and cultural love. I’m so tightly tethered to my family in Israel, where I feel the Mediterranean joy and Middle-Eastern spice that I miss when I’m away. I have a love for Mexican culture brought into my life by one of the many people who raised me and I feel at home speaking Spanish. I’m so other in my essence, but I think that that’s what it means to be American. So do I truly belong here? Maybe a massive advantage of being an immigrant or descended from immigrants is that you have the privilege of belonging to many places and groups.
The feeling fluctuates. Everywhere I go I seem to find conflict that changes the way I think and process my identity. It hurts me to stay in Israel for months and see the corruption and pain that the government continues to cause, but the people and the spirit there bring me euphoria every time I visit. I’m foreign in Israel because I live here. I’m foreign here because my family’s from Israel. I can only imagine the struggle of uprooting oneself and taking a journey to a new place where everything is different. I understand what it feels like living far away from the people you love. I guess that my immigrant voice comes from a mix of ideas, not unlike my mix of identities. I get my voice from those who came before me and continue to better my life today. I feel a medley of sympathy, empathy and compassion. Maybe it’s possible that the mixture that I am makes me American. In that case, we all can be. – Anonymous '23
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Living in America knowing what my parents have endured throughout their lives has undeniably shaped me into the person I am today. I grew up knowing how much of a determined, strong, and independent woman my mother is, characteristics rooted in her culture and life in her home country. It’s something that has persistently motivated me to be the self-assured and self-reliant person I am, just like her. My father has experienced unbelievable encounters in his incredible life, which have proved to me what true care and dedication can ultimately become, one of the many reasons I am diligent and committed in everything I do. My parents’ lives in their native countries and in America have not just taught me lessons I couldn’t have possibly learned elsewhere, but they have inspired and molded me into the person I am today, and for that, I am forever grateful.
- By Mona Shadded ‘22 You know you’re a first-generation Latinx (a child of immigrant Latin American parents)
when…
The sound of crickets chirping played against the sound of a large knife cutting through a new, ripe mango on the cutting board. I sit on the cold, tile floor, surrounded by a bustling family describing the setting of a nostalgic memory that rests in the heart. With little cousins running around pretending to be superheroes and their mothers sitting near the window fanning themselves to relieve themselves from the blistering heat, the house is filled with commotion, and more specifically, comforting commotion.
My oldest aunt always cut mangoes in the evening as her husband always brought home a fresh batch every day. My mom would help her, eating the remaining pieces of mango missed on the skin that was cut off. My dad cleaned the forks and handed out the cut fruit in the living room, where people lazily started to taste the delectable fruit, sweetness filling their taste buds and their minds. I brought out the colorful hat pakhas (hand fans) to keep one of my little cousins cool as the power went out a little more than half an hour ago. The room was lit with three little candles so that we could at least see where we were going. The only problem was the excruciating heat, filling the air with an uncomfortably warm feeling. The only way to feel cool again was using the pakhas and eating the fresh mangoes. Having been born in Abu Dhabi, this experience was rare for me as it meant being away from my extended family, even when immigrating to the U.S. While the mangoes in the U.S were also delicious, nothing could beat the taste of the ones in Bangladesh, not to mention the presence of some beloved family members. At the same time, I have come to realize that a fruit will not taste sweet when given with ill intentions. Mangoes can produce a sweet, buttery taste for the tongue or cause a stringy hairful in the mouth. It all depends on who you get them from, which leaves my experience with mangoes unpredictable at times. What could I do to ensure that all the mangoes I encountered provided the same satisfaction I craved? The trip when I was eleven was the first time I was old enough to remember almost every detail of my experience in Bangladesh after visiting around three times beforehand. A country abundant with poverty and hardship, yet bustling with the sale of Bangladesh’s most gifted sweet by nature. I stayed at my mom’s side of the estate for the first half of my trip, which was a modest apartment in the middle of a bustling city center. Because I visited during the peak of mango season, my relatives were able to provide the most desired form of my favorite fruit. Everyone raced to the street vendors to get a taste of this year’s new batch of goodness, and despite my relatives’ financial situation, my favorite uncle, who we all called office baba, always went out of his way to buy the most spectacular mangoes they could find. He enjoyed watching the smile grow on my face as he came back from the market; a sack full of golden fruit in his hands as I raced to hug him. My Aunt Rumi always complimented the many drawings made of mangoes, telling me in broken Banglish “Tumi anek talented!” (You're very talented!). As a girl from an Asian family, it was expected for children to be successful from the very beginning, omitting any distractions to ensure