Remembering “American Foreigner,”

What I’d Written, Back in April, 2019

(According to an article, recently, in The Independent: A federal judge has “blocked the Trump administration…from moving forward with plans to deny green cards or permanent citizenship to immigrants who have received Medicaid, food stamps or housing vouchers, even on a limited basis — a wealth test that several states, led by New York, sued over during the coronavirus pandemic…Donald Trump has sought an expansion of the requirements, but critics argued that they could have a chilling effect for legal immigrants who needed medical treatment or financial aid during the pandemic.”)

Earlier on, in the Trump administration era, immigrant children were being separated from their parents. This still is occurring, according to news media. There are those detention centers, here in America, where children are being held. DETENTION CENTERS!

These are just a few examples of what’s happening.

I’ve been thinking about this letter I wrote in a Colorado online magazine — a counterpoint, in a way:

LETTER: American Foreigner

April 19, 2019

Everything was different, the dialects, the mannerisms, the culture. I was a foreigner, sometimes struggling to understand what people were saying. It was the first week of a multi-year posting, overseas, during my corporate career. I was working thousands of miles from my home country, the United States of America.

I tried taking in everything possible; that was my strategy for acclimating to the new, foreign surroundings where I was a foreigner. At work, I had to ask people to repeat things. When I was off work, even routine things you need to do, like shopping for food, were different. Getting acclimated was challenging and, at times, frustrating, but adjusting to different cultures and ethnicities became exhilarating. Everything I was taking in and experiencing helped me appreciate the world beyond the borders of my homeland. The different languages, the different styles of apparel, everything was fascinating and enriching.

Now, years after working and living abroad, I relish being in places here at home in America, where you hear people speaking differently and you see people wearing fashion that reflects their culture and ethnicity.