June is usually referred to as “Pride Month.” The queer community celebrates at this time – there are rainbows everywhere, identities and orientations get highlighted, and there’s a feeling of celebration in the air. However, this June is different: It’s Pride Month as always, but also “National Immigrant Heritage Month.”
On May 31st of this year, the current President of the USA, Joe Biden, declared it so:
NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2023 as National Immigrant Heritage Month. I call upon the people of the United States to learn more about the history of our Nation’s diverse and varied immigrant communities and to observe this month with appropriate programming and activities that remind us of the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
I already say that I come from a multicultural family, Syrian immigrants that created a new home in Venezuela, and now I’m doing the same with my immediate relatives here in the States. I was raised between two worlds, but now I’m learning from a third one, while still honoring my roots and staying loyal to my own identity.
However, I discovered that I’m not only Arab. According to a DNA test, I am:
- 92% from the Eastern Mediterranean & Egypt
- 6% from Anatolia & the Caucasus
- 1% from Northern Africa
- 1% from Cyprus
Of course I expected the Middle East to be present and dominate the chart, but I wasn’t expecting anything more than that. This made me realize that our roots are not only where our family comes from, or where we are born and raised. They get most of the attention, but there’s more than that.
A map of Syria [Pixabay]
I’ve been thinking about those trips my relatives did to go from one continent to the other: how they started a new life, how my grandfather spent countless days in a ship crossing the ocean, how my dad left Syria and went to Argelia, Poland, Spain, until he came to Venezuela. I’ve been thinking about the time I left to go to Colombia and what it felt to arrive here a little more than two years ago.
During those first days, I heard a song in a supermarket while staying with my cousins and trying not to think how much I missed everyone on the other side of the continent. I liked it and saved it and listened to it now and then to stay strong. However, I recently crumbled down when I was in the car with mom and the radio played that song.
In a matter of seconds, all those memories came back. All the family grills, all the faces, all the trips, all the holidays, the games I played with my cousins, the talks with my aunts and uncles, all the times I hurt myself playing outside, the frustration tears because I couldn’t figure out Physics, Chemistry, or Math, Chemistry, the nights I locked myself in the restroom to cry tears and cry in red, the times I wanted to give up and kill myself.
I lost it and started crying without control.
I remembered my grandmother, who I’m hoping to see at least once again before she passes away, I remembered an uncle who’s a second dad to me, the friends I left, my dad’s grave that I couldn’t visit after we buried him. “And it’s been two years, I miss my home, But there’s a fire burning in my bones,” sang Rachel Platten, and I felt every single word of it.
I’ve started praying to my ancestors again and asking for their guidance and their protection, because I’ve been unemployed for almost two months already, because I’m taking medication for anxiety, panic attacks, focus, motivation, concentration, and insomnia. Because I feel I’m losing a battle they went through in harder times.
I’m praying to my ancestors because they were immigrants and I am now, because I’m the one who speaks the most fluent English at home, because I need to take care of my family, because I need and want to be a support for them, because I finally started studying writing as I always wanted to. I’m praying to them because I want to stay alive.
There are many immigrants scattered through this country, some of them in better conditions than me, and some of them with not a single relative or friend they can talk to. We came here because we wanted a better life, because we couldn’t progress, we couldn’t blossom, we were in danger, and had to take a deep breath before leaving with tears in our eyes.
A poster at a rally that reads “Immigrants make America great” [Pixabay]
As I said a few days ago, we came here with nothing, with no one, and had to learn to live again. However, as time passes, I try to remind myself that I’m getting to where I want to be. Even though I had a master’s degree in Venezuela, I graduated from the GED classes, I’m studying for an associate degree, and have plans to get a bachelors as well.
Those victories, however small or however big, are the ones that have kept me going. The same victories that keep going countless immigrants in this country, their descendants, and that will keep being a big part of it.
The USA has been a big challenge, terrifying, even, but it’s also presenting many opportunities we could only dream about years ago. And so we keep going, because of those who believe in us, watching us in the distance even if they couldn’t understand a word we said in the podium, and those we met here.
We’re rebuilding ourselves, learning about this new world, appreciating it, and giving back to it in any way we can. I’ve been volunteering as much as possible now that I don’t have a job, because I already cried, feared, and blamed myself for too long. I ain’t got time for that now, even if I fall down like I did that day or as I’ve done several time for the last two months.
We immigrants didn’t come here to cry and get buried alive. We came to live the life we deserve. And there are no words to describe what I felt when I learned that President Biden recognized that.
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