#second generation immigrant

[andromedajones7]

Why is it such a foreign concept to people that you can be deported from the country you were born in-

[leafyyygreensss]

Obviously the US deserves all the hate but like... you should be able to understand why people immigrate there. When I told my non-immigrant friend my grandmother worked as a nurse in order to bring all of her children from Guyana into the US, she just kinda scoffed at the concept as if their actions were the same as glorifying America. Maybe I should've pressed them more on their views on immigrants...

(For context, this particular friend is a self identified far left commie, but I've since realized that they're probably an anti intellectual)

[supaunremarkable]

I think one of the worst things about being a second generation immigrant and having family overseas is that many of them pass before you get a chance to meet them. It also doesn’t help that my mother’s side of the family don’t communicate and my father has very few relatives.

I’ve been crying all day because my sister passed a few days ago. At first I didn’t feel anything because I hadn’t ever met her, only spoken to her once. But instead of crying about all I had lost and memories I think I was just crying about what could’ve been. We had recently spoke for the first time ever, I didn’t think anything of it but I wish I had now.

I’ve never met my grandparents, I know that I have relatives but those are just titles, I know nothing about them otherwise.

See, and when I would tell people about the recent news, and they’d ask me if I was close with my sister. I felt stupid in saying “no” and that I was crying over someone I had spoken to once . I think it’s also the feeling of missing out on all the things you could have experienced with them if you were more connected.

[quiet-art-kid]

Sometimes being a child of an immigrant can be really really lonely. I will always be the Russian in America, and I will always be the American in Russian, and while growing up with the perspective of two cultures certainly is helpful, you don’t really grow up feeling like you fit anywhere

It sucks even worse because Russian-American is not a common identity. If you look up Russian-American, you will find lists of Russians in American movies, Russians living in America, Americans reacting to russian things, Russian and American content creator colabs…..and no Russian-Americans. Just fuck me, I guess. I know I’m not alone. Statistically, I know there are many Russian-Americans out there, but it sure doesn’t feel like it

[damnpotatoe]

idk if any second generation immigrants feel this way but i kinda never thought of myself as "ausländer" or a foreign person until i went school where people had all those presumptions of me based of my (asian)filipino heritage, like how i should be great at school, have strict parents (which true but still, am high strung and perfectionistic. as i grew older i molded myself after the asian stereotypes (mostly of asian americans) that were thrust upon me. not saying i'm not proud of being filipino (but i my not have one drop of swiss blood but guys im swiss too) i truly am. i also noticed this occurring with my fellow peers. got one half afro brazilian classmate in 7-9th grade who was a pretty chill dude until one day he became the embodiment of the afroamerican stereotype and tried to act more like the talahons(ig roadman/eshay). he repeatedly used muslim terms despite many muslims telling him that that was disrespectful. im saddened by the fact that he felt the need to embody those stereotypes because people callef him white washed and accused him of being ashamed of being brazilian.

what i mean is stop calling immigrants white washed based of stereotypes of preconceived notions of how a person of a certain race or ethnicity should act because they are mostly incorrect anyway and very harmful

[malinasmoon]

Being a second generation immigrant is confusing because how could I identify as russian when I have never even visited the country? My mother learned to speak german fluently long before I was born. I do not speak her mother tongue.

But how could I identify as just German? My father is fully german, I've never been close to him. When I think of childhood.. I am watching Nu Pagadi and Mascha and eating Oreschki during Christmas time. My mother is on the phone with my grandma, I do not understand their conversations because they switch between Russian and German. I don't eat the same foods as my classmates. I don't understand their hatred of certain German cities or states. I don't know what the phrases or idioms they repeat mean. I could only tell you ones translated from Russian. I feel like I'm behind on learning to be German, and my father is not teaching me either.

Visiting my grandparents house brings a comfort that I'm longing for anytime I'm away. I cry thinking about my uncle Viktor making Oladji for breakfast, waking up to the comforting smell of apples and fried dough. He died 8 years ago, I haven't eaten Oladji since then.

And when I think of comfort, I am sitting at my grandma's kitchen table eating her Plov or Pelmeni or my grandpa's baked fish. I still don't understand their conversations, they still keep switching back to Russian. My grandparents are struggling with my German, I am struggling with their accents. It feels like home.

If someone asks, I tell them I'm german, but that half my family is Russian. One day my grandparents will be dead, and my mother will have no one left to speak with in her mother tongue. And I will be left to seek comfort in a language i still do not speak. I will be left as just german.

[ingued]

The multilingual experience is speaking something other than your first language and feeling demeaned since your speaking skills are much more narrow, and you don’t have the ability to express your actual feelings, intelligence and opinions because you just don’t have the words

Just to use english as an example: yes, I promise that I usually don’t say “like” as a placeholder every other sentence when speaking, but your own native language is the only merit of measurement you have when speaking to me so you have no way of knowing that

Tfw when you’re fluent enough to speak your second or third language properly but not well enough to sound like you’re above the age of eight

[hungarianmudkip69]

People often ask me, "Where are you from?"

I tell them I'm from my hometown, in Illinois, in the USA.

But the real answer is a little more complicated.

I was born in this town. I've lived here my whole life. But my mother was born and raised in Hungary, an ocean away. I may have been born in America, but I bear a Hungarian name.

I never learned Hungarian. English is the only language I speak. And yet my accent is tinted by my mother's, my heritage shading my words with a language I do not understand. Where am I from, when I speak with the sounds of a language I never learned?

I lap up the bits of knowledge I find about Hungarian history, the bits of culture my mother shares. I feel a deep loss at the fact I do not speak the language; I make steps to learn. I have been to Hungary once, when I was nine years old; I long to visit again, to meet my aunts and cousins from so far away, to explore the place that helped shape me from afar. I feel a connection to this country I've barely been, more than to the country I've lived all my life.

I recently learned that by Hungarian law, because my mother is a Hungarian citizen, I am as well. I would simply need to file some paperwork and I would be officially verified as a citizen of the land of half my blood. Does being Hungarian mean I am from Hungary? Can I be from more than one place? Can I be from a place I've never lived?

America is often touted as a land of immigrants, a melting pot. People don't identify Americans by their surnames, as they might say someone has a German surname, or a French surname. Americans bear surnames from all over the world, regardless of where they were born. "Where are you from?" is not always a simple question. So many of us carry the history of so many places in our selves, in our voices, in our traditions.

But this is not what people want to hear when they ask me where I am from. They are saying, "I have identified you as Other. Tell me what kind of Other you are." They are saying "I do not know your name, I do not know your voice. You are not like me."

How do I know this?

Because when I say I am from my hometown - when I tell them I am from the place I was born, the place I have always lived - there is a second question.

"But where are you really from?"