a financially secure future. I was always pressured to push aside my love for art, especially by my dad’s side of the family, who always yearned for me to become a doctor. Even worse, living in the U.S meant more pressure because to them, living here gave me a ‘better chance’ to become one anyway. While I did not see myself focusing on art in the future, it was still something very meaningful to me; the amount of smiles I had created when giving my art to people could never be blocked by monotonous ambitions. My mom’s side of the family gave me hope and confidence in my art. Aunt Rumi often told me to bring her my art to hang in the living room, quickly becoming one of my most proudest memories. My mom’s house always created a pleasant atmosphere, bringing out the best of my abilities. My curly hair, which I was always embarrassed of, finally could flow freely without a single thought of self-doubt. The taste of the mangoes here were impeccable, and nothing could create the same rich flavor elsewhere. Then came the time to experience the worst mangoes of the season when I had to visit my dad’s side of the family. I had to say farewell to the mangoes that bonded me with my mom’s side despite the slight language barrier and say hello to my least favorite kind of mango, the horrible stringy kind. They were the type to leave a bad taste in your mouth and get stuck in your teeth, finding the strings in your mouth days after you’ve originally eaten it. Once we arrived at their quaint house situated in the rural village, they would expect us to bring the ripest mangoes for them. When they did return the favor, they brought the out of season, stringy mangoes that I abhorred. Time and time again when I ate the mangoes they provided, the strings would latch onto my families’ teeth as if my dad’s relatives relied on us to survive, becoming a memorable burden. They treated my family as if we were their personal money tree, and often scolded me for wasting time on hobbies that wouldn’t supply my aunts and uncles with money in the future. I was often told to never stray away from my destined path: becoming a doctor. The hours I spent creating artwork to give them went to waste because it was disposed of. I clearly remember seeing crumpled up pieces of artwork among a pile of trash from time to time. To make things worse, I never felt beautiful around them. I felt as if my hair became uglier and that my previously darker skin added to the list of unpleasant features that I possessed. From then on, my desire for straight hair and whiter skin became harmful and to this day, I have not recovered from the bonds of insecurity. Those stringy mangoes they gave to me every afternoon by the pukur (pond) defined the strained, splitting relationship my family had with my dad’s relatives. On my way back to America, I thought of how unfair it was that we were obligated to visit them because of our blood ties even though our relationship was like a mango string pulling away from its seed. Though I was just a superficial kid who only cared about getting the better tasting fruit, as I now look back at the times my dad’s sister constantly asked him for money with an ill-mannered promise of repayment, a realization washed over me: how to get the perfect mango every time. It wasn’t about finding the best supplier or testing your luck at the bazaar. Instead it’s about surrounding yourself with people who are willing to spend time with you with no expectation of repayment. As for me, mangoes have created an environment of either love or distress. While I do not always depend on the taste of a mango when deciphering a person’s intentions and character, the sweet taste of many of them has brought me closer to both the person and my identity. Even now, when I bite into a fresh, sweet, newly-cut mango, I feel as if I am in my eleven-year-old’s body, smelling the breeze of Bangladesh air as I sit on the cold tile floor, listening to the sounds of loud kids and taxis honking from the streets below. By Tasnia Ignat The earliest memory I have of being a young immigrant was at the playground of my brother’s elementary school. Picking him up with my mom was one of the nicest things to do on a sunny spring afternoon. Especially getting to play with the other kids at the park near the school. I didn’t have many friends at the time being that we were new from India and my mom couldn’t speak English, making it harder for her to communicate with other moms. At this point, I had already spent 2 and a half years in India and we hadn't become accustomed to the culture in America. To put into simpler term, clothes weren’t a big deal in India. My mom dressed me in hand me downs from my brother all the time. One afternoon a few kids on the playground thought that it would be alright to mention the fact that I was wearing boyish clothes and my short hair. At that moment, as a three-year-old child, I thought that I would never be the same as my peers. My mom told me after this I wouldn’t go with her to pick my brother up unless my hair was open and I had a dress or skirt on. This fear carried on with me up until middle school. I would lie about the fact that I was an immigrant and I would often pretend that I didn’t know how to speak my native language. I would’ve done anything that made me feel fit in. I’ve come to realize that being an immigrant is a part of my identity and it isn’t anything that I should be ashamed about. Being an immigrant, especially being someone who is offered education and has the ability to speak about the unjust things done to undocumented and even documented immigrants is important to me. I don’t think my story is special, I think it’s something all immigrants can relate to and I hope that anyone who reads this can feel less alone.
