Difference in lifestyle

[Teacher Terry]

Originally Posted by Nefret

Whoa! That wouldn't go over in my house, that's for sure.

I can't imagine being married to a man who could tell me what I could or couldn't do. I married at 31 so I was independent and self-sufficient.

I’m glad your marriage doesn’t work that way because it’s not healthy but unfortunately it’s the way some couples operate.

[ohio_peasant]

Originally Posted by txfriend

As immigrants, we often say, "You can't go home again." The place we once called home is now unrecognizable. The farm I grew up on, for example, is now a bed and breakfast. The animals I used to tend to, such as horses, cows, pigs, and chickens, are no longer there. The people I knew have passed away, and even if they were alive, they wouldn't remember me. I would be a stranger in my village and an outsider.

As immigrants, we adapt to the customs and traditions of the new society we find ourselves in. In the US, for instance, cars are the primary mode of transportation, and we are spread out, making walking a less common option. Additionally, many of us have been deployed to different countries and continents and are used to traveling. As immigrants, we also have a natural desire to explore new places and see what lies over the next hill.

Immigrants may find themselves twice-homeless, fitting-in neither in the adopted environment, nor in the original one. If I were to return to the country where I was born, likely I'd be arrested in the airport, then shot. OK, a bit of hyperbole perhaps, but not far from the truth.. maybe an Arctic prison instead. And yet, in this "new" place (now many decades), or set of places, there's inevitably a sense of detachment, of un-belonging.

This makes me think of American homogeneity. The difference between New York City and rural Alabama may be vast, but the vastness is situational and relative. Denizens of both are likely to follow professional sports, to enjoy similar alcoholic drinks, in all probability to feel some affinity towards Christianity (though in different manifestations and different levels of fervor), to desire to eventually buy a house, and many other similar things, whose presence we forget, because in the popular narrative it is more entertaining or more profitable to highlight the differences. But from the immigrant's eyes, the differences, though very consequential at the ballot box, aren't so big in the aggregate of culture or lived experience.