4 ms·

It must be nice to have the luxury of choosing to keep one's identity small rather than having a big identity foisted upon oneself by society, history, and the

It must be nice to have the luxury of choosing to keep one's identity small rather than having a big identity foisted upon oneself by society, history, and the circumstances of one's birth.

int3 5y ago
And how does that foisting happen?
Swizec 5y ago
Fun realization I made over the past 18 months or so after 6 years living in USA continuously: When you're white, you can't be an immigrant. This whole time I thought I was a plucky immigrant seeking a better life (economically). Turns out I was and am just white. Still grappling with this. Learning your identity was wrong is very discombobulating. On some level it feels like maybe I've been here long enough that I've become accepted? Nobody ever asks "Where are you from?" anymore ... guess working on my accent finally paid off. Friends have repeatedly told me I'm not allowed to complain or comment because "I can pass". Feels like if that were true I wouldn't need to pass, but when I ask that question it's like their brain gets a blue screen. Anyway, just sharing one person's experience. This is not commentary, a value judgement, or anything like that.
- cdogl 5y ago
  I think I understand the point you’re trying to make, but I don’t understand this formulation: “you can’t be an immigrant”. It sounds like you are, by definition, an immigrant. I wonder if this statement would more accurately capture the truth: “I realised that my experience is not aligned with some dominant popular narratives of immigrant life”. Or even: “generalisations of the immigrant experience are fraught”. If people are telling you that you can’t “complain or comment” on your experience.. I’d suggest questioning what kind of people you are calling your friends.
  - Swizec 5y ago
    > If people are telling you that you can’t “complain or comment” It’s because any such commenting is immediately seen in the context of the current social rights battles. Immigrant implies brown or hispanic in most people’s mind. Since I do not experience that sort of prejudice (supposedly), any complaining is immediately seen as “distracting”.
- travisjungroth 5y ago
  Happens for people leaving the USA (and other countries) too. They're not immigrants, they're ex-pats!
  - ramblerman 5y ago
    This doesn't mean the same thing though. If they are working abroad with the intention of returning, then expatriate is the correct term.
    - DoingIsLearning 5y ago
      No, in my understanding expatriated has two specific meanings: 1. Legally expatriated by a Nation/government. Removed from a nation's territory by decision of said nation. 2. Comission/Secondment abroad, where an employee of a government/company gets assigned to work abroad for a fixed period. From what I gather the term expat has been appropriated in British-American circles, to somehow detach higher income immigrants from the 'immigrant' stigma. I think this became a de facto convention when Investment Banking and Retail Banks (in non english-speaking countries) started adopting the term 'expat' in customer branding, to target higher income immigrants.
      - varjag 5y ago
        When an English term sounds too shitty on them, the British reliably turn to Latin or French.
    - varjag 5y ago
      Work migrant is even more correct.
- bgilly 5y ago
  Gross of other people to tell you who you are. I hope you swiftly told them to F off.
- deertick1 5y ago
