Anything to Declare? vol.01
In America, the color of my skin had stood between myself and me; in Europe, that barrier was down. Nothing is more desirable to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.
- James Baldwin, “Nobody Knows My Name”
I decided on the breakup when I realized I was falling in love. Perhaps I was primed for a new beginning because it was late January, that time of year when resolutions are still fresh. But really, I’d been wrestling with the idea for quite some time. I had lived in Copenhagen for two and a half years, and my student visa was up. I knew this day would come. I had to either go back to the States or commit to a new way of life in Denmark. Break up with my old home or end the infatuation with my new one. It was an extremely difficult decision, and I made it easily.
I moved to Denmark in 2011 for curiosity and practicality. Living abroad sounded fun, sure, but I was also granted a full tuition waiver for a master’s degree. Naturally, my mama having raised no fool, I went. It wasn’t just the place and the friends and the new way of life I was enamored with — it was also myself. I was solely responsible for navigating this new territory. I was building a life with absolutely nothing grandfathered in (a phrase which, as a Black American, carries much burdensome weight). I was confidently ordering my slices of carrot cake in a new language (gulerodskage, tak), cultivating an organic and alternate sense of humor, rereading American literature from a perspective only gained by distance. I was carefree. I recall responding to an American friend’s inquiry of how is it? with “I’m living the dream and hoping nobody finds out.”
I’m an educated, upper-middle-class, single woman from an industrialized country. Which is to say, not the type expected to leave. I am also the daughter of a Kenyan immigrant (funnily enough, my father became a US citizen while I was in Denmark waiting for confirmation of my green card). I am the story that many believe to be the goal of both immigration and migration. I have enough agency to leave simply because I can, simply because I want to, with “me” at the center of all my decisions.
Let me make one thing clear that the headlines don’t: immigration is as diverse as immigrants. It all depends on who you are, where you’re going, where you’re leaving, who you’re going with, and what time in your life (or time in world history) the whole jig is going down. There are as many reasons for and approaches to becoming an immigrant as there are ways to make a sandwich. But at the center of every individual experience is one thing: belief. A belief in something better — maybe just a little better, maybe a whole lot. Maybe it’s not a belief strictly for themselves but for their family or unborn children. A belief so enticing it usurps the others that came before it. A belief that the believer, who is positioned unequivocally at its core, feels a bit guilty to hold — though not enough to abandon it. Once I tasted being carefree, I believed in it. And, what’s more, I believed I deserved it.
So, tinged with guilt, I followed my fluttering heart.
My choice to go meant embarking on an adventure with a distant end date. My choice to stay was something else entirely. The permanence made my priorities extremely public. In staying I said no to my parents’ expectation of experiencing me become an adult, to their ability to attend a lecture I was giving, or to any in-person conversations that underscored the shift from my dependency on them to the realm of reciprocated respect. No to meeting any of my siblings’ new friends casually at a neighborhood bar. No to a shared holiday calendar, to the imperial system, to familiar cultural norms, to watching friends from my youth fall in love and get married. I said no to all of that and yes to a question mark covered in European Union red tape because, for all the terrifying mystique of the question mark, I liked me better there.
Then Michel Brown happened. And Eric Garner happened. And Tamir Rice happened. On December 8, 2014, almost a year after my decision to stay and in the resurgence of Black Lives Matter protests following the acquittal of the police officer who killed Eric Garner, I made a Facebook post that began, “There is a strong guilt in being so far removed from the events that are rocking the soil that cultivated my person.” The post went on about music, because art is how I process, and I linked to this song, which is still, I think, one of the saddest, most beautiful songs ever written. I wrote that post and listened to that song and wondered how much more often my exiled Black face may have recently smiled than all those protesting for their right to. I thought myself perhaps undeserving of being carefree because I hadn’t fought for it in a way that was so visible.
Still, I stayed. Uneasy but unharmed. My body feeling no immediate threat — but also no immediate sense of community. Devoid of anyone in my vicinity who could truly understand the pain of that song or the ripples of the headlines. Knowing one reality while living in another, I was alone in the safe haven I’d built.
This is the decision that my immigration required — that many migrations require. To be both and neither. To be alone but safe. To be carefree and guilt-ridden. To be broken up and in love.
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This is the first of a 12-part mini-series exploring my experience with immigration. Subscribe to get the rest of the volumes delivered directly to your inbox below. Feel free to say hello or share your thoughts or own immigration experiences by emailing me at hello@nereyaotieno.com.