The Reality of Immigration

The decision to leave your own home country to go to another country to work and live can never be an easy one. Especially if you have a family to take care of and of course someone who is not young. The decision to leave your own home land with your culture, traditions, beliefs, and language is a decision that will change your life entirely. The decision to leave can be very stupid and can be a nightmare. The decision could end up being something that you regret for the rest of your life. Yet, thousands upon thousands of people make these decisions every day.

America is not the only country where people migrate to. It seems that way because we live in it. Most rich countries and sometimes not so rich countries deal with immigration everyday. Australia and New Zealand, for example, are two countries that receive a lot of immigrants every year. Germany, England, France in Europe also receives a large amount of immigrants. Some countries in the Middle East have most of its blue collar workers from surrounding countries. Even northern countries such as Canada and Norway receive a lot of immigrants. The question remains as to why these people migrate.

Most families decide to leave supposedly for a better life for their children. They feel that the United States will offer a better future. Therefore, they sacrifice their professional career in their own countries to come to America. They sacrifice their friends, families, and any life they had to give their children a better future. The outcomes of course are usually not what they hoped for. All of a sudden they are in a country that does not believe in their abilities. They can not speak English and therefore all they can probably do is clean dishes or work in landscaping. They loose their self esteem and confidence and become afraid of anything that is foreign to them because it takes them time to get accustomed to the new way of life. But that is just the beginning.

Whatever job these people had in their countries, it immediately is forgotten due to the lack of the English language. And even if you speak English well, you do not have an American degree and therefore you need to do an "evaluation" which takes time and money. Two things any immigrant does not have. Thus, you accept a job as a cashier or a cleaner or a gas station clerk until you get used to speaking English. While this is happening, your son and daughter are fully immersed in a new culture in their schools. All of a sudden they start asking you questions you have no answers for. All of a sudden they have needs which you can not fulfill. All of a sudden they rebel against you because your thinking is so old fashioned and then they tell that you do not know anything in this life because you can not even speak English. They make fun of you when you ask them for a meaning of a word or if you mispronounce a word. They forget that one day they did not even know how to speak and you taught them. They forget that they should not make fun of you or that they should not disrespect you in such a way. But you do not say anything; you just accept it and say it is better for them. But sooner or later there will be a huge fight where unspeakable things will be said and then you will feel a huge break in your family's life.

But let us take a look at the children's life. These children who come with a specific upbringing and all of a sudden they find that everything is different. They realize that they have the right to speak and the right to say no and the right to argue. They realize that it is okay to correct your mother or father if they are wrong. They realize that it is okay to go out and come back late. They realize many things you do not agree with but you can not stop it because all these things surround them everyday. It is in their schools, in their books, in their magazines, on the radio and on the television. More than that, these children suddenly loose their self identity. They do not know if they are now citizens of whatever country you live in or if they are who they come from. They constantly fight with themselves because they are lost in between. And one day they will go back to whatever country they came from and realize that they do not mesh with these people anymore. They are foreign to them. They will meet their friends or cousins or families from back home and they will find that they have nothing to say. It will be a basic superficial conversation between two strangers even though one day they were incredibly close. Thus, these children will probably have an identity problem for the rest of their lives because they will never be able to mesh 100% with the new culture. They won't be able to go back to wherever they came from either. And then one day when they decide to get married it will be another problem because they will want someone who can understands their background and these are not easy to find.

But as gloomy as all that sounds, that is still a rosy picture. I did not even mention the countless immigrants who come who are illegal. Now these people are living on the edge constantly because anytime everything they have done can be lost. Imagine their pain and suffering knowing that any mistake they do, they can be taken away and if their children are born in that country they can get separated from them. Imagine their humiliation if they do get deported for being illegal immigrants.

I think that what people fail to realize is that any country as wonderful as it may sound or be imagined it really is not that much different. Every place on earth has its own advantages and disadvantages and we need to realize that the grass is not always greener on the other side. There are always sacrifices and many hurdles a long the way that sometimes you might not even make the journey to that greener grass you were hoping for.