  Hey there just wanted to say : not everyone in America thinks like this. there is this strange brand of modern racism where people reduce everything down to a race issue even when it is not. Ergo immigrant = not white. Same type of people that will claim that a given communities lack of resources is because it is a black community, ignoring that the community is poor and that there is a white community not 20 miles away with the exact same problems. Ironically, this seems to come from highly educated individuals whom I suspect have never 1) been to a third world country, off the resort 2) lived in a financially struggling household 3) worked an honest day of manual labor ever. Kibda got off in a rant there, but just wanted to say, fuck anyone who says "you can pass" when you say your an immigrant. If you want to call them out in language their indoctrinated brains can understand, say "are you denying my lived-experience?" I suspect if you make your way closer to the midwest you will meet less of these people, and more people who treat you like just another person and couldn't give a fuck how you identify. Cheers
  - vinay427 5y ago
    > I suspect if you make your way closer to the midwest you will meet less of these people, and more people who treat you like just another person and couldn't give a fuck how you identify. As someone that grew up somewhere in the midwest (which isn't as homogenous as is often implied) and then moved to a stereotypically left-leaning coastal city, this was perhaps true in certain circumstances but definitely not others. I wouldn't bother with smaller towns/villages outside of the largest metropolitan areas (that aren't university towns) unless you want to feel prejudiced by a racial identity that's imposed on you, and reminded of that on a daily basis, but the same is true of these smaller towns in most states as well as countries in the west, in my experience. It's a bit idealistic to say that people in the midwest care less about how you identify if there are instead more that impose their own identity on you.
    - deertick1 5y ago
      Yeah somehow I just don't buy that. Like ymmv but I've seen exactly 2 examples of actual racist people in the midwest. But like yeah I mean I grew up in one town, lived 1 life, and im a member of the racial majority so take my words with a grain of salt I guess.
- nine_k 5y ago
  Compared to this, it's fun to live and work in NYC. Here everybody assumes that everybody else can be an immigrant, or at least moved across the country to live here. But everybody also assumes that everybody else may be local, independently from the skin color, eye shape, accent, etc. (I personally love this arrangement. I've seen it in several other cities, like London and Moscow.)
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- SavantIdiot 5y ago
  What is the question they are blue-screening on?
- barry-cotter 5y ago
  > Friends have repeatedly told me I'm not allowed to complain or comment because "I can pass". Feels like if that were true I wouldn't need to pass, but when I ask that question it's like their brain gets a blue screen. “Friends”
  - Swizec 5y ago
    It was meant as a friendly warning, I think. Like a "Make sure you don't say this in public or to people you aren't super close with, you'll be crucified"
AbrahamParangi 5y ago
While there are those identities that may be easy or useful to inhabit (and pretty much all of us do this at least sometimes) you're still the one who gets to choose how you know yourself.
ramblerman 5y ago
So PG has the unique privilege of being able to think for himself? I'm not sure what you are trying to say really. But definitely victimhood is also a type of identity.
- tomlockwood 5y ago
  Slight correction: PG has the privilege of thinking that he can think for himself. And, everytime he posts such an enlightened self-aggrandizement, his post will be lauded and upvoted by many other similar free thinkers, all of whom are unorthodox, but never the victim, who see groupthink everywhere, but are never a part of it. The self-congratulation will continue, until society improves.

