I'm an Immigrant

I feel much more connected to my first-generation immigrant Chinese friends. My stepfather's dad was a sheep herder in Sicily. My great-grandfather on my mother's side came over from Russia+ Poland through Canada because he was a hunchbacked Jew.
My husband says to me "You're an immigrant... from Saturn!" I cook like one! I refuse to spend money unless it is absolutely necessary. We even forgo light bulbs and food and heat.

Source

There are around 20 million adult, American-born children of immigrants living in the United States. I am one of them. I am the daughter of two immigrant mothers from Peru and Argentina. My roots are not directly below me, beneath this ground that I stand on, but instead reach to many parts of the world. I grew up in San Francisco, moving constantly from house to house, sometimes in homes filled with other families. I quickly learned to adapt. I became a traveler, just as my mothers are, and just as many immigrants are travelers whose wandering feet and thoughts are never still.

Technically, I am an American, but that label doesn’t quite seem to fit. For much of my childhood I felt tension between the culture I was immersed in at school and the culture that my mothers kept alive within our home, the one I returned to each night. I ate milanesas and lomo saltado, while my friends at school had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and spoke about their excitement for a holiday I never celebrated, Thanksgiving. I spoke Spanish until I felt too different from others. When I began primarily speaking English, people were shocked whenever they heard a pale girl say, “yo soy latina.” That’s when I started to feel neither South American nor North American. I was stuck in an uncomfortable in-between, a place from which I am still trying to free myself.

In discussions about children of immigrants, scholars often deal with statistics, but rarely with the actual individuals who have their own voices and ideas of identification. We are more than numbers, more than the reports that analyze our educational attainment and economic standing.

This continuing portrait series is inspired by conversations I’ve had with children of immigrants over the past two years. The people I met talked about their childhoods and how they defined American culture. They reflected on self-identification and the imbalance of cultural identity. And they looked at how the label "children of immigrants" affects the members of that community.

“A lot of the time, being a child of immigrants means constantly having to defend your place as an ‘American,’” said Alex Santana, a Spanish- and Dominican-American. By deconstructing our cultural identities, our childhoods, and the ways in which some people misrepresent us, we are reclaiming our individuality.

“I never thought of myself as a “child of immigrants” per se, as I feel the term comes loaded with undertones of immigrant struggles — the old clichés of coming to a new country with nothing and struggling to assimilate. The truth of the matter is my father came to the United States comfortably with an M.D. from Italy, fluent in English since his youth, and I’m the fourth child to my parents, so by the time I was born they were very well established. — Michael Shami, 21, Syrian- and Hungarian-American (top photo)

“I think that where you are at the present is the most important, but at the same time it’s essential to not let go of where you’ve been. You should not have to let go of your roots to be a part of American society. — Avnee, 22, British- and Indian-American

“I don’t always think of myself as Italian or American or Italian-American. Oddly enough, when I’m here in this country I think of myself as a little more Italian, but when I’m in Italy I think of myself as slightly more American. For me, being American has to do with a certain way of life. The New York lifestyle is much more frenetic than the laid-back Italian lifestyle. — Giorgio Ravalli, 22, Italian-American

“I grew up with ‘When I was your age…’ stories describing how my parents had to stand in line for two hours just to receive a loaf of bread during Communist times. Their difficult experiences directly shaped their lives and indirectly shaped my life, because I continue to think about how fortunate I am to live a more comfortable life. — Anna Sowa, 22, Polish-American

“Growing up was definitely a mix of two worlds, Indian and American. At times, I have felt caught in the middle of the two, but it’s one of those things that you learn to find your way through ... It definitely takes mental fortitude to know where you stand and what you want to stand by. I can now stand for more than one thing. — Taher Hassonjee, 22, Indian-American

“Growing up, we ate traditional Indian food for breakfast and dinner every day and I would have had it for lunch, too, but unfortunately I was too embarrassed to bring Indian food to school. But if I could go back, I would have changed that. — Sruti Swaminathan, 22, Indian-American

“Something that I haven’t been able to call my own lately is my last name, just because I feel like I haven’t earned it. I feel like religion was lost on me because I ate meat and could never speak my parents’ native language, and that was always hard growing up with. I was kind of the black sheep of the family. — Akshai Ajit, 21, Indian-American

“When others ask, ‘Where are you from?’ I tend to respond with ‘New Jersey.’ Usually, they are never satisfied with that answer because for them, it does not explain why I have the last name I have, why my hair is so conspicuously curly, why my skin is brown, and why I am able to speak Spanish. — Alex Santana, 21, Spanish- and Dominican-American

“Funny enough, most of the kids I grew up around were of Russian descent. And oddly enough, I felt a much bigger disconnect with them than I did with any of my American friends. Growing up, I always felt like the Russian kids didn’t have as much respect for their heritage as I did. I found much more solace being the Russian one among my Puerto Rican, Italian, Polish, Ghanaian and American friends. The amalgamation of cultures and backgrounds made for such a richer experience. — Sasha Kazachkova, 19, Russian-American

“I would like to say I feel comfortable calling myself an Argentinian, but every year when I return there I am reminded that I have missed huge cultural changes since I was 9, and as perfect as my Spanish may be, there are always tiny indicators to them that I am not one of them. — Alex Fiszbein, 19, Argentine-American

“When people meet me, they want to know what culture I come from or where my family is from. They want to put me in a box or assign me a label. So the question of ‘what are you’ has always made me feel defensive of who I am and how I’m presented in the world. — Shirley Acuna, 22, Peruvian-American

Quetzal Maucci is an Argentine- and Peruvian-American documentary photographer focusing on human rights and activism. She is based in San Francisco.