Immigrant experiences are truly unique to each individual. Surely, patterns can be found; we humans are really good at finding patterns. But immigrant experience, like every other human being’s experience- immigrant or not- is unique.

I am going to share mine today. The title sounds negative, feels depressing- but trust me, like life my experience is not black and white. Bear with me.

So why am I calling it losing own identity? To answer that I really need you to think, how you identify yourself. Is it how you look? Is it your intelligence? Is it your social/economic/financial status? Is it your professional and/or personal skills? Is it how people treat you? Your name? Your gender? Your sex? Combination of all of these?

When I came to the United States for my Masters- ALL of these things, that one might use to identify themselves, were challenged, shaken, or omitted.

Take for- looks. Call me shallow, but I used to have a ‘hot body’ back in my country. For one thing, I was ‘tall for a girl’ (5’4″) in my country’s standard. When I moved to Athens, Ohio, my international friends often called me petite (in a good way mostly). I barely had extra fat before I came here. But after moving,  regular pizza, soda, and weekly cocktails made me ‘fat’. And it’s not just that. Back in my home country, Bangladesh, which is quite a conservative country, the clothes I used to wear were considered bold. I didn’t change my style here (except for cold weather clothes of course) but now I was told I dress as if I deliberately don’t want to look attractive. Like most of the girls in this world, I had always been insecure about my body. Suddenly gaining a lot of weight and with sudden change of external perception of me, I became more insecure- I lost one part of me the part who felt confident about her body or about the boldness her appearance delivered.

Back in Bangladesh, I was identified with my intelligence. Here, I am first a “woman of color”. I had never been identified with my color or even recognized for it (because, well mine is more or less a homogeneous nation, minus the small population of indigenous people). Here I am a Brown woman.  It’s a new identity. I am still on my way to embracing it.

Back in Bangladesh, I was unique (not bragging here). Despite being a woman from a single-mother, middle class family I never gave into the misogyny, chauvinism, or discrimination of my society. Everyone who knew me, loved me or adored me for that. Here, nobody understands my struggle. People here will never understand that I had to run 100 miles in Usain Bolt speed to reach the position, they need to take one step to reach (metaphorically).

Back in Bangladesh, I was fluent in English. People often used to get surprised when they heard I have never gone to an English medium school. Here, I don’t speak English well enough. I am not fast or fluent enough. My pronunciation is different if not ‘wrong’. I have funny accent! I don’t know the local slang or phrases. Back in Bangladesh, I spoke Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, and English- fluently. Here it doesn’t matter. I don’t speak Western European languages!

I was a sport nerd back home. That was my key to start a conversation. I loved sports so much, I became a sports reporter!  I loved football (soccer), cricket, tennis, and Formula 1.  In my country, women often are considered not to like sports; here again I was unique. But can you guess what happened after I came to the US? Look at my favorite sports list- none of them are popular in this country. From being a sport nerd I suddenly became a girl who knew nothing about sports!

I was considered a good dancer in my country. Play a Bollywood song and I will dance my ass off. Here, I can’t dance! I cannot rock, salsa, or hip-hop. I cannot break, tango, or reggae. I cannot twerk or grind.

Often my American friends ask me if I had read any specific American author or heard a specific musician or know an artist or athlete- it’s okay to ask. But it annoys me when they act surprised hearing I don’t know them. Come on guys, have you read Tagore? He is a Nobel laureate in literature. Have you heard A R Rahman? He won Oscar in 2009.  Do you know Shakib Al Hasan? He is the number one all rounder in ODI cricket. (Kudos if you say yes to any of these questions but you would also probably wouldn’t be surprised to hear if I didn’t know about Bruce Jenner). I don’t like it when people here don’t understand that America is not the center of the universe. Every artist here doesn’t necessarily have to be renowned in every part of the world. And I dislike it more when they try to look down on me for not knowing something.  But no matter how logically I try to see it, I do feel stupid when I don’t know someone famous here in a city or within the country. And it rarely happened back home. I was one of the well read people in my friend circles, if there was a song that became popular in my region, I would know it.

