Being a Golden Immigrant in the Bay Area
Two years ago, I moved to the US full of hopes. I had my version of the American dream, like any migrants making it to the promised land. Mine was pretty basic: a fresh new start overseas where everything could be possible. For many non-Americans, this immigrant ideal has been weakened by Donald Trump’s election. The 45th President of the United States never hidden his disdain for foreigners, including Europeans. However, the most destructive parts of Trump’s mandate — including the Muslim Ban and the now questioned future of the DACA program — have been directed at people who don’t look like me. Why did I get to feel so different than other immigrants?
As a French citizen in the Bay Area, I never really saw myself as a migrant. I always felt that I belonged exactly where I was, in the heart of Silicon Valley. My whiteness helped me to fit in with the crowd, and nobody — from law enforcement to coworkers — ever questioned my presence in the US. I have been incredibly welcomed and even envied for where I came from. Many Americans liked me for my Frenchness, as if it was something empowering and “trendy.” I once dated a guy who always introduced me as “The French Girl.”
But somehow, I always felt ashamed of my accent — it immediately revealed something very intimate to me: my real identity — even though it was apparently appealing and charming to my peers. My differences became my most significant assets, and that’s what being a golden immigrant does to you. People are not valuing you for who you are, but for what your citizenship inspires. In my case, a romantic country, a poetic language and the Parisian cliché, et voilà!
However, I certainly wasn’t one of a kind in the foggy city. Like me, more than 60,000 French citizens chose the Bay Area as their new home according to the French Consulate, but that’s just a drop in the ocean though compared to the 44.4 million foreign-born people in the country. Others include Mexicans (11.2 million), Chinese (2.9 million), Indians (2.6 million), and so many more. We all have something in common: we weren’t born in the United States of America.
My experience as a white immigrant isn’t replicated by others, particularly if they were visible minorities. I reached out to some other immigrants to get their takes on moving to America.
Daphne (21 years old) arrived in the US when she was two, leaving behind her her home country, Singapore. Even though she grew up as an American, she always felt labeled and stigmatized by her roots. Sadly, she couldn’t help herself but wondered if all the Asian-fetish jokes she heard were reflecting the reality. “Growing up, I wondered a couple of times if people liked me for me or because I was a foreigner. This fear followed me for years and impacted my personal life, affecting my relationships.”
With time, I realized that we all have a very unique experience when it comes to settling in America. Each one of us has been treated differently, following a kind of silent rule established to evaluate our worth on the American market. If you’re “fortunate” enough, you will be considered a golden immigrant, a term I came up with when I tried to explain my own acculturation process. As a foreigner, you want to be a part of the best of this country, but to get there so much depends on the way you were born.
Most of those who enjoy the benefits of being in this category are coming from western, highly-developed mostly-white countries: England, Australia, Italy or Germany. There can be down sides to this treatment too. The goodwill people have demonstrated to me blinded me from the immigration crisis and my immigration issues. They put me in a very comfortable bubble that made me forget that things were easier for me due to where I was born. I was still struggling to get a new visa, and whenever I shared my worries with my relatives, they never really understood and never took it seriously. “Joanna, you’re French. You want to stay, just get married. Everybody will be lucky to marry you. It’s not like you’re coming from Sudan.”
Ariana A. (29 years old), a former DACA participant and Harvard student, told me how it feels to not be one of the “good immigrants.” She arrived in the US when she was four. Her parents left Mexico to offer her a brighter future. She spent most of her life being undocumented and scared of what could happen. While immensely proud of her family heritage, it often put her in a dangerous situation. “I am never going to be able to be a “golden immigrant”, not that I want to be. I have European friends who may fall under that category and are perceived as good immigrants because they are not “brown” and “dirty.”
After spending more than 25 years in the US, she learned to ignore what should define her. “I feel American because I have lived the majority of my life in the US. It has nothing to do with how people make me feel but rather how I’ve learned to carry myself. I have learned to code-switch depending on the setting that I am in, and the people who surround me. People can have opinions about who I am and what I represent, but only I know my truth and what that means.”
Eventually, being American is a social-construct, a title that includes undocumented and documented immigrants from all over the world — something that this nation that so many dream of moving to, was built on.
