Somewhere In Between

Maybe I should have seen it coming.

At a botanical gardens last week in the country where I was born, I witnessed the inherently problematic nature of the supposedly clear divide between "local" and "foreign." As my mom waited in line for tickets, I noticed a strange sign: the fee was 100 rupees (0.7 USD) for "locals" and 1,000 rupees (7 USD) for "foreigners." I stood there and nearly laughed out loud thinking it was some clever park ranger's version of a leftover April fools' trick.

But this was no joke.

The scene took an interesting twist when several park officials (dressed eerily like police officers) took it upon themselves to question my national-ness: whether I sufficiently qualified as a "local" to deserve the lower fare. As they searched through my backpack, they asked where I was from. Instead of a long drawn-out family history, I simply told them the name of my childhood hometown. It didn't ease their concerns.

I confused them: I looked like a "local" but sounded like a "foreigner." The discriminatory fee board did not account for the likes of me. As I grappled with the notion of non-belonging in a place of supposedly inherent belonging, one thought occurred to me. The look of confusion in their eyes revealed the product of an immigrant way of life: even where you are supposed to belong, you don't. Maybe at some point you did, but you no longer do.

Several days later the scene repeated at an elephant orphanage. This time the distinction was greater: 100 rupees for "locals" and 2,500 rupees (17 USD) for "foreign adults." Since the stakes were higher, the security guard asked me directly if I understood Sinhalese, his question sounding more like a statement of fact from a disappointed older relative. Never mind there is a significant minority of "locals" who speak another language. To him, 2,400 rupees was on the line. In my best nonchalant Sinhalese I could muster, I answered him dismissively and proceeded to the gate. I later wondered if a silent treatment and the showing of my "local" passport would have been sufficient.

That answer came at the departure counter at the Colombo airport. The emigration officer insisted my passport picture did not resemble me and then wanted to know why I did not have a National I.D. Not knowing if a country had a right to prevent its citizens from leaving and thinking that it probably did, I played along if only to just leave as soon as I could. I told him I had lived abroad for many years. More questions followed. Maybe he thought I didn't deserve to have the "local" passport. Maybe he was right.

I wish words could explain this feeling of non-belonging, of permanent estrangement in a supposed homeland, of being stuck somewhere in between. But maybe that's the point -- maybe the fact that this phenomenon is difficult to describe adds to its strangeness. And maybe even to its universality. Maybe what cannot be explained in words can be felt in the hearts of people around the world struggling to define themselves in a purportedly binary world of "locals" and "foreigners."

Maybe those who exist somewhere in between can compel the rest to reevaluate the existence of the binary. And then maybe we can live in a time when someone is neither put into a box nor compelled to choose one.

Better Than It Has Been

"I can't believe I'm out."

In the nearly three hours on a random April night when our lives crossed paths, she uttered that phrase numerous times. I wanted to ask but I did not. I would not have to.

She had left her birthplace nearly a year ago. She travelled through 18 countries. Mostly she walked. She spent nearly a week in the jungle without food. At one point, her passport was robbed and she lost her identity. Yet she walked some more. After eight months of traveling she finally made it to the border. A few hours in the Sonora desert and she was in Arizona. Then she was arrested.

I walked through that desert this morning. The crunch the rocks make beneath your shoes echo through the landscape of peppered cacti. It is both beautiful and terrifying. The desert floor rejects your attempts to imprint your footsteps on it. At every step there's a plant waiting to attack trespassers. The space feels haunted. Yet, the place feels familiar.

After being arrested by our increasingly efficient border patrol, she was held in "detention" for four months while they assessed her national security risk. It's a strange word to use in the context of her story -- her descriptions of inadequate food and being forced to smuggle bare bones provisions of noodles from the commissary only to have those taken by the guards; her stories of being forced to labor as punishment for not following strict rules; her accounts of the lack of proper medical care where the prescription for every conceivable ailment is to "drink water." "Detention" connotes a sense of harmlessness and benevolence. Her experiences denote torment and tragedy.

Walking through the desert, I wondered how we got here. How did we come to the point in an increasingly globalized world betraying physical borders on a daily and minute-by-minute basis to so severely punish those who seek to transcend? Can we look past the lines in the sand that have been arbitrarily drawn and look into the eyes of unbelievable courage in the stranger? Can we recognize her stubborn determination? Can we see her desire for a better life akin to our daily struggles and ambitions? Can we look in her eyes and see ourselves?

