So, I recently stumbled across a blog called “Requires Only
That You Hate” (requireshate.wordpress.com), which as far as I can tell focuses on the “-isms” to be
found in Sci-Fi/Fantasy books/novels: racism, sexism, etc.
I’ve only read one article so far, but I’m really digging it
and I’m going to “follow” the blog and spend the next few days reading through
the archives.
As I was reading the comments on the most recent post I came
across the following in reference to one commenter saying that a specific (apparently
white) author was an immigrant:
Now now,
we all know that if it’s a white westerner they are an expat. That
unsavory label “immigrant” is reserved only for those of color and Eastern
Europeans.
This got me thinking about my own status and how I refer to
myself. Having been born and raised in the US,
I’m obviously a westerner – though I’m certainly not white – but both of my
parents were born and raised in Kenya
and came to the US
as immigrants. (Well, technically they came as students and ended up staying
and getting green cards, but to people who fight and argue against immigration,
that’s just splitting hairs.)
Because I’m a writer (and our imaginations tend to be the
biggest parts of ourselves) I’ve always had this romanticized idea of “going
abroad” to “find myself” and to form/bond with an “artists’ community”.
Basically, I wanted to go to France (preferably in the
mid-to-late 60’s) drink a lot of good wine, smoke cheap cigarettes and hang out
with a bunch of cool poets, writers, painters and musicians.
Central to this little fantasy was the idea of being an
“expat”: a cynical, *misunderstood* soul, so jaded and turned off by the
capitalistic ideas and ideals of mainstream American society that I’d have to
flee to more welcoming shores.
Of course, the fantasy was (and is) exactly that, but it did
color how I perceived my most recent journey. I came back to Kenya
mostly to spend time with my mother, but it has become an amazing opportunity
to focus on my writing.
The first thing I did was set up this blog, and I needed a
title for it that
was both catchy yet true. That was how I came up with
“chatty expat”. It never occurred to me that, as my parents were, I too might
actually be an immigrant. Granted, I have family here (lots of family!) and, since both my parents are from here, it’s
been relatively easy for me to gain citizenship (significantly easier than it
was for some family members to become US citizens), but by what right do I
claim the title of expatriate?
I actually have a “foreigner certificate” (the Kenyan
version of a US
green card – though mine expired a month before
it was issued…which is a whole other blog post in itself), so in the eyes of
the government – at least the immigration section – I am, at the moment, a
(somewhat) ‘legal alien’: an immigrant.
Yet, coming back to Kenya
has been more about coming “home” than anything else. Though I don’t speak any
of the languages – except for English – and I’m pretty much out of the loop as
far as national and local politics and events (though, to be fair, I was the
same in the states), and I’ve yet to find a source of income, this is still my home. At least, in familial
terms. Can one really be an expat if one is returning to one’s roots?
And, to be honest, I’m still pretty much an American. I keep
similar hours to those I kept in the states. I haven’t really been trying to
learn Swahili. I get irritated by petty things that are just facts of life out
here, i.e. the power outages that occur with an unfortunate frequency…And I
really miss my friends in the states.
Then again, I am
excited to be here and glad that I came…
Maybe I should change the subtitle of my blog to “The
Inner-monologue of an Indecisive Immigrant”.
