And now, my friends, the 15-year LJ-versary celebrations continue, with the flip side: The Five Best Things About Being an Immigrant.

5. You get to act as sole representative of your entire country

If you’re thinking, oh hang on though, don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a pattern for the entire list.

I have discovered, after many years of developing thick enough skin to see this as an opportunity to get a little of my own back, how to turn people’s perceptions to my own advantage. For instance, if I tell an English person I’m from Hawai’i, there is a 35% chance they don’t realise that Hawai’i is part of the United States. I’m not kidding. Americans have a reputation for being bad at geography, and deservedly so. But even though the current US President is from Hawai’i, there are a lot of people who think, “fabulous foreign holiday destination!” and don’t connect it to the USA. So they get to tell me, “I thought you looked exotic/Polynesian/etc” and then squee to me about beaches and honeymoons, and I sit there smiling and imagining what I could get away with telling them now that they have literally no idea that I’m American. I don’t do it, but it is fun to think about.

Assuming, however, that they do recognise I’m American, I can get into conversations about their perceptions of the USA. 90% of the time, if they’ve been there, it’s to New York or Florida. Their memories of those holidays are almost overwhelmingly positive. If the conversation is long enough, I sometimes have the opportunity to point out gently that prejudices about Americans don’t correlate well with their actual experiences of the people or the country. Or, more subtly, by sharing my love of England and travels in Europe, I can in a small way help to combat the assumption that all Americans are nationalistic xenophobes who believe blindly in the superiority of their way of life.

4. Your relationships with natives are hard-earned and incredibly precious

As you no longer have local friends with whom you’ve grown up, gone to school, worked, played sport with or otherwise spent leisure time with, you are starting from the beginning with everyone you meet. You have to build on the shared experiences you generate from the moment of your arrival. You also have to be conscious that the cues you’ve used in the past to pass judgement on, for instance, how welcome you are in a gathering or how worthy a person is of your confidence and affection, might need re-calibration for your new culture. And of course, the usual general social rules surrounding not being too clingy or emotionally demanding of your nascent circle of acquaintances still apply, at a time when you’re probably feeling intensely lonely. So you tiptoe cautiously around, hopefully reaching out to people, sometimes being rebuffed or ignored and trying not to take it to heart. Eventually your weekends are booked up and you have people you can ask to the pub or the theatre or the cinema without hesitation. Or who might even desire your company enough to invite you along. Perhaps you won’t recognise that you’ve made friends until you start to be able to choose to be alone if you want to be, rather than having solitude be your default state.

I can still very clearly remember the first time that I realised I had actually succeeded in acquiring a group of trustworthy, kind, generous British friends whose company was richly rewarding. I’m not going to write about it in a public post, but suffice it to say that it reduced me to tears.

3. Your resilience and adaptability are strengthened beyond what you thought possible

It’s commonly believed that among the most stressful occurrences in adult life are moving house, changing jobs, ending relationships and having children. Immigrating lets you inflict the first two of those on yourself simultaneously whilst putting tremendous pressure on your relationships. (It doesn’t force you to have children, thank goodness.) And - assuming you’re not a refugee or victim of forced migration - you’ve volunteered for it. On the positive side, you have time to prepare as much as possible in a physical sense. If you’re moving at the behest of your employer, you likely have financial and practical relocation support. Once you’ve arrived in your new home, though, you’re largely on your own. You have to forge a way forward into the vast unfamiliarity that stretches around you on all sides. So you do it, every day. You wake up and the wave of uncertainty and panic and isolation crashes over you, but you shower and dress and you make yourself go outside into that unknown territory full of worryingly unknowable people. With the right combination of determination and luck, eventually you win yourself a measure of comfort and a sense of community.

The most difficult test of my own resilience and adaptability with respect to the decision to immigrate permanently is ongoing. Every day that passes is another day in which my children are immersed in my adopted, not native, culture. I am hopeful that the environment that my partner and I have created for them is a rich and diverse place, and that they will be able to pick and choose elements of their nationalities and associated cultures that make them kind and happy people. But only time will tell.