I welcomed her to America since I assumed no one had done so yet. She looked at me and smiled ever so slightly. Then she replied, “I hope it will be better than it has been.”

Me too, my friend. Me too.

The Selectivity of our Collective Mourning

In a public park on Sunday evening, a bomb blasts. As the Christian world celebrates Easter, at least 52 people lie dead. Another 200 are injured, among them, children.

This was the first news article I read this morning. I want to believe that we will take the time today to say a prayer for those who have lost their lives, pray for healing for those among the injured, and pray for peace. Yet, most of us, will not.

Because it happened in Lahore.

If those killed and injured had been in a public park in the western world, our profile pictures would change to reflect our somber remembrance of their lives. Our tweets will hashtag their country of nationality while we hold our virtual hands together in prayer and solidarity. We did for London. We did for Paris. We did for Brussels.

But we will not for Lahore.

On some level, this seems unjust. It seems callous of us to select those for whom we will collectively mourn. Yet, on another level, it seems understandable. In a time when suicide bombings seem common in certain parts of the world, it appears almost reasonable of us to only mourn the times when it happens in places it should not. Instead of engulfing ourselves in perpetual mourning, we choose the ones we can cry for. We can mourn for. We can pray for. We can remember.

But I wonder how much of ourselves we lose in making that choice. I wonder how much of our humanity we sacrifice by scrolling without pausing. In the selectivity of our collective mourning, we once again distinguish between those who matter and those who do not. We differentiate. We divide. And in that division, most of the victims of our global violence will go without being remembered. Their families will bury the dead knowing that they live in a world where their loved ones were not included in our collective grief.

To at least lessen that pain, we should remember Lahore.

The Fifteenth Year

Today marks a significant day. Significant not because of anything that happened on this somewhat ordinary Tuesday but rather what happened fifteen years ago. On February 16, 2001, I broke metaphorical ties with a homeland I never quite felt any attachment to and moved half way around the world seeking permanence.

In the decade and a half since that day, the search for permanence has proved elusive. It seems hardly a day has passed by when I have not been reminded of my outsider status, the inherent impermanence of strangerhood. Hardly a day has gone by when I have not felt the pressure of being a first-generation immigrant, shouldering the responsibility of both honoring a superficial family name evidenced by parental sacrifice and countering anti-immigrant sentiment looking to fuel the flame of nativist fires. And yet in that state of impermanence, I have learned to appreciate the everyday. For each day I wake up in this undoubtedly spectacular place of shelter and refuge, I am grateful.

I am grateful for the time and the lessons. I am grateful for being able to embrace the uncertainty both of my immigrant (or more accurately, nonimmigrant) status and of life. I am grateful for understanding where I came from and how that has shaped my perspective. I am grateful for friends who have welcomed me. I am grateful for family that has stood by me. I am grateful for the shelter of a country finding its way.

Fifteen years. For fifteen years, I had the luxury of living among some of the kindest people I have ever known. For fifteen years, I had the good fortune of being educated by some of the smartest people in the world. For fifteen years, I learned from teachers, from coaches, from friends, from neighbors, and from strangers. For fifteen years, I had the chance to laugh, to cry, to be afraid, to hold on, to smile.

Whatever the next fifteen years will bring, and wherever the road may lead, I know that it is because of the last fifteen that I will have the strength, courage, determination, and fortitude to face the future. For that, above all else, I am grateful in this fifteenth year.

Alps of the Privileged

On a cold, foggy morning five days before Christmas, my uncle and I headed east from Grand Saconnex, Geneva, along Route Blanche, to Chamonix, France. From Chamonix, we took a cable car up to Mont Blanc ("White Mountain"), the highest peak in the Alps. I was not sure of what to expect. Walking onto a wooden deck at one of the viewing points and being surrounded by indescribable scenery was a moment of surrealism. I was where few will ever be. Of those who live, have lived, or will ever live, most would probably never step foot there at the top of Europe.

I wondered about what this place signified. This place belonging to the world but restricted to a few. This place tightly controlled by borders and immigration policies. This place of highly skewed visitor demographics. This place of exclusivity. This place many would talk about but would never get to see. This place transformed into cliche yet indescribable in mere words. This place resembling the pictures yet defying the imagination. This place of wonder.

