I am an immigrant
She was seated on a small blanket in front of the bank and she looked hungry. On my way home from work I knelt to put a sack of fruit on her blanket and give her a smile and a wave. As I did it, I was scolded by an older woman who told me in French that I was encouraging her to stay (stay where? stay alive?) adding as she turned on her heels "rentrez chez vous" (go back to your own country) aimed, of course at the seated woman, not me. The homeless woman had brown skin. The woman marching away had assumed because I was white that I was both French and that I belonged here. But the truth is, I am an immigrant just the same, but my face and my clothes just happened to fit the story she had already written in her head. I'm an immigrant. Most people would call me an expatriate or expat because I'm white and because we have jobs. But we are very much like all those brown people Trump doesn't like who are living in the U.S. We are here to see the wor...
