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 world, we are here to give our children a better life.  We are here to give ourselves a better life too, to see how another country does things and to become fluent in another language.  We want our children to be bilingual.  We are lucky as far as immigrants are concerned.  We aren't political refugees.  We didn't flee a war torn country. We are doing what we have chosen to do and we are doing ok.  That said, being an immigrant is HARD.  So take everything I say, and times it by a hundred for those coming into a country with nothing, fleeing a horrific situation and battling prejudice.  

Every country has put in LOTS of stopping points for anyone entering the country to make sure everything is reported and legal.  All these things take time, energy and money.  Each step of the process (and it doesn't end with your visa, there are things to be reported and done for each year you spend as an immigrant) is filled with visits to different agencies, reports to be filled out, ancient documents to hunt down and deadlines that are NOT TO BE MISSED.  Anyone thinking that people make the decision to live outside their birth country lightly is deluding themselves or just hasn't talked to an immigrant, ever.  Being an immigrant means spending hours translating what you want to say to your son's teacher to explain how he might be a little anxious due to our frequent relocations.  It means trying to make friends in a language that you only half know.  It means trying to stay focused on what people are saying because if you drift off for a second it all sounds like the adult voices on the Peanuts Christmas special.  It means welcoming change, allowing yourself to be uncomfortable a lot and reminding yourself that this is what you chose to do.  It means having to give up deep friendship connections until you know the language well enough. For many, it means giving up earned status and training to begin again. It means communicating at a lower level and risking someone thinking you are an idiot. ALL THE TIME.
Of course there are wonderful things about living in another country.  LOTS of wonderful things.  That is why we are doing it. We all want to make our lives and our children's lives better and we are doing our best. But please, let's look at immigrants' stories, their real stories, not the ones we've made up in our heads.