Anonymous '22 (BHSEC Queens) i mamá dijo ayer, “Cuando me hablas inglés, siento que tu no eres mi hija. Debes hablar más en bengalí.” Cuando tenía cuatro años, hablaba bengalí todos los días, con fluidez, pero después de asistir a la escuela, hablaba más en inglés. Yo comencé a olvidar el idioma de mi gente, el idioma que mis parientes pelearon por tener. Es un poco triste que la única palabra que puedo escribir en mi propio idioma es mi nombre, pero puedo escribir un párrafo en una lengua que no es mía. Sí, yo estudio español en la escuela pero bengalí es donde mi corazón está. Mis padres inmigraron a EEUU por una buena vida para mi hermano y yo. Viví en Nueva York toda mi vida, pero no soy completamente americana. Mis padres son de Bangladés, pero no soy completamente bengalí. Estoy en el intermedio, y siempre voy a estar en el intermedio. No deseo borrar mi cultura.
Loose Translation: Yesterday, my mom told me, "When you talk to me in English, I feel like you aren’t my daughter. You should speak Bengali more often.” When I was 4 years old, I used to speak Bengali consistently and fluently, but after I started school I started to speak English more. I started to forget the language of my people, the language my relatives fought for. It's sad that the only word I can write in my own language is my name, but I can write paragraphs in a language that isn't mine. Yes, I study English for school, but Bengali is where my heart is. I've lived in NYC my whole life but I'm not completely American. My parents are from Bangladesh but I'm not completely bengali. I am in the middle and I will always be in the middle. I don’t want to erase my culture. Anonymous '22 (BHSEC Queens)
Author's Note: I found people’s immigration stories and anonymously shared them if they were comfortable with me doing it. They answered questions like “why did you come? How did you come? What were some struggles you faced?” Anonymous '21 (BHSEC Queens)
Like many first generation I have a part of me that I don't tend to show or say. Half of me is this American, born and raised in a huge city. But the other half, well it's a girl from Mexico. But not the nice sunny and beach part. No from a poor small puebla near two volcanoes. And although it isn't the city, it also from where I live as I am still half of my parents who would tell me the stories of their childhood there. The cara de nopal that has been bestowed upon me, allows me to share those stories so that others can understand and as well. So they can see life in someone else's eyes. A part of me holds the story of boy who, at a young age, was always looking for their older brothers who had gone to the military for money and work. Another is of a girl who wanted to help and save the lives of those who were ill, but was stuck between her dream and supporting her family. My parents would always tell me "para nosotros era el campo primero, y luego la tarea si podimos" which means "for us it was the fields first, then the homework if we could". They didn't make it that far, but that doesn't mean they didn't try. When fate united them, they came here so that their children can have a chance a dream that they couldn't, a chance to escape so that I didn't have to focus on labor. And the same thing can be said by many others who had come to this country. I may not be an immigrant myself, but doesn't mean I don't hold the story of one. Everything is done for a reason. I am saying this so that those whose names cannot be given, can have a voice that can never be taken down. I will use my rights as a citizen to protect those who keep silent in the dark with a story like no other. Jessica '21 (BHSEC Queens)
“I’m home,” I announced as I opened the front door. I took off my shoes, put my bag down, and hung my jacket on the coat rack behind the door (it drives my mom crazy when we leave our jackets on the couch), and ran into my parents’ room like I do everyday when I come home. I gave my mom a big hug and flopped down on her bed. “I decided that I’m gonna write a story about you for my final literature project! Aren’t you excited?” I ask her. “What exactly are you writing about?” she replies, not so excitedly. “Your immigrant experience and stuff. Like how you came over to America at such a young age, when things were less modern, and how Grandma and Grandpa came over too, and their story, you know? So I’m going to have interview you a lot, so prepare yourself.” “Oh my god,” she exclaims. “So you’re going to bother me even more than usual now?” (She was joking - sort of.) “Yup,” I reply. “Aren’t you excited?” A couple days later… It was already around 9:30 pm-ish, but I couldn’t sleep, and my mom was still awake, so I decided to go ask her a few questions, namely, when she had come over to America. I always know that my grandparents came over first, but I wasn’t sure when, or where they stayed. So I walked across the hallway and crawled into her bed. My older sister, who didn’t have school the next day, was already there. “What are you