invisible immigrant

i just reread interpreter of maladies by jhumpa lahiri.  it’s one of the most beautiful collections of short stories i’ve ever read.  it tells the stories of people’s lives from the sub-continent.  i relate to every one of them for some reason or another.  and then i look up, startled, to realise (yet again) that i’m a pale caucasian who was not a true immigrant in america.  but that is how i felt.  it was lonely and painstaking and complicated.  i felt so lost and confused.  i looked and sounded like i should understand the american life, but i dreaded waking up most days to be confronted with more ‘new’. 

i couldn’t grapple with the dichotomy of calling my boss by his first name while still treating him as my superior.  i struggled greatly with driving and the long list of rules that went with it.  vending machines scared me and getting through a grocery store and all its overwhelming excess took me hours.  i came from a place of such community and eventually moved to chicago where i was just one of millions trying to survive.  i had nowhere to go every summer unless i found employment with housing.  i prepared with gusto for every visit from my parents and then felt disillusioned when we found ourselves in a small space face-to-face with strangers instead of family.  i didn’t know about roaming charges on my first cell phone nor how to manage a checkbook.   i cried alone in a mouldy bathroom in a subpar indian restaurant because the smells made me violently homesick. 

in all of lahiri’s stories, any new arrival eventually adjusts and makes sense of their new surroundings.  my story is no different.  i may have been an invisible immigrant, but the journey was just as confusing though i, too, eventually adjusted.  i had incredible help from MANY amazing people.  i had aunts who surrounded me in love and answered my many questions.  i had a family who let me live with them and taught me to drive (at the near expense of their lives).  i had parents who called long distance to check in on me.  i had roommates in chicago who taught me how to shop and not be afraid of traffic. 

even with all of that, it was still hard.  because that’s what changing countries can be.  everything is ripped away and a new system is slapped down and you need to adjust to make it.  i remember being in that family’s house—filled with heat and good food and my own comfortable room.  i had just gotten home to an empty house having narrowly avoided an accident on the way there, and felt completely alone.  i knew i had so much, but i was still so lonely.  there was no one who understood and i sat alone in the stairwell and wept. 

but that was years ago.  i remember the feelings of scraping loneliness and metallic confusion so i can help those in the same situation today.  it no longer describes me, however, for which i am grateful.  i still feel country-less and do not possess patriotism, but i am no longer drifting in an endless ocean with no floor.  in fact, i am going back today to the same country that gave me my adult start.  and i am excited to see it again.  i will still be in awe of the endless rows of food in the grocery story and the sparkling efficiency of traffic.  i will still marvel at the rightness of the customer and the never-ending search for consumer convenience by businesses.  but i will no longer be afraid of the country as a whole.  i no longer will fear the newness and feel angry at the separation from the familiar.  instead i will embrace my aunts, laugh with friends, enjoy being in the same country as my family and drive down orderly roads.  and appreciate visiting the once strange land of america that now welcomes me.