Migration and movement has been a theme of many blogposts, podcast interviews and discussions both here at Culturallyours and elsewhere. Now more than even, migration of people from place to place seems to be on the rise for a variety of reasons. What makes people move from their home and home country? How do they feel when they leave everything that they know and love behind to start afresh? Where do they belong? Do they miss home? – all valid questions that perhaps we will never be able to fully answer and understand.
Sarah Orman of My Modern Diary shares her feelings, thoughts and emotions about leaving her home country of England and making a home and a life in America – through the process of migration and most recently, citizenship – answering the question of what does it mean to belong to more than one place.
From Sarah,
For thousands of years humans have acknowledged planet Earth’s geographical vastness and that the land we occupy, from the Americas to Australia and everything in between, has played host to people since the beginning of mankind. Once upon a time, however, our ancestors were completely unaware of the seven continents that make up the world as we know it in 2019, let alone the tribes that inhabited them. It’s with thanks to the courageous pioneers of the past that the boundaries and lines of ethnicity are now more blurred than ever before. As such, many nations, particularly in the West, have become increasingly diverse and the idea of a smaller world is undeniably more apparent as human migration figures continue to rise year after year.
It would be impossible to write about migration without pausing to recognize that today, there are more people forcibly displaced worldwide than ever before. Although there are success stories of individuals who have made an informed choice to relocate (my own included), it cannot be overlooked that a major contributing factor to the exponential increase in migration is the heartbreaking truth that many who seek to find refuge are fleeing from homeland hardships.
Escaping oppression is a familiarity the developed world has come to regard as commonplace and it is thought that the global refugee crisis saw 70.8 million people uprooted as of June 2019. While these statistics are saddening to say the least, the benefits of migration should also be considered.
For those who have been liberated, a new life is often an improved life, and for the nations who have been welcoming immigrants for many years, the movement of people has led to various ethnic groups becoming firmly integrated into society. As such, what may have been a distant foreign culture to the native population in years gone by can now be experienced without the need to travel. Described as a melting pot, this multinational existence is apparent nowhere more so than in the United States of America.
Defined as, “a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence” the United States is home to the world’s largest number of immigrants. In 2017, the U.S. foreign-born population reached a record 44.4 million, some 707,000 of which naturalized to become American citizens during that fiscal year. Hard to fully comprehend though these statistics are, it is clear that the United States has long been a diverse democracy welcoming families and individuals from all over the globe, despite the more recent political unrest surrounding immigration. For those who reside in the U.S. as immigrants vs. naturalized citizens, however, there can often be a feeling of limbo in which one can lose his or her sense of identity. While today’s America is indeed a multicultural society, I can personally attest to experiencing confusion about where to call home since I first took up residence here.
When I moved to the United States in 2010, I was fixed on the idea that Washington D.C. was but a temporary place to live and work. An 18-month commitment in the nation’s capital was simply an experience that would better my chances for employment in London in the future, and so I came to the U.S. with no intentions to stay longer than necessary. The title of home belonged to England and I’d never imagined myself residing permanently anywhere but the country in which I’d been born and raised. I was proud to be British and I loved my motherland dearly. Little did I know back then that I’d fall head over heels, however, not only with my husband of 7 years who was once a mere stranger I passed in the corridor every day, but more surprisingly, that I’d become emotionally attached to the United States itself.
Almost ten years on and I now call D.C. home. Earlier this year I celebrated becoming an American citizen, and with it, a new sense of attachment. In advance of my citizenship application I truthfully hadn’t given the idea much thought, but as the months passed by awaiting confirmation of an appointment, I began to consider what it meant to live in a country I’d come to consider home without truly feeling like I belonged. Although it was unexpected, I had genuinely loved living in the United States since the moment I arrived, however, it wasn’t upon reflection now that the idea of citizenship loomed that I began to realize something had been missing all these years.
It’s difficult to pinpoint when I first noticed an absence of belonging, despite America fulfilling all the characteristics one associates with a permanent abode. Perhaps it was every time I returned from overseas travel to face inquiry from border control vs. a friendly “welcome home.” Or maybe that during the last Presidential election I desperately wished my voice counted for something. Either way, as the idea of becoming a citizen of the United States sunk in, so did the delight at finally being able to call Washington D.C. home and mean it. On the day of my Naturalization Ceremony, I was both nervous and excited. As the speaker announced a list of over 150 different countries represented that morning, I suddenly felt overwhelmed with joy for everyone; did all these participants finally feel like they truly belonged too?
Equally, I began to wonder whether the people around me had mixed emotions concerning their feelings towards their homeland. While I longed to officially be part of America, I was certain that my heritage was and would continue to be British. And so the question of home once again arose in the back of my mind and amidst the celebration, a familiar confusion returned.
Several months on, inclusive of a week long return to England using my American passport, and I’m beginning to understand and appreciate that one’s heart can faithfully lie in two very separate places. For me and so many others here in the United States, home is plural, yet my sense of belonging to either nation is in no way diluted. The small world we now live in, both geographically and culturally thanks to technological advancement and the evolution of migration, allows a person to label themselves as more than one creed. I am a proud citizen of both Great Britain and the United States of America and I belong to both nations respectively.
{Words by Sarah Orman, website: My Modern Diary, instagram: @mymoderndiary}
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