doing? Don’t you have to go sleep now?” my mom asked me as she slathered moisturizer onto her face. “Yeah,” I replied. “But I couldn’t sleep, so I figured I might as well ask you a few questions for my final.” “Ok,” she said reluctantly. “Hurry up. Maybe you should get under the covers so that you’ll get tired quicker.” “So when did you come to America?” I asked her. “September 16, 1984. My twelfth birthday.” she said. “And did you always know you were coming to America, or is it something your parents had to tell you?” “No. It was always something we had talked about, it was just a matter of how long it would take for the paperwork to go through. Your grandpa’s brother, Chacha Kewal, sponsored us. He had gotten through on a student visa, but ended up in the Army for four years.” My mom’s Chacha Kewal died in March 2018, and I remember my grandfather telling that exact story, crediting his younger brother for his success in America. Chacha Kewal (Chacha means “uncle,” referring to the father’s brother) was the exact model of the American Dream. He came to America as a young man who had two dreams to fulfill: to open his own mechanic shop, and buy a Mustang. By the time he passed away, he was successful in both, and he worked hard all his life to maintain his success. “So Grandma and Grandpa stayed with him when they came to America, then?” I asked. I knew that they had come over before my mom and her siblings, but I didn’t know exactly what they did during those three months. “Yes,” my mom replied. “They came in June, and left us with your Grandma’s sister in Guyana. They went to Jersey City, where Chacha Kewal and his wife lived. The whole point of them coming here before us was to find a place to live and to get jobs.” My mom and her entire family lived in Jersey City when they came to America, and most of her family still lives there. Everyone lived blocks away from each other - my grandfather’s three sisters and his brother, and their families. In fact, my mother ended up going to the same high school as all of her cousins, even though they didn’t all attend at the same time. “So what was it like when you first came to America?” I asked her. “Well, I remember the first thing I told my dad when I saw him was ‘Daddy, e got grass ova heh too!’ For some reason, I thought that there wasn’t any grass in America. We came in at JFK airport with one of your grandparents’ friends. We went to Jersey City, and then, we had only been staying with Chacha Kewal for a couple days when his wife told him that she didn’t want us there, for no reason, and he had to kick us out.” “Really?” I exclaimed. (I never knew this part of the story.) “I never liked that lady anyway. So where did you guys end up going?” “We went to your grandfather’s cousin. We ended up staying there until we got a place in November,” my mom said. “What about school?” I asked. “When did you start?” “A fews day after we came,” she replied. “Really?” I scoffed. “Are you kidding?” I, frankly, couldn’t believe that she came to America, and a few days later, was thrown into the public school system. “You don’t believe me? We started a couple days after, because it was a Sunday when we came,” she said. “What grade did you start in?” I asked. “I was put in seventh grade, at first, but then I transferred to eighth grade because I already knew everything,” she said. I couldn’t help but smile, because of course she had transferred grades. My mom has always been the perfect child. When my grandparents were working two, three jobs at a time, my mom would come home from school, cook (which she had been doing since eight years old), clean, take care of her siblings, then do her homework, and by the time she was in high school, working at the local CTown. AND, she swears she never once got a bad grade. (I’ve always argued with her on that one, but I still haven’t gotten her to admit one failure.) “What were the kids like? Did you go to school with a lot of white kids? DId anyone ever make racist remarks?” I asked. “Kids used to insult us all the time, even in eighth grade. They would spit on us, tell us we smelled bad, and call us ‘Hindus.’” she said. “And yes, even though there were a lot of Indian kids, there were much more white kids.” “What was high school like?” I asked my mom. She never really discussed the topic with us, besides her spotless record and good grades. Deep down, I always hoped that it was because she was some kind of low key rebel, but I knew that it wasn’t true. “Nothing memorable,” she said. “I got good grades.” “Did you have a lot of friends?” I asked. I knew for a fact that all of her siblings were popular, but I wasn’t sure about her. My mom’s always been really funny, and just generally a great person, but I think that being a little wild was a necessity to be popular in high school, and my mother never had that choice, because she had to take care of her other siblings. “Well, I mainly hung out with my cousins, and your Aunty Rosh and Mamoo’s friends,” she said. (“Mamoo” is a word