Mom's Egyptian passport, which included me and my brother
It’s strange immigrating to a second country as an adult, after having undergone a major immigration as a child. As an adult who’s already had an education, a long career, and some accomplishments in life. I and others wonder why I would do such a thing. Isn’t it enough that I and my family have survived and thrived after one immigration?
In my mind I think of it that way… surviving an immigration.
I’ve reflected on it so often, the thing that changed our lives forever. The break with everything. Extended family, language, our very personality. I’ve explained my life in terms of that major trauma, as others might see the death of a parent, a divorce, violence, or addiction in their families as being the trauma that explains their psychology.
That particular trauma for me was a culture gap so wide, a loss of a world so different, that it amounted to a loss of self and being forced to invent a new one. After that, I went through many years feeling like I’m wearing a disguise, and acting it out so well that no one ever suspected my true hidden identity.
I grew out of that dual identity split mostly.
And though I have many reasons for moving to London, I’m seeing a new benefit I hadn’t consciously thought of. I get a do-over on the immigration thing. I get to do it as an adult who understands more about the world and the concerns of adults. I get to look at my parents’ struggles as new immigrants in America, not as a traumatized child, afraid for them, but as an adult who understands much more about the world and what motivates adults to do what they do, seek what they must.
Although this present immigration is so much easier than the first, there are still all the elements there for me to reconsider. The feelings of strangeness, alien-ness, and isolation. The feelings of not being wanted, of being inferior. Fear that comes from the perception you have only yourself to rely on.
But as an adult you see that though others are indeed different from us, they’re mostly the same. You see that feelings of inferiority are just byproducts of being new and inexperienced in a certain environment. But it’s only a perception. Where as a child I felt inferior not understanding the language, as an adult I know I’m not, and that languages are learned. As an adult I have some understanding of purpose. And I can calm my own fears and explain my perceptions.
In a way, by doing this over, I get to finally answer the child Gigi’s questions. Mainly “Why did you bring me here?” “Why am I not like the others?” “Why do they treat me this way?” And I get to bring her completely back to the fold of all my identities. The identities that one inherits, adopts, develops, to become a person, like any other.