2. You get to redefine yourself

As you learn about your adopted culture, you can embrace the elements that you enjoy, from tiny things like putting milk in your tea and going to the pub after work (without setting off a slew of concern trolling about what must be incipient alcoholism), to big ones, like believing in the ultimate good of a socialised health care system. You can revel in the pleasure of throwing off the oppressive shackles of your native culture and past experience. You can carve out a new identity, one which integrates the desirable remnants of your old self with the traits and behaviours you admire in your new culture and are trying to emulate. While striving to understand those around you, you are becoming more accepting of yourself.

Before this descends into a morass of woo (maybe it's too late...): you also get to smoothly and relatively painlessly sever communication with those irritating acquaintances and relatives whom you could never shake off when you lived thousands of miles closer, as part of this redefinition. I’m definitely not advocating immigration as a first-choice method for selective bridge-burning, but there is a certain petty satisfaction in it being an inevitable side effect.

1. You are living your dream

I must caveat this as well: it does not apply to refugees and victims of forced migration. However, for those of us who have always wanted to live in our adopted countries, it is a hard-won accomplishment and an honour and a pleasure to be admitted into it. You have achieved a thing: immigration. It was a difficult and painful thing as well as a joyous and a valuable thing. You made a dream into your reality.

Last week* on my London evening I went to BBC Broadcasting House with one of my work colleagues, because I had tickets to a recording of The Museum of Curiosity. The idea behind this radio show is that three eminent guests donate exhibits to the imaginary museum after being interviewed by host John Lloyd and the curator. The curator position rotates between comedians. At the time of this recording, it was Noel Fielding. Phil Jupitus and Sarah Millican have previously curated. The guests on this occasion were another comedian, a composer and an architect.

The show seems to make an effort to have at least one woman as an eminent guest, which is rather nice. Unfortunately, I found the one female guest - the architect - actively cringe-making.

She was the last one of the three guests to be interviewed. It turned out that she had originally trained as a medic and practised for a short while as a GP. Then she went to India to spend a month in a leper** colony on an island, and it was there that she determined that she needed to completely change her career and become an "experimental architect". So she could revolutionise the way Western people live, because all our buildings are "dead" and we're locked into worship of machines and we need to learn from people who can make amazing things out of sticks and shit because they've got nothing else, or something. I don't know. Anyway, she actually didn't say the words, "Desperately poor and ill brown people are, like, so inspiring." Make no mistake, though, that was exactly what she meant. I didn't stand up and scream your racism is unintentional but it is not benign, but believe me, it took every ounce of my strength not to. Instead, I withheld my applause when she concluded. I also left a sardonic review of the event in the survey I was e-mailed after the recording, mentioning that they might want to make an effort to vett their guests for offensively colonial 19th century views.

Sometimes I think I've assimilated into British culture a bit too well.

* I've been wanting to post about this since that evening but every time I sat down to do it, nothing but a stream of incoherent rage would come out. So please don't make the mistake of thinking that, because the tone in this is pretty level, that I'm not still very bloody angry about it.
** I did glean some small amusement when one of the other guests - the composer - gently rebuked her afterward for referring to it as leprosy instead of Hansen's disease.

My friend Holly (cosmolinguist) is writing a book about being an immigrant. Like me, Holly has lived in the UK for many years as an immigrant and has written poignant posts on the subject, as can be seen the foreignness tag on her DW. She has a gift for voicing thoughts for which I often struggle to find the words.

The Kickstarter for her book, Duel for Citizenship, has just 12 hours left. It can be found here. Most levels of support include a copy of the book as an incentive. If you can support her project, which I see as a vital response to the clamour of toxic and xenophobic anti-immigrant/refugee rhetoric currently dominating the public narrative, I would appreciate it too.

Today's Unscientific Poll was prompted by the realisation that after all these years in Britain, I still (not-so-)secretly prefer thin, crispy, streaky bacon to the thick-cut back bacon that gets served with a full English.