It must be nice to have the luxury of choosing to keep one's identity small rather than having a big identity foisted upon oneself by society, history, and the circumstances of one's birth.

int3 5y ago

And how does that foisting happen?

Swizec 5y ago

Fun realization I made over the past 18 months or so after 6 years living in USA continuously: When you're white, you can't be an immigrant. This whole time I thought I was a plucky immigrant seeking a better life (economically). Turns out I was and am just white. Still grappling with this. Learning your identity was wrong is very discombobulating. On some level it feels like maybe I've been here long enough that I've become accepted? Nobody ever asks "Where are you from?" anymore ... guess working on my accent finally paid off. Friends have repeatedly told me I'm not allowed to complain or comment because "I can pass". Feels like if that were true I wouldn't need to pass, but when I ask that question it's like their brain gets a blue screen. Anyway, just sharing one person's experience. This is not commentary, a value judgement, or anything like that.

cdogl 5y ago
I think I understand the point you’re trying to make, but I don’t understand this formulation: “you can’t be an immigrant”. It sounds like you are, by definition, an immigrant. I wonder if this statement would more accurately capture the truth: “I realised that my experience is not aligned with some dominant popular narratives of immigrant life”. Or even: “generalisations of the immigrant experience are fraught”. If people are telling you that you can’t “complain or comment” on your experience.. I’d suggest questioning what kind of people you are calling your friends.
- Swizec 5y ago
  > If people are telling you that you can’t “complain or comment” It’s because any such commenting is immediately seen in the context of the current social rights battles. Immigrant implies brown or hispanic in most people’s mind. Since I do not experience that sort of prejudice (supposedly), any complaining is immediately seen as “distracting”.
travisjungroth 5y ago
Happens for people leaving the USA (and other countries) too. They're not immigrants, they're ex-pats!
- ramblerman 5y ago
  This doesn't mean the same thing though. If they are working abroad with the intention of returning, then expatriate is the correct term.
  - DoingIsLearning 5y ago
    No, in my understanding expatriated has two specific meanings: 1. Legally expatriated by a Nation/government. Removed from a nation's territory by decision of said nation. 2. Comission/Secondment abroad, where an employee of a government/company gets assigned to work abroad for a fixed period. From what I gather the term expat has been appropriated in British-American circles, to somehow detach higher income immigrants from the 'immigrant' stigma. I think this became a de facto convention when Investment Banking and Retail Banks (in non english-speaking countries) started adopting the term 'expat' in customer branding, to target higher income immigrants.
    - varjag 5y ago
      When an English term sounds too shitty on them, the British reliably turn to Latin or French.
  - varjag 5y ago
    Work migrant is even more correct.
bgilly 5y ago
Gross of other people to tell you who you are. I hope you swiftly told them to F off.
deertick1 5y ago
Hey there just wanted to say : not everyone in America thinks like this. there is this strange brand of modern racism where people reduce everything down to a race issue even when it is not. Ergo immigrant = not white. Same type of people that will claim that a given communities lack of resources is because it is a black community, ignoring that the community is poor and that there is a white community not 20 miles away with the exact same problems. Ironically, this seems to come from highly educated individuals whom I suspect have never 1) been to a third world country, off the resort 2) lived in a financially struggling household 3) worked an honest day of manual labor ever. Kibda got off in a rant there, but just wanted to say, fuck anyone who says "you can pass" when you say your an immigrant. If you want to call them out in language their indoctrinated brains can understand, say "are you denying my lived-experience?" I suspect if you make your way closer to the midwest you will meet less of these people, and more people who treat you like just another person and couldn't give a fuck how you identify. Cheers
- vinay427 5y ago
  > I suspect if you make your way closer to the midwest you will meet less of these people, and more people who treat you like just another person and couldn't give a fuck how you identify. As someone that grew up somewhere in the midwest (which isn't as homogenous as is often implied) and then moved to a stereotypically left-leaning coastal city, this was perhaps true in certain circumstances but definitely not others. I wouldn't bother with smaller towns/villages outside of the largest metropolitan areas (that aren't university towns) unless you want to feel prejudiced by a racial identity that's imposed on you, and reminded of that on a daily basis, but the same is true of these smaller towns in most states as well as countries in the west, in my experience. It's a bit idealistic to say that people in the midwest care less about how you identify if there are instead more that impose their own identity on you.
  - deertick1 5y ago
    Yeah somehow I just don't buy that. Like ymmv but I've seen exactly 2 examples of actual racist people in the midwest. But like yeah I mean I grew up in one town, lived 1 life, and im a member of the racial majority so take my words with a grain of salt I guess.
nine_k 5y ago
Compared to this, it's fun to live and work in NYC. Here everybody assumes that everybody else can be an immigrant, or at least moved across the country to live here. But everybody also assumes that everybody else may be local, independently from the skin color, eye shape, accent, etc. (I personally love this arrangement. I've seen it in several other cities, like London and Moscow.)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
SavantIdiot 5y ago
What is the question they are blue-screening on?
barry-cotter 5y ago
> Friends have repeatedly told me I'm not allowed to complain or comment because "I can pass". Feels like if that were true I wouldn't need to pass, but when I ask that question it's like their brain gets a blue screen. “Friends”
- Swizec 5y ago
  It was meant as a friendly warning, I think. Like a "Make sure you don't say this in public or to people you aren't super close with, you'll be crucified"

AbrahamParangi 5y ago

While there are those identities that may be easy or useful to inhabit (and pretty much all of us do this at least sometimes) you're still the one who gets to choose how you know yourself.

ramblerman 5y ago

So PG has the unique privilege of being able to think for himself? I'm not sure what you are trying to say really. But definitely victimhood is also a type of identity.

tomlockwood 5y ago
Slight correction: PG has the privilege of thinking that he can think for himself. And, everytime he posts such an enlightened self-aggrandizement, his post will be lauded and upvoted by many other similar free thinkers, all of whom are unorthodox, but never the victim, who see groupthink everywhere, but are never a part of it. The self-congratulation will continue, until society improves.