I wondered about how I got to be there. I was at Mont Blanc by pure chance. The good fortune of having relatives living close by. The blessing of a flexible job. The luxury of making enough to take a vacation. The by chance permission granted by a consulate officer having a good day. I did not earn this luxury, yet I was enjoying the privilege. The good fortune of my life was never more obvious to me than when I stood on that wooden deck staring at a panoramic view of snow capped peaks surrounded by the bright glare of sunshine amidst clear blue skies. 

I wondered what being there could mean. Could I still empathize the migrant, immigrant, refugee, and asylee experiences after setting foot in this place at the top of Europe? Does being in this place forever blind me to the plight of those enduring harsh immigration policies? Could I ever be able to see beyond the snow capped peaks of this exclusive space? Would I still be able to understand?

The answers seem hardly clear. Yet one aspect seems certain. Whether they are the Alps of France, or the Alps of Switzerland, or the Alps of Italy or the Alps of any other Alpine State, they bear one universal characteristic: they are the Alps of the Privileged.

I am among the privileged.

Between Wednesdays

Two Wednesdays ago I sat in the lobby of a foreign consulate office in San Francisco and waited for my name to be called. I was early for my 11:45 am appointment. At around 11:40, the officer at the window with a sign that read "Visas Only" motioned for me to approach. I walked past the two other windows with the signs "Citizens Only" and stood in front of her. I was there to apply for a visa to visit family abroad. On a good day, the visa would be granted. On a not-so-good-day, it would be denied. The odds were fifty-fifty considering the power and discretion of consulate officials. Ten minutes later, it turned out to be a good day. Another stamp on my passport that would arrive in the mail a week later.

One Wednesday ago I sat in the lobby of a privately-owned immigrant detention center under contract with the federal government and waited for the clock to strike 7:30 am. We were early for our appointment. At about five past the half hour, we walked in, handed them our IDs,  removed our shoes and placed them in a gray tray before proceeding through a metal detector. The scene was eerily reminiscent of a TSA checkpoint. I was there with a group who visited immigrant detainees cycling through a system that can best be described as absurd. On the best days, immigrants are locked up with no access to a lawyer, fighting against continual delays in their hearings and highly inflated bond amounts. On the worst days, immigrants are found dead in their cells.

This was Eloy Detention Center, a place notorious for their inability to keep their charges alive. After visiting with several detainees and hearing the grueling journeys they endured to get to the border, I wondered about how two people could share a common space across a desk in a waiting room smelling like ammonia yet be perpetually separated by extraordinary circumstances beyond either of their control. Circumstances that a twenty minute conversation and a handshake could never bridge. When I returned home, I found my passport with a new stamp waiting for me.

I want to understand this strange occurrence. How is it that I get to walk into an air-conditioned consulate office and walk out with permission to visit a foreign country? How is it that my journey to the U.S. did not involve traveling thousands of miles on foot, paying fees to countries along the way that detained me, paying more fees to smugglers to guide a part of the journey, and ultimately making it to the border only to be summarily arrested and detained for months or years at a time? How is it that some people never have nor ever will have the chance to do things "the right way," yet we still expect everyone to play by the blanket, strict, unforgiving rules?

I waited for a week hoping some insights would dawn on me. But I have none. I am no less curious, no less concerned, no less confused. All I have are stories of lives separated by space and time, separated by legality and illegality, separated by arbitrary rules and unforgiving punishments, separated between Wednesdays.

Ocean Therapy for the Landlocked Soul

For someone who spent most of her life living close to an ocean, whether it was the Indian or the Pacific, being landlocked in the Grand Canyon State has taken a toll. There is something about the ocean that has always provided a sense of calm. A sense of home. A sense of perspective that remains unparalleled. Perhaps driving through the vastness of the red Arizona desert may come close but it is definitely not the same as breathing in the ocean air with ones toes in the sand and conversing silently with rolling waves.

Last weekend I headed west to San Diego for a friend's wedding. I had not visited the city in nearly a decade. Much had changed from how I remembered it. The random one-way streets reminded me of San Francisco. The wedding, of course, was beautiful. I met people who I had only ever heard about. There were faces to the names. I caught up with old friends in their new lives. Questions sparked conversations. What do you do? How do you like Arizona? So you're going to be an academic?