On Martin Luther King day (yesterday)

Me: “My work inbox is quiet today. You can tell it's MLK day in the States.”
Him: “Who's he?”
Me, after a long pause: “This is like that time you got me to explain bukkake to you, isn't it.”

At the dinner table. We are having an assortment of leftovers. I have also cooked the remainder of a packet of streaky bacon.
Keiki, pointing: “Mmm! Mmmm! Mmm!”
Me: “What? Mashed potatoes?...No. Pasta?...No. Beans?...No. Oh, but you've never had bacon before. Are you sure?”
Keiki: “MMMMMM!”
Me: “Okay, okay!”
(He ate two slices.)

In Norfolk

Humuhumu, laughing (age 3): “Bum Bum!”
Cousin, laughing (age 4): “Bum Bum!”
Adults: “Stop that! It's not nice to call people bum bum.”
There is a pause.
Humuhumu: “Cousin! Let's go upstairs so we can say it and they can't hear us.”

At home, a couple of weeks later.
Humuhumu: “Mummy, it's not nice to call people poo poo, is it.”
Me: “No.”
Humuhumu: “Or bum bum.”
Me: “No.”
Humuhumu: “You're not a poo poo or a bum bum.”
Me, gravely: “Thank you.”
Humuhumu: “You're a silly billy.”

Recently, emelbe came to visit us, bringing glorious weather with her. She spent six days with us, lounging in the garden, going for runs and generally being a very relaxed hoopy frood. (She’s definitely the sort of hitchhiker who really knows where her towel is.)

She also took some pictures, which I’m sharing here with permission and much glee.

( +8, Hanging in the garden on hot days )

We took M to a nearby Country Fair, because if you’re going to visit rural Worcestershire you might as well have a properly agricultural experience. With locally brewed cider. And a “guess the weight of the pregnant pig” contest.

( +8, Pony ride, bouncy castle )

And finally, because M was here during 4 July, which perhaps understandably is not quite as big a deal in Britain as it is in the United States, we had a Revolting Colonial Day barbecue. The bloke retaliated by inviting a bunch of Brits to come over and help celebrate. We may have been outnumbered, but I think we made up for it with attitude. :D

Two dual nationals and their Daddy. The sticker on Humuhumu's shirt is Neptune, from her Usborne "Space" sticker book. (This means that her version of the solar system as recorded in the book has only seven planets.)

( +1 )

Last Friday we headed to the embassy in London to register Keiki's birth and apply for his other passport.

When we did this for Humuhumu, the bloke's trousers split as we were navigating the packed morning Tube. He got to swear his oath of truthfulness before the consular officer with his jumper artfully tied about his waist to keep his pants from peeping out playfully from beneath his trousers. We were therefore anticipating some manner of sartorial disaster to befall one of us during the adventure.

It didn't happen during the commute, which was unnecessarily exciting due to the cancellation of our first train. We hustled to get on a train going in the opposite direction so that we could travel instead via fast train. The fast train, by virtue of being fast, was also rammed, so we ended up getting on the next slow train, which stopped at the station we started in, only 15 minutes later. Humuhumu, who loves public transport, entertained morning commuters on the busy platform by gleefully greeting the arrival of every train with, "OH, TRAIIIN!", whilst her parents attempted to disappear into their hats.

Despite the delay we still arrived a comfortable margin before our appointment to go through the security checks and unintentionally play "spot the celebrity". (Last time it was Jay Rayner. This time it was Rita Ora. Her assistant interrupted our initial check-in to determine where to go for a VIP appointment.)

Once we were through into the citizen-only waiting room, Humuhumu gravitated towards the soft play area and promptly befriended a small boy. Or rather, attracted a small boy follower whom she scarcely noticed. (This is a theme at her nursery as well. She has a staunch attendant there who always fetches her coat and bag when we come to pick her up.) He toddled loyally after her, presenting her with blocks that she could integrate into her sculptures, which she then kicked over gleefully.