I was a good writer. And I got approvals of writers I adored and loved. I wrote for the best English daily of my country. I was a good sports reporter too. In fact, having inspired girls to get into sports and sports journalism, being a pioneer was one of the things I was proud of; I even wrote it in my statement of purpose when I applied for my M.A. This was my skill, something I thought no one could ever take away from me. I graduated in international journalism here. I thought with my multilingual skill, my South Asian heritage, and now with my MA degree, I will easily get a job as a reporter here. I misread the market. People don’t want International students in journalism here- H1B is for engineers and scientists- a field where USA has deficit; they have plenty of great journalists. I got rejected- from every outlet I applied for. And that was the biggest blow to my ‘self’. The one thing I was sure of- of being a good professional, of being a good journalist, of being a good writer- was finally snatched away from me.

That’s how the self I knew for 26 years of my life- got lost. I felt lost, and defeated, and frustrated. I hit a rock bottom. But that has always been the best part of my life- I mean the beginning of one of the best parts. Whenever I have hit a rock bottom, I have taken it as an opportunity to grow, to empower myself. That’s what I did this time as well- of course on a much larger scale.

I learned so much from losing myself! I learned that being insecure about my own body is STUPID. I need to be healthy- surely. But I have read myriads of articles (scholarly) about body images and social pressure on women about attaining the impractical body types. It not only changed my perspective towards my body, it also educated me about society, consumerism, advertising- and there relationships to each other.

I accepted that I was not unique. Uniqueness is relative. In fact I started feeling like a narcissist for thinking all my life that I was unique, for disregarding the fact that every person’s journey is unique to themselves. And that took me to the path of self discovery. And this still on going journey is mesmerizing, enlightening, and liberating.

Instead of blaming it on the system of recruitment I pointed out my own lack of hard work for not getting into a mainstream media. I didn’t network well, I didn’t take enough risks. I gave into the resistance. I defeated myself.

I also understood that there is no limit to learning. I mean, I always knew that but I rarely practiced it. I rarely learned new skills or tried new things. Learning new things or doing something for the first time has become my regular thing now! I keep reminding me how being content with myself had me hit the rock bottom.

But that doesn’t mean we should not be happy with ourselves. It’s just that we should never stop improving ourselves either. We should not be so arrogant to think that there is no avenue in life to develop. And it is also important to be aware of superficial development or the illusion of development which I used to suffer from and always keep in check if I am still suffering from.

Yes, not knowing a lot hurts and being reminded of that every moment hurts more. But I believe, it’s better to take it as an opportunity to learn more or to know yourself better (whether you want to learn about the Kardashians at all) than to feel oneself lesser than others.

Please, do not, for one moment, think that this has been a blog filled with complains. It’s not. It’s about my journey. How I thought I was losing my identity and myself and on that seeming downfall, I just started to find me!

To all my immigrant friends, foreign student friends, I know how hard it’s being to fit in, to feel you don’t belong here, to feel so below-average. Please don’t think this way. Just think, if the professor who is telling you your English is not good enough, remember s/he doesn’t know your language. If s/he were to teach in your native language, s/he would be doing a much worse job than you are. Don’t let your mind be a British colony where speaking English is a status of being well educated or smart! If you feel you’re not fit enough and if you think you want to be fitter- it’s never too late to start working out! Look at that 80 year old woman living her life by herself. Look at that 90 year old rock star who is learning to play guitar! If you think you don’t belong here, it’s okay. You’re snatched out of your elements- elements that were so integrated parts of yours that you didn’t even realize they made you- YOU, until you left them behind. Be proud of yourself! You traveled thousands of miles to pursue your career, your dream. You are the descendants of those dare-devil explorers who got out of Africa, who sailed into the ocean to discover, to explore, to learn- just like you.

All my American friends, you are awesome- you let me in your lives, you accepted me as a friend. Thank you. You are those rare people who have the acumen to understand the ‘other side’ and be compassionate. You have the eyes to see me beyond my skin color and my country of origin. Probably that’s why we are friends.

Dear others, I don’t know which category you’d fall into if we knew each other but please be compassionate if you’re an American. Get rid of your savior complex, if you have any. If you have an immigrant friend, please stop thinking you’re being open minded and liberal, if you’re thinking that at all. It’s not her being an immigrant that made you her friend- you liked her as a human! If you went to India and traveled for 10 days, please don’t think you know more about Indian politics or culture than a person from that region. Stop cultural appropriation.

Well that’s all for today. If you can relate to me, please leave a comment, share your experience. Thanks for being so patient and reading it all!