This is a really great article demonstrating that emigration is SO not for everybody. Many people will end up deeply miserable as a result, just like the linked author.
It takes great courage to realize you made a mistake and go back instead of seething with rage that the new country is not the Kingdom of God you wanted it to be
This guy seems to have the U.S. accurately figured out.
Too many laws and too much over-sensitivity.
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It isn’t the US he’s writing about. It’s his annoyance that heaven on earth wasn’t all ready and waiting for his all-important arrival.
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In my immigrant community, this sense of entitlement is rampant. People are all, “How come there is an empty plastic cup on the ground? I was promised that the streets are clean and washed with shampoo daily here.” I’m not exaggerating, I heard this actual statement several times.
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It’s always an “even trade”
…you aim to exchange one place’s evils for some of the other place’s benefits, but wind up having to suffer the evils of that other place that are nonexistent in the place you left.
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Where do you get the idea that he’s going back to Nigeria? I just skimmed it (cause the format on that site jams up my browser) but he’s in frickin’ Utah. He’s not going anywhere.
There’s a long tradition of immigrants eloquently telling Americans how terrible they are and how soul-crushing their country is (while staying firmly put) and masochistic liberals lap it up and ask for more.
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I say the same disparaging things about the U.S. myself, and I was born and raised here.
Born in Toledo Ohio—also lived in Colorado, Georgia, New Mexico, and Texas.
Been back in Ohio just over 20 years now.
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Look, I can list all the defects of my mother for hours, but if somebody else says “your mom is a rank bitch”, I won’t like that.
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No, he’s not. But this was posted on Facebook by somebody I know who is from Nigeria and who did end up going back home. And it’s great for him, he’s doing very well. So I was addressing my friend with this post. I should have been more explicit.
But you are absolutely right about many people actually preferring this kind of disaffected immigrant to somebpdy like me who genuinely likes this country.
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The article reminds me of this short story.
It’s a combination of several things, I think.
The guy is in Utah. I’m not sure that from outside the country he would’ve known before coming that Utah is one of the worst places for culture shock if you’re black. Yes, there’s culture shock coming from any country but the place matters. Add in coming from a relatively cosmopolitan city in your native country and it’s very difficult. Hell, I would have culture shock if I moved to Utah! I had a roommate from a very tiny rumored sundown town (so tiny that a 34,000 person town was huge to her) who was so very uncomfortable with any non white person because it was all so very strange to her. She’s in Salt Lake City, which is much more comfortable for her and her dog training business.
Perhaps the racism exacerbates culture shock. I also think he’s miserable because he’s in an MFA/creative writing program and I had a friend who absolutely did not fit into her program, hated the city on the East Coast, clashed with her classmates and one of the profs over subtle(?) racism and ultimately ended up back in California to finish her MFA. There’s a certain kind of mold program directors think stories should fit in and if you don’t fit they literally have no idea how to react/evaluate you.
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American isn’t what it was and it never was heaven. It was — and for many remains — a decent place to live. But its not for everyone.
The US doesn’t publish the number of citizens who have left the country, or the number who have formally renounced citizenship. Mexico believes it has 2 million Americans living there, mostly illegal, and there are similarly large expat groups in UK, Costa Rica and South Korea. Canada has taken steps to bar Americans from emigrating there. I personally know expats living in UK, Korea and Saudi Arabia, none of whom have any intention to return. One black woman I met says she is treated better in Saudi Arabia than she ever was in the US.
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Absolutely. This is exactly what I tell people who want to come here. It’s really not for everybody. I’m loving it but it’s no guarantee they’ll love it.
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What a whiny asshole!
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I know several people who nominally live in the US, but their entire social sphere is still back home. A former bf goes back home at least twice a year, has no family or close friends in the US, and on the Tate occasion when I talk with him, his stories are still all about the people from back home. I don’t understand why he lives here, honestly. It’s not like he likes his job or the city he lives in all that much.
Another friend from college — he and wife live for spending summer vacations back home. They own no property, he earns very little at his academic job and complains how he hates the school, the wife doesn’t work because no job let’s you take 3.5 months off in the summer. They have little income, no job satisfaction, no property, and go back every chance they get — their standard of living is not in any way higher here than it would be back home, and they’d have a lot of family support there. Again, I don’t understand what keeps them here.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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