The Immigrant Life: Sojourners On Our Way Home

I live with pieces of my heart on each side of an ocean. On one continent, my parents and extended family live. On the other side of the Atlantic are my children, spouse, house, garden and fluffy white dog.

People and animals beckon me with their love, and though I may rest longer in one place than the other, I am constantly being pulled toward the place I am not currently at.

I have the good fortune of answering that pull. I am an immigrant, albeit the most privileged kind. I am white, cis-het, married with children, and have the right to work. No one questions my passport when I cross borders, and I am not always asked for my residency card. I can move freely between the two places that pull on my heart.

But even with this freedom, living between two continents presents its own set of challenges. There’s the constant push and pull, including endless paperwork for both countries, the complexities of raising children in two languages, and the balancing act of preserving one culture while adapting to another.

These challenges evolve as the years pass. The longer we live this immigrant life, the more complex it becomes.

Many of the decisions we made when moving abroad didn’t consider things like aging parents, postsecondary education for our children, owning property, and retirement. As the years pass, we face new challenges we didn’t expect.

Beyond logistics, there are deeper, more unsettling realities we never anticipated when we first moved. The climate around immigration has shifted, and our privilege does not shield us from its impact. We never expected the rise of anti-immigrant rhetoric on both sides of the Atlantic.

The first time we worried about a political shift, my young son was told by a classmate, “When she wins, you’ll have to go back to your country.” Though it was just a child’s words, it reflected a growing political atmosphere.

After the 2016 U.S. election, one of my son’s teachers began calling him by the last name of the new American president, and it was not a compliment. I intervened.

Moments like these remind me that political shifts seep into classrooms, conversations and the way our children are perceived by their peers. While our experience has been mild compared to others, it opened our eyes to how policy shapes perception. Though I’ve lived here for over a decade, my foreign accent is a constant reminder that I am a stranger in a strange land.

I have embraced some of this strangeness. I dress differently than other parents picking up their kids from school (neon pink sneakers, who cares?) and bring chocolate chip cookies (which the teens now expect!).

I’ve made peace with the fact that I will never fit in completely. My children move more seamlessly between cultures, aided by their lack of a strong accent in their second language. Still, they, too, live in a kind of third culture, where carrying the label “immigrant” feels increasingly risky.

Though I try not to spiral into fear, it’s difficult not to wonder about worst-case scenarios: What if borders became more challenging to cross? What if our livelihood was threatened? What if we couldn’t go “home” (wherever that is)? I have asked, “Where is home?” for years, but now, I understand the answer differently. I simply say that I am a “sojourner.”

I am a “temporary resident occupant” everywhere. Biblically, this term connotes being “dependent upon the goodwill of the community for continued existence.” It feels more fragile now than ever.

In the wake of a new U.S. administration, we’ve seen attempts to resist the sojourner by fortifying borders, halting asylum hearings, canceling migrant appointments and expanding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) powers. Every year, millions of people worldwide flee their homes to seek asylum due to persecution. Even if granted asylum, they may still face racism, homophobia or xenophobia.

As hostility toward immigrants intensifies, even sojourning in my motherland feels increasingly difficult. The rhetoric used on the campaign trail conditioned people to accept hateful language as normal. The current president campaigned on the idea that expelling immigrants would make the country great, using fear to reinforce division.

Now in office, the president of my country of origin is attempting to strip birthright citizenship while reclaiming the idea of manifest destiny, two fundamentally contradictory concepts. A superpower may seize your homeland, but your children will never be truly welcome in theirs.

Yet, they will have no hesitation in colonizing yours. Hate governs both domestic and foreign policy.

The irony is stark: a nation that thrives on the labor of immigrants now seeks to erase them. Up to 70% of the country’s farmworkers are immigrants, with 40% of them undocumented. These “temporary” workers are fundamental to the nation’s food system but are never fully welcomed. What happens when the hands that feed a nation are no longer welcome to touch its soil?

This raises a deeper question about who truly belongs and who gets to decide. While I may be a sojourner by circumstance, many people make the journey out of necessity. They flee war, poverty and climate devastation, facing hurdles far greater than my own. While I can move freely, others cannot.

As the soil beneath my feet shifts with political uncertainty, I feel a moral responsibility to stand in solidarity with those whose existence is threatened.

Home is not just a place. It’s how we care for one another, especially the most vulnerable.

In these times, our humanity is defined by how we treat the sojourners among us. Acknowledging their struggles is not enough; we must open our hearts, act compassionately, and stand together to ensure no one is left behind.