After paying the fees for the registration and passport, we settled down to wait until we were called before a consular officer. Keiki woke, realised he hadn't been fed for a while, and squawked. I arranged my cover and sat down to feed him. When he was finished, I removed the cover to find that the sartorial disaster had struck. These days I find I don't have much leakage from the opposite breast whilst feeding, and when I do, a breast pad is more than sufficient to soak it up and protect my clothing. But of course, not this time. My entire right side was soaked. There was no way to conceal it without putting my wool coat back on, which I did, even though it was tropical in the waiting room.

In the end, I swore my oath of truthfulness to the consular officer whilst sweating profusely and smelling faintly of stale milk. Classy.

A thing happened recently that I didn't feel comfortable addressing directly with the person involved, so it's turned into a journal post.

Someone felt the need to go on a diatribe to me about how it's a travesty that Americans continue to celebrate Thanksgiving, a holiday built on what can mildly be described as false premises.

Every year I post a picture to Facebook of Wednesday Addams holding a match and delivering the following speech about Thanksgiving.

You have taken the land which is rightfully ours. Years from now my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans, and drink highballs. We will sell our bracelets by the road sides. You will play golf, and enjoy hot hors d'oeuvres. My people will have pain and degradation. Your people will have stick shifts. The gods of my tribe have spoken. They have said, "Do not trust the Pilgrims, especially Sarah Miller."...And for all these reasons I have decided to scalp you and burn your village to the ground.

Despite this, every year, I make an effort to celebrate Thanksgiving. Since I've had the space to do so, I've invited as many people as I can cater for to my home and fed them, at the very least, on pumpkin pie and wine. Because I also believe that despite its hugely problematic origins, the saccharine mythology of which continues to be propagated in American schools, it is possibly one of the nicest American traditions in the way it is actually practiced. I have on many occasions not been able to be with my own family on Thanksgiving, including the entirety of the last decade. Yet because of the generosity of friends, colleagues and casual acquaintances, I have never felt alone or unloved on this holiday. When most Americans hear that you haven't got anywhere to be on Thanksgiving, they will immediately invite you to their own celebration, even if they don't know you well, and the invitation will be sincere. You don't have to take it if you don't want to. But the option is always there - to be fed a nice meal, in company of people in good spirits, which in my world is one of the best things you can ever do for others.

I know the origin stories of America, especially as taught to young Americans, are full of inconsistencies and glaring omissions. I know that Americans have, to put it mildly, not always behaved well as colonists. If I were to get romantic about it, I could argue that I embody the conflict between colonial and colonised interests from the cultural right down to the genetic level, given my parents' national and racial origins.

I also know that in choosing to become British, I have taken on the mantle of possibly the most notorious of the modern colonialist oppressors. And I know that in choosing to emigrate permanently, I have given up on participation in a large portion of the culture I was brought up in. I spend 99% of my time immersed in British culture. My partner is British. My children will grow up predominantly British.

So. I get angry when someone feels the need to tell me that, of the 1% of my time that I choose deliberately to celebrate something that is American, I shouldn't be doing it. Perhaps, O White English Person, the next time you feel the need to dress someone down for clinging to a tiny portion of the culture in which they grew up, you should consider that you are possibly not the most appropriate mouthpiece of justice.

pulchritude said: feeling 'other' in Hawai'i vs. in the continental US vs in the UK

This is a particularly interesting one, especially after having just returned from the [continental] US. Apologies in advance for the number of quotation marks used in this post.

In Hawai'i, I didn't feel "other" because of my appearance or my ethnicity or my personality. Unlike a lot of the other children, I was not Chinese or Japanese or Filipino or Samoan or even native Hawai'ian. I was "hapa" - mixed race; usually East Asian + white, but can be any combination. There are a lot of hapa children in Hawai'i and many are brought up bilingual and bi- or multi-cultural. I had the latter but not the former. My parents did not make a special effort to speak Tagalog or Ilocano in our home. In fact, most of my cousins, who are Filipino-only, don't speak either language. I'm not sure if this is unique to our family or if it is part of the Filipino attitude toward cultural integration. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I never felt "other" in Hawai'i at all. Having been away for so long, I probably would feel it if I went back to live there, which makes me a little sad. The only way to have avoided that, however, would be never to have left in the first place.

