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The Idea of a ‘Good Enough’ Immigrant for the U.S. Doesn’t Exist
I worked so hard to remain in this country and yet these efforts still didn’t add up
I moved to the United States in August 2016 to attend graduate school where I would be trained to become a mental health clinician. It was an interesting era — at the peak of presidential election mayhem. I was a young immigrant student sandwiched between the anxieties of a Trump-Pence presidency and the romanticized hope of #ImWithHer.
On my second day in the city, as I walked the streets of North Michigan Avenue, a woman screamed with brazen abandon: “Hey, go back to your country!” I walked away without saying anything. I had been trained well to handle these situations before I moved: Don’t make eye contact, don’t say anything, don’t get shot, don’t get deported. The American dream was too precious to lose. I’d learned that I was easily dispensable in the United States even before I left India. There are no lessons on resistance when the trade-off is conjoined to personal safety or losing everything you have worked for in less than five minutes.
In November 2016, when Trump won, America felt scarier, like an impending doom. My roommate and I spent the entire day at home because that felt safer than the anxiety of being othered more rapidly outside. We looked different, we spoke differently, we had visas, and we were still in school. Trump had spent the entirety of the year talking about how he’d take America back from them. We were a part of “them.” Silencing became more rampant as the fear of being dispossessed kept us occupied. Anger was meant to be shared within four walls while despair and hopelessness became a unanimous chant of “Well, what can we even do?”
I attended classes every day and worked part-time in an inner city school on the South Side of Chicago. I was applying for my clinical internship to qualify for state licensure and graduation. I had a lot to lose, but I also had a lot to offer. The spotlight remained on how America had done me a favor by “allowing” me to study and work. I was supposed to feel grateful, first; worthy, later. The powerlessness attached with immigration in the United States renders immigrant labor and sweat as worthless. The emphasis on what we cannot do is…
