Immigrant Quotes

“The truth is, immigrants tend to be more American than people born here.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Choke

“And as any mixed-race person will tell you—to be half of two things is to be whole of nothing.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“You’re here, supposedly, in a new land full of opportunity, but somehow have gotten trapped in a pretend version of the old country.”
― Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown

“Our immigrant plant teachers offer a lot of different models for how not to make themselves welcome on a new continent. Garlic mustard poisons the soil so that native species will die. Tamarisk uses up all the water. Foreign invaders like loosestrife, kudzu, and cheat grass have the colonizing habit of taking over others’ homes and growing without regard to limits. But Plantain is not like that. Its strategy was to be useful, to fit into small places, to coexist with others around the dooryard, to heal wounds. Plantain is so prevalent, so well integrated, that we think of it as native. It has earned the name bestowed by botanists for plants that have become our own. Plantain is not indigenous but “naturalized.” This is the same term we use for the foreign-born when they become citizens in our country.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

“Poor Father, I see his final exploration. He arrives at the new place, his hair risen in astonishment, his mouth and eyes dumb. His toe scuffs a soft storm of sand, he kneels and his arms spread in pantomimic celebration, the immigrant, as in every moment of his life, arriving eternally on the shore of his Self.”
― E.L. Doctorow, Ragtime

“For the first time back then, I thought about everything seriously. The past and the future, both equally unknowable, and also this ongoing situation that the consulates call "transitory" but that we know in everyday language as "the present.”
― Anna Seghers, Transit

“Am I then more of an American than those who drew their first breath on American Ground?”
― Alexander Hamilton, The Essential Hamilton: Letters & Other Writings: A Library of America Special Publication

“Just because someone leaves their home doesn't mean they no longer love it. Nor does it mean they won't do anything to help it.”
― Riley Sager, With a Vengeance

“The Dark Cloud
Is the sweater that is like a community that is tightly knit
Is the zero respect that you have for bureaucratic bullshit
Is the number of times you became annoyed with investment banking
Is the intellect of an immigrant that gets bulldozed over because of social ranking”
― Aida Mandic, The Dark Cloud

“The Dark Cloud
Is the weaving of words that is ignored but leaves you stunned
Is the attitude of professors that don’t care unless you have a huge trust fund
Is the disgust you feel towards sexism, racism, and ageism
Is the hatred of a country that has fierce nationalism and chauvinism”
― Aida Mandic, The Dark Cloud

“Better abandon citizenship than abandon your dream.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets

“A civilized world is not where everybody flocks to another nation to fulfill their dream, but where everybody can pursue their dream without feeling the need to become an immigrant.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets

“Who needs smoke machines and stick-figure flags when you can have a straightforward visa application.”
― Dipti Dhakul

“If you run away without looking back when you see a danger, you will only save yourself, not your honour! The same thing will happen if you run away when there are dangerous developments in your country!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Waarom hield zij eigenlijk niet zo van haar moederland? Nederland was toch meer haar vaderland, al durfde ze dat thuis nooit hardop te zeggen. Ze sprak beter Nederlands dan Turks, maakte zoiets uit voor het land dat je je vaderland noemde? Was de taal die je het beste sprak de taal van je vaderland, ook al lag het land van je ouders in een ander werelddeel?”
― Karin Hilterman, Meryem

“Die eerste avond in bed vroeg ze zich af waarom ze ook alweer zo naar Nederland verlangde. Het was er koud, er waren geen leuke brieven en de buren hadden hen niet verwelkomd. Er leek niets leuk aan Nederland.”
― Karin Hilterman, Meryem

“On earth we are immigrants from Africa - out in space we'd be immigrants from Earth - in a different galaxy, we'd be immigrants from Milkyway. To put simply, in exploration of space, both external and internal, terms like immigrant and indigenous are meaningless. It's the heart that makes us indigenous or immigrant, not blood.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tum Dunya Tek Millet: Greatest Country on Earth is Earth

“Better a refugee than prisoner
(Sonnet 1555)

Eon upon eon I seek for a refuge,
Land upon land I receive but coldness.
Last I stand at your door exhausted,
Spare some warmth, for my heart freezes!

Stateless, cultless, I walk the planet.
Restless, sleepless, I live a dream.
Friendless, loveless, I brave the mission.
The being is dissolved for the beacon to beam.

Wield, I do, my conscience as compass.
Wear, I do, my backbone as battery.
Bouts of tragedy only amplifies my thunder,
Nature's bare mockery makes miracle of me.

Borders are for hoarders, my home is the world.
Better a refugee to the sea than prisoner of the pond.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“Better a refugee to the sea than prisoner of the pond.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“Better a refugee than prisoner.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“I only ever know myself hanging, in the exulted tempest untouched
by nativities—the possibilities of my name
emptied to the firmaments, which could not care to claim me
yet labour to intubate the clouds, blithely feeding my body to the greying
furies. My own jettisoned to the moors, a bay of white
polyester sheets, illuminated by ornate keys, bandaged
after Catastrophe.”
― Saif Sidari, Visiting Hours

“Ik zal mijn land nooit meer zien, het mooiste land ter wereld als je geen rekening houdt met de kapotgeschoten huizen en de platgebrande olijfbomen. Ik zal nooit meer met mijn auto over deze weg rijden. Ik zal mijn ouders nooit meer zien.”
― Erik Wouters, Malak

“I began to look at them in a new light and finally understood that they had always wanted what was best for me, had always wished for my success, but lacked the tools and knowledge to help me. They did what they could, escaping poverty and persecution to bring my brothers and me to what they saw as this promised land. They could not have anticipated all the hardships we would face here. Faith was all they had.”
― Ly Tran, House of Sticks

“I believe laughter is the shortest distance between two cultures — and the best therapy I never had to pay for.”
― Alireza (Tony) Fayyazi

“I teach with humor, heal with stories, and play tennis like I’m in the finals — even if it’s just a Tuesday in Thailand.”
― Alireza (Tony) Fayyazi

“Historically, national cuisines have been remarkably stable, and resistant to change, which is why the immigrant's refrigerator is the very last place to look for signs of assimilation.”
― Michael Pollan

“We call ourselves Mexican-American to signify we are neither Mexican nor American, but more the noun 'American' than the adjective 'Mexican'...This voluntary (yet forced) alienation makes for psychological conflict, a kind of dual identity— we don't identify with the Anglo-American cultural values and we don't totally identify with the Mexican cultural values. We are a synergy of two cultures with various degrees of Mexicanness or Angloness. I have so internalized the borderland conflict that sometimes I feel like one cancels out the other and we are zero, nothing, no one. A veces no soy nada ni nadie. Pero hasta cuando no lo soy, lo soy.”
― Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza

“We’ll get out of the crisis. We’ve already packed our suitcases.”
― Ljupka Cvetanova, Yet Another New Land

“We arrived in New York as academic students with non-immigrant visas. Although we didn't see ourselves as immigrants, we had brought all our earthly possessions to America, along with our emotional past and personal histories.”
― Michael Meguid, Great Joys, Great Sorrows: An Immigrant’s Journey through Surgical Residency

“In America I will have a daughter just like me. But over there nobody will say her worth is measured by the loudness of her husband’s belch. Over there nobody will look down on her, because I will make her speak only perfect American English. And over there she will always be too full to swallow any sorrow! She will know my meaning, because I will give her this swan—a creature that became more than what was hoped for.”
But when she arrived in the new country, the immigration officials pulled her swan away from her, leaving the woman fluttering her arms and with only one swan feather for a memory. And then she had to fill out so many forms she forgot why she had come and what she had left behind.”
― Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club