Feeling "other" for the first time happened when I was moved to the continental US to go to school. Instead of being surrounded by children who looked like me and had the same mixed-Asian cultural experience, I was surrounded by white children. The most popular children were blonde-haired and blue-eyed, and I very quickly learned that I would never be one of them. My confidence was dashed. My outgoing nature was subdued. I learned to guard my tongue against slips that would reveal that I ate "gross" food (e.g. Spam, noodles (?!)) or watched "weird" movies (e.g. kung fu). Since I was good at school-work, I adopted the mantle of "smartest girl in the class" and kept it through high school, which protected me from bullying to a certain extent - at least it meant the teachers were usually paying attention to me.

I feel "other" all the time in the UK simply because I'm American by birth and my accent gives me away (although my American relatives couldn't stop talking about my "British" accent). But it's an "other" I'm comfortable with, probably because I like and admire modern British culture, and have made an effort to study it and to integrate into it as best I can. Whenever I go back to the States, though, there is a repressed part of me that uncoils and relaxes. I get a bit louder, a bit more animated, a little more sweary, and somewhat more likely to share personal information. I don't even realise that that part of me had been tensed up and on alert while I'm in the UK, on guard against loosening of the tongue or oversharing of emotion, until I'm away.

major_clanger requested: Moving to the West Midlands. What's it like becoming a (near) Brummie? How do you find Birmingham/Worcestershire?

We’ve been here (rural Worcestershire) for slightly over a year. Since I don’t commute to London every day like I did when we were living in Cambridge, I’ve actually had a chance to get to know the area and our neighbours. In fact, this is an especially timely post because we had supper at a neighbour’s last night.

We live in a hamlet. Our postcode encompasses half a dozen houses and a pub. Nothing else. Our nearest village is about a mile away and the nearest town about two miles away. The University of Birmingham, where the bloke works, is over ten miles away. London is a hundred miles away. It is the most rural place I’ve ever lived. If I didn’t go to London for two days a week, I think I’d feel a lot more lost and isolated than I do.

The area we live in is stunning for its natural beauty and bedded-in cultivated areas, which feel like they’ve been the same for centuries. We’re in a cottage next to the Worcester to Birmingham canal. Pastoral and picturesque are the words that spring to mind when I look out over the fields surrounding us - in fact, it can sometimes seem slightly unreal, as if someone had painted the scenery on the windows.

There’s a split between our neighbours, as far as I can tell. I don’t believe it’s a deliberate schism, but the three sets of people we’ve gotten to know are not originally from here. Even the couple that could be called the king and queen of the village (in whose house we ate a roast dinner last night) moved to the area forty years ago and don’t have Brummie accents. Our immediate neighbours are a fabulous elderly woman whom I adore, a Londoner by birth and by choice until she retired and came to settle in her husband’s cottage, and one of her sons. The young couple over the road are from southern England and Iran. They have two sweet children and we don’t see them often enough. Though all of us have good intentions, they too work full time.

We have met the neighbours who were born and bred here, but we don’t know them very well. They have their own community, in which the older non-locals participate to a certain extent because they’ve been here for decades. I don’t think we’d be unwelcome in it, although I’m sure we’d have to try hard to be accepted and neither of us can put the necessary effort into it since we both work full-time (and not locally).

Because the neighbours we know and the friends we made through NCT (National Childbirth Trust) class are not originally Brummies, I don’t feel like I’ve got a deep understanding of the local culture. I know it seems quite different from London. It’s friendlier, but also flashier. When we go to the pub, I don’t think I can get away with jeans/boots/jumper like I do in London, or at least if I am going to be dressed relatively casually, I need to fix my hair and put on make-up. They make a real effort to look their best when they’re out, even just to put out the bins or post a letter. The decor of public spaces and house interiors also tends to be loud and/or blingy. The bloke’s taste is even more conservative than mine, so both of us found this a bit of a shock. I like it though - because they’re so good-humoured in general, it feels welcoming rather than off-putting.

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