The answers to those questions should be straightforward but as I pondered them some more, they were not. After politely responding during the various conversations with strangers, the questions lingered in my mind well into the night. Do I know what I do? How do I really like Arizona? Had I really thought through the decision about being or not being an academic? I decided it was time to see the ocean for some answers. Or, at the very least, some perspective.

The next morning, I headed southwest toward Coronado. Going over the San Diego-Coronado Bridge I spotted the thin blue line of water and instinctually smiled. It was familiar. It felt like home. Walking along Ocean Boulevard, the sound of the rolling waves brought me immense joy. I hurried along the wall of neatly stacked rocks and made my way toward the water.

I walked along the sandy beach for a while. I spotted a couple unsuccessfully trying to get their little girl to step into the water. After screaming in protest, she was allowed to go back to building her sand castle safely away from the threat of wetness. I passed by a group of people doing push-ups while a man with a whistle around his neck yelled at them. I was sure those people had paid money to be there and endure that sort of motivational Sunday sermon. I saw a man with a metal detector sifting through the sand for coins. He had found a few already.

I sat down a few feet away from a lady relaxing on her beach towel. It was a little past nine in the morning and it was 75 degrees. I couldn't remember the last time it had been 75 degrees at nine in the morning! I smiled to myself at the thought of having to drive back to the Arizona heat later that day. It seemed only slightly ironic. I watched the waves rolling in and out. I watched a few surfers. I watched as the sun peeked in and out through some grayish clouds. I patiently waited for the ocean to speak. 

In the quiet through the rolling waves and the white noise of other ocean-goers, the ocean insisted: do something that matters and something that makes you happy. If you're fortunate, it will be one and the same.

After all, that is exactly what the ocean has always been.

An Unfamiliar Song

A little over one year ago, I headed east on Interstate 10 from South Pasadena, California in a car loaded with nearly everything I owned and made my way to Tempe, Arizona. Driving through the beautiful red desert landscape, one question came to mind: What was in Arizona?

Both literally and figuratively, I wondered about the adventure that lay ahead. A few months earlier, I had graduated from law school and much to the puzzlement of many family members I refused to embark on the traditional legal practice route. Instead, I explained in the best way I knew how, I would begin a Ph.D. program in history which will hopefully allow me to pursue my newfound ambition: aspiring teacher.

The school year went by and there was no clear answer to the question. And then came the summer.

That first week of teaching was profoundly life-changing. I was up at four or five in the morning everyday too enamored with the prospect of going to class to fall back asleep. It was a feeling of indescribable excitement where a purportedly rational mind vacillated between complete acceptance of an uncontrollable state of being and a rather somber realization that none of it might actually be real. It was a feeling where imagination became a cruel foe, preventing the mind from sorting through what is real and that which is pretend.

It was a feeling of waking up in the middle of the night because my heart started talking without prompting. And its rhythm beat a song that was unfamiliar. Unfamiliar because of its newness. Unfamiliar because it had never happened before. It was a feeling that was comforting and exciting. But it was also a feeling that was terrifying. My mind pondered its imaginary nature. My mind feared its temporary existence. My mind dreaded its inability to reoccur.

After all, never had I experienced such a thrill in anything I had ever done. I began to take comfort in knowing that I had finally found not just a job or career but a vocation, a calling. And just as my heart settled into this newfound routine of expecting this feeling whenever I walked into class in the morning, it happened again. This time for a few days. This time later in the summer. This time in a confused daze.

I don't know what happened the second time. I may be able to identify various factors that may have played a part. But I don't know for sure. I suppose I cannot know for a while. Writing this has been my way of accepting that uncertainty. All that is clear is that it felt like the first time. Maybe the answers will forever be elusive. After all, none of us can really know how the story ends. As with most things, it's probably best to let time reveal. What I may be able to know with some certainty is that the second time the heart played the unfamiliar song, it was not about teaching.

This summer provided me with a guess as to the question I had nearly one year ago: What was in Arizona?

It turns out, an unfamiliar song.

Home Again

I must admit that when I first heard Miranda Lambert say that you can’t go home again in The House That Built Me, I was not aware that the phrase was something people said. But since then I’ve heard it repeated on countless occasions although with never any sort of reasoning. So naturally, I wondered why. Fortunately for me, I had the chance to test this ambiguous sentiment a few years ago.

