Immigrants! We Get The Job Done!

Artwork by Nidhi Chanani for The Nib. She's super talented and you should support her. 

I moved to the States when I was 11 years old and because I was born and raised in England (on a steady diet of American sitcoms), I don't have any sort of discernible accent.

Because of the way I look, my ethnicity isn't always obvious and I've gotten guesses of everything from Italian to Bolivian to Puerto Rican. In South Florida, I typically get Latin American but in other parts of the country - I get confused stares. 

What are you?

I hate that question. 

I am 100% Indian...but I'm also 100% British and as of a little over two years ago, 100% American.

I am a first generation American and there is literally nowhere else in this world I would rather live. Hell, there's nowhere else in this world I'd rather live than West Palm Beach.

Immigration has been at the crux of the American Dream since its very genesis and yet, because of the current political climate fomented by the Trump administration, I worry. 

"Can they take my citizenship away because I wasn't born here?"

I have worked hard to become an American.

I arrived here in 1994 and didn't become an American until 2015. If my citizenship journey was a person, it would be old enough to drink legally. 

It's a common story - people work their whole lives to become Americans and now, we live with the fear that some intangible something might happen and it will all be taken away. 

I used to make myself sick with worry. What happens if I can't stay? What happens if I have to leave my family, my friends, this life that I have built for myself? 

And then, I became an American and I was at peace. I made it - look how far I've come. Look how far I've come. Immigrants! We get the job done!

But once again, I worry. 

And that shouldn't the case. Once you make it, you make it. Once you belong here, you belong here. That's the promise of America. 

And yet...

"And it's, it's really astonishing that in a country founded by immigrants
"Immigrant" has somehow become a bad word
So the debate rages on and we continue..."

Immigrants! We Get The Job Done - Hamilton Mixtape.