for uncle, referring to your mother’s brother.) This next part is a little short, because my mom was being a little uncooperative. (She said that I was stressing her out with all my questions, but she still answered them.) After my mom graduated high school, she went on to get a job as a secretary at a company called J. Gerber in Manhattan, and she worked there for two years. She left after finding a better offer at a company located in the World Trade Center, and she worked for three years. In December, 1998, when she was twenty-seven, she met my dad. She had went Guyana for a funeral, and he lived right across the street from where she was staying. If you’ll recall, she was staying at the exact same place before she came to America. He told her that he had gotten a Visa, and was planning to come to America. She gave him her number, and as she claims, it was not because she liked him, but because she “just wanted to.” He came in January 1999, and on May 31st, 1999, they got married. Jatila Gayadin '22 (BHSEC Queens)
This is a fictional account told in the perspective of a Jewish forced migrant during World War II. Its inspiration is taken from “We Refugees” by Hannah Arendt and “We Were the Lucky Ones” by Georgia Hunter. Home. Home is a universal term for safety and compassion and nourishment. For comfort and acceptance and freedom. Home is where you are confident and where others love and support you unconditionally. Home can be a place, person, thing, or feeling, but most importantly, we all have a home. Even in times of great despair, with no sense of belonging, home can be found within oneself, or in one’s dreams, or in a lonely landscape of nothingness. Feelings of home arise as we remember the faces and laughter and voices of those we love, of those who are our home. But as the relentless ticks of clocks pester us at all hours, as the impressions of those most dear to us fade, as the days and nights blur into one, we realize how little we are left with. The air strangles us, the sun blinds us, the moon fails in illuminating our blackened world, but the stars glisten. “We think the stars more reliable advisers than all our friends” (Arendt, 1994). They guide us. But can they guide us home? Are they our home? They hold their place above us and disappear only at day break. Their lustrous shine captivates us, yet they are untouchable, exploding balls of gas that burn millions of miles away. Yet somehow we can still see them, and somehow, everyone sees the same stars. Our friends, who have left us, rendering us helpless, forcing us to surrender to the weight of the truth, see our stars. They have fled and been taken and confined in this brutal world as their lives tantalize them, as their memories fall just beyond their reach. They are blind to anything that stands in their way; blind to everything but the stars. Our families vanished, leaving no trace, no way to ever know if they have survived through this hellish reality, or if they have succumbed to the persistent beating heart of evil. Seconds, minutes, days, weeks, months, and years pass without a tinge of joy or sorrow or anger or fear. Life pases by, but the stars remain to count the days and nights of solitude. Alone, all sounds are the same deafening volume, tainted with equal amounts of terror and excitement. But the silence extinguishes the warmth within us before any noise penetrates our ears, before any feeling of hope can creep into our hearts. In these melancholic times, all we can wish for is that those we love can see our stars. As we do the impossible, as we attempt to accept and forget, we must will ourselves to survive. We must conjure motivation out of grief and defeat. We must project our ideas because not only have we been abandoned by those who love us and those who hate us, but we have been stripped of our rights. Our freedom torn from our hands. Our voices dampened, ignored, and unheard. Our thoughts slashed from our minds because they were threatening. We are called “refugees” as if we are no longer humans, as if displacement and genocide revoke our dignity and our right to live alongside others. And while we have sought refuge, and we have suffered, and the course of our lives have changed dramatically, we are more than just a title. A degrading and dehumanizing title. A title of pity. Of disgust. We are told to remain in the shadows. They say we are lucky, that we have come to a better place. They say they will protect us from hatred and destruction, but in order to be safe, we must be invisible. How can we thrive if we are only allowed to survive in the dark? How can we feel welcome in the place supposed to be our new home as we continue to live under restraints? How can we be happy as we know our world shatters? “How?” we ask, “How is it possible?” We need explanations and consolations, yet we know they are unobtainable. We have been deprived of so much, but we still have the stars. Inés Rossi '21 (BHSEC Queens)
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