Rethinking Immigration- Nish Thiyagarajah

Being an American born child of immigrant parents, with an entire family in our home country, I have a fair amount of personal experience involved with the subject when it comes to immigration. My father and mother traveled here through Canada in the late 70s through asylum due to violence that was happening in their country, as well as my father’s attainment of a scholarship from no other than the University of Cincinnati. They had a relatively hard time adjusting, and early on it caused our family a lot of problems which created unnecessary stress. I think one of the biggest problems for a lot of immigrants is accepting a role of lower distinction in this country when compared with their home country, most likely because of the ability to communicate effectively. This became such a problem for my mom that she was pretty much desperate to leave, which she did.


In terms of legislation, I personally have a lot of problems with our current regulations. When she left, it voided their request for asylum and so my dad, who was basically working his ass off and just beginning becoming successful in his place of work, was forced to toss everything aside and care for my sister and I above anything and everything else. I was four years old back then, and my sister was 12. My mother has tried, repeatedly, for the past 14 years, to regain citizenship and travel back here to be with us again. But so much money thrown at lawyers, court proceedings, and failed musings simply on how to reunite a mother with her children, has forced us to move on with our lives, because with all that time grew a large distance, and I don’t mean the 10,000 mile distance from here to Sri Lanka, but an emotional one. It’s sad, but it happens. All the time, immigrants without valid visas are swooped up with no warning, leaving children and families behind with no warning or sign of their disappearance. Personally, my experience with it has left me no belief whatsoever in the status quo and completely detached emotionally in terms of everything that’s happened.


My personal vision of immigration is simply people just looking to get a better life for themselves and perhaps remove themselves from a despondent situation. Really its just laughable to me, that immigration can be such a controversial topic considering it’s the foundation of this country and we’re all technically immigrants, stupid as that might sound. The government, at the same time, is doing what they need to in order to properly deal with people who are breaking the law. I’ve just never understood the lack of empathy actively displayed by the institution.


In terms of rethinking cultural identity, while my answer might not be all that satisfying, it’s simply what you make of it. That is to say, one’s cultural identity is, to me, an encompassment of who they are, what they’ve experienced and the people they surround themselves with. It’s a really broad topic, and to be honest I am not a fan of these types of questions at all. I think there’s so many different ways to think about something like cultural identity, and the best approach in my mind is to simply have respect for culture in general but not to treat others any differently than you’d approach a random person who looks “perfectly normal.” Cliched, yes. But the golden rule has that moniker for a reason.