First Generation Born, Second Generation Immigrant, or Just Plain American?

(Photo: Logan Int'l Airport, Pre-departure)

I know that I owe a post about the NGO I’m working for, and the work that I’m doing/will be doing, but I don’t think I’ll pump that one out for another few days or so. Instead, I want to write about something totally unrelated that I’ve been thinking quite a bit about: what it means to be the child of people who moved to the United States from another country. Many of the individuals that I’ve met through the AIF program are individuals who, like me, were born in the United States but raised in a non-American household and culture. Just as I have never been to Iran without my mother, many of them had never been to India without their parents before their arrival this past September. During orientation I found myself quite jealous as they discussed their excitement and curiosity about this new adventure, that is, about having their “own” experience in their parents’ homeland. To put it in one fellow’s own words, one of her goals during this year was to be able to “manage herself” in India. As I bobbled my head in agreement, I pictured myself in Iran, without my mother, and wondered whether I could “manage myself” there without her. I’d like to say yes, and maybe someday I’ll be able to, but in reality I’ve never been presented with that challenge, and at the very least I can comfortably say that it would be difficult from both an emotional and practical standpoint.

At one point I asked one of my Indian-American friends whether she could picture herself staying in India after the fellowship. Her answer fascinated me, and in its essence went something like this: “I couldn’t imagine my mother’s reaction… after she sacrificed so much for me to grow up in the United States, only to find that I’ve moved back to square one.” My immediate internal reaction went like this: “well yea, you’d move back here with all the tools that your education equipped you with.” And then I wondered whether my reaction was an imperialistic way of thinking about moving back to your parents’ homeland, that is, the idea that you have something to offer their former Society, simply because you were brought up and educated in the West. But I also wonder whether a second generation return would in fact be the perfect ending to the immigrant’s tale: not the “American dream” of making it big in the west (where your grandchildren will hardly learn your language, and have a watered down understanding of your story and sacrifices), but the tale of leaving the country you love, sacrificing all that you know for the prospects of a “better” opportunity abroad, to raise your children in an open society with greater opportunities for them, and then -- and here's where the stories diverge -- as they grow older and educated they decide out of their own volition that they want to go back to your homeland and reconnect with the society whose culture they so strongly feel attached to. I know that was a run-on sentence, but is this not an ideal picture for immigrants? Is this not the reverse of a brain drain? And of course, I realize that it assumes a certain level of opportunity in the original homeland that didn’t necessarily exist when the parents left (which seems to be true for a country like India, what with her expanding economy).

There are of course many different kinds of issues for first generation borns (indeed too many to discuss in one blog). Sure, we feel connected to the non-American half of our cultural upbringing, but that doesn’t necessarily translate well across borders -- when I go to Iran the simple reality is that I stand out, for a number of reasons. Many of the surface issues that account for this are easily mitigated with a make-over and a few months of language immersion, but dig a little deeper and it gets even more complicated: being American, among other things, in your parents’ homeland. I’m watching my Indian-American roommate deal with a number of such issues relevant to being a Non-Resident Indian (NRI), and some other people in my program have discussed it in their own blogs (see Curly In India discuss her thoughts on being an NRI).

Another issue that I think lots about is how, having grown up in the States, it will take first generation borns twice the effort to pass down the non-American part of ourselves to the next generation. It’s difficult for me to picture having children who don’t understand Farsi, or who don’t appreciate the amazing and noble nature of their grandparents’ and great-aunts/uncles’ stories and decisions. And I suppose this is part of why so many families – especially first generation families - urge their children to marry people of the same ethnicity, same culture, etc. But if you bring your child up outside of your culture’s society, how many and which of the cultural norms are you allowed to expect them to follow? I ask this question less about my own experience -- which in many ways is an exception to the rule -- and more in the context of conversations I’ve had with some Indian-Americans, many of whom – on top of educational pressures to become doctors, lawyers or engineers - are still explicitly expected to marry within their caste, state (Indian, not American) and religion. As for me and my siblings, the only time my parents mentioned marriage during our upbringing was to tell us to prioritize our education and careers over it – all the while instilling strong values about love and family, and a strong appreciation for our culture (which adds its own implicit pressures). And regardless of whether, given the choice, my parents would do any part of it over again, I must say that my upbringing is perhaps the thing I’m most proud of and thankful for in this life. And yes, I realize how lucky I am to be able to say that.