Some immigrants are luckier than others. We were embraced by complete strangers when we came to the States. “Welcome to America!” “God bless you!”
Then there is the Iraqi man in Texas who went outside to look at his first snowfall and was shot dead in front of his home. His welcome wagon was, shall we say, a little less festive.
What makes one person a target and not another? Was it simply that the color of his skin was darker than ours? Or were we lucky to be dealing with people slightly less crazy than the ones in Texas?
When we lived in Idaho, our neighbors pointed their many guns at everything else that moved–the squirrels, the birds–but not at us, at least as far as I can remember. Not that there was any love lost between us. They didn’t like us because we had an accent and spoke to each other in our native language. Actually, they were drug dealers, so they were paranoid and didn’t like anybody very much.
I was told when I came to America that I should fear the big cities with their muggings, but the scariest time I’ve experienced here has been the five years we spent in Boise. Still, we didn’t get shot. Since America is portrayed around the world as the country where people get shot, this was a big deal for us.
I guess this rambling post is to reflect on the randomness of fate. What decides which human beings live and die? Whether or not you look like the type of person who gets killed. And if you do, whether or not you are doing something “suspicious”. Whether or not you live somewhere where weapons get waved around in public, or a more civilized area like the one I currently inhabit, where the residents keep their weapons hidden in their homes. Whether or not the nutjob down the street finally reaches his tipping point. So many things can go wrong.
Some of us just happen to be lucky.
04/06/2015 at 9:11 pm
God bless you Eurobrat.
Please know this is not a problem isolated to those who have moved here.
I was born and raised here. I have owned my home for over 10 years. The home next to me is rented. And now, it is rented by drug dealers. I live in fear daily.
I understand.
04/07/2015 at 7:24 am
Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. So awful for you to live in constant fear
One can only hope that karma will work its way with those guys someday….
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04/07/2015 at 1:16 pm
Great post and I totally agree with you!! It reminded me of a story I wrote when I worked at the newspaper in Dallas, Texas. http://www.gosiawozniacka.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Why-I-was-chosen-to-be-an-American.pdf
04/08/2015 at 8:35 pm
Heh, your article says what I was trying to say, only it’s much better 😉 I feel incredibly fortunate to be here. I hope other people get the same opportunity, and that we don’t stop being a nation of immigrants!
04/10/2015 at 3:40 pm
“I was told when I came to America that I should fear the big cities…”
No, you should really fear every single crack & crevice of America. Well-armed loonies are fucking everywhere and just itching to prove their metal!
“but the scariest time I’ve experienced here has been the five years we spent in Boise.”
Boise is part of the Real America, not that elitist, anti-American, hippie commune of Portland you currently reside in. If you haven’t had a gun in your face in over a year, you’ve probably slipped across the border into Canuckistan by accident.
“Since America is portrayed around the world as the country where people get shot, this was a big deal for us.”
Portrayed??? That implies America might not be one of the most dangerous places to live outside of a war zone. It’s almost certainly the most dangerous place in the world people aren’t breaking down the doors to get out of. That’s for sure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
Your average All-American mass shooting contains more murders than the total annual murders of some countries.
“…or a more civilized area like the one I currently inhabit, where the residents keep their weapons hidden in their homes.”
Because in America, “more civilized” doesn’t mean the absence of weaponry. It just means keeping your vast stockpile of killing machines out of plain view.
“Some immigrants are luckier than others.”
You had an “easy” time because you were a white girl escaping from a then communist country. Change any of those facts and your experience would worsen considerably. Even if you came from today’s Poland, I expect things would be somewhat worse than it was then.
While so much of life is random, there are -uh- “less than random” forces at work. I think you know what I mean.
04/12/2015 at 8:59 am
Yeah, I do realize that Boise is the Real America, and note that I have very little to no interest in being a part of the Real America. I like Fake America just fine. Wouldn’t mind it at all if Oregon, Washington and B.C. became part of a Cascadia Region. That would make far more sense than Portland sharing a country with Idaho….
04/10/2015 at 3:41 pm
As for my “immigration experience”, I moved here from my mother’s vagina and have felt unwelcome ever since.
04/12/2015 at 9:00 am
I could work in some Freudian reference about trying to crawl back in, but I’ll leave you to do that yourself…..