I went home again. Well, to be fair, the house that I got to go back and see after ten years away was not my home. It was the house that belonged to my father. Regardless, it was the place where I went to and from school. My place of residence, albeit temporarily, more or less.

The house had never been majestic. Yet, there were aspects of it that were grand. After all, I suppose it was fitting that we lived in a town called Grandpass. It was probably one of the larger houses in the neighborhood. I was told that people around town respected my father and his mother as residents of that house and before them, even my father’s father.

But when I got the chance to go back to see this house in which I spent a large portion of my childhood, it had fallen into decrepit ruin. The walls were barely visible beneath the soil and decay of age. The windows were boarded up. The garden was now occupied by weeds. Even the two iron gates that stood at the entrance were no longer a pair. Oh, how the mighty had fallen! What was once so grandiose was now commonplace, merely a house on a street, in a place. Time had robbed this grand old house of its identity, its purpose. Time seemed to have robbed it of everything. What lay behind was only a skeleton of what once was.

As we passed by, I could almost see her standing there upon that rusted iron gate staring out into the street, looking for her future. Me, at six or seven, wondering when I would get to see the world. I smiled when I saw her. I thought about how she had always wanted to travel. How she had spent so many afternoons resting her elbows on that iron gate wondering when it would be her turn. I wondered if I should tell her of all the places she’d get to see. Of all the experiences she’d get to live through. How her life was on the cusp of changing forever. But maybe it was better that she didn’t know. She was, after all, still a few years away from all that.

As the car stalled amidst traffic, our silent conversation through time ended abruptly. The boarded up windows stared back at me, warning me to resist the temptation to enter. You can’t go home again, they whispered sternly. As the car turned the corner and the house disappeared from view, I strained to keep her in my gaze knowing at that moment that it would be the last time I saw her. I would never see that house or her again.

I suppose beyond the practical impossibility of going back in time or reliving past memories, there is something to be said about wanting to be home again. Going back to a time when things were simpler, or more pleasant, or even happier. But, at least for me, going back to that place, going back to see her, was simply a reminder of who I was and where I came from. That was all. It was important for me to have seen what I saw that day. But not because I longed for the past. What I realized that night was that I had no desire to go home again. As much as time had ruined that house, time had improved me. Time moved on from those childhood days and it made me better. I was not her but she had become me.

I have no idea whether you can go home again or not. But for me, passing by that house, coming face-to-face with my childhood made me realize that I do not long for the past. I have no desire to relive it or go back in time to it. What matters most to me is looking ahead and moving forward. In that way, I’d like to eventually find a new place to call home.

I do not want to go home again. But someday I would like to be home again.

Musings of a Professional Student

I have been hiding.

My name is Judith. At least it has been for the last fourteen years. Before that, I was called something else. Looking back, I was probably someone else. But that doesn’t matter now. Well, at least not right now. Maybe it might make a good story someday.

Last night it occurred to me that I have spent most of my life hiding my thoughts. Whether it was scribbling profusely into a journal that no one would ever see or trying to blend into a large classroom so as not to be called on by a teacher, I have spent a large portion of my time trying to be invisible. Well, there was a time when I didn’t have to try. That again, might be a story for another time.

I want to change.

Considering the enormously large amount of time I have spent writing over the course of my life, mostly for class, it seems strange to me that I am nervous about starting this blog. I’ve written throughout my time in high school, college, law school, and now in graduate school. I’ve written fiction and non-fiction. I’ve produced utter nonsense and somewhat coherent thoughts. Yet, the idea of sharing first-hand experiences scares me to no end.

However, I was advised that I should do something (at least once a week, according to my source) that makes me uncomfortable in order to become better. To grow as a person. To change.

I would like to understand.

Subjectively speaking, a lot has happened in my life over the past decade or so. Some of it good. Some of it inexplicable. But for all of it, I am grateful.

I’m not seeking explanations. I refuse to ask the questions, “why?” or “why me?” Frankly, the answers to those questions seem irrelevant at best and useless at worst.

However, I would like to understand how those events changed who I am. I want to tell stories. I would like to know how I came to see the world in a certain way. I want to know what that viewpoint is. I would like to explore the journey and try to understand what it means for the future. I want to stop hiding.