Tag: immigrant

This is highly deplorable!

A classic case of an ignoramus reacting to someone from a specific religion. Just goes to show how shallow, ignorant and trashy people can get.  We’re seeing several such instances when these sort of semi-educated, unaware people blurt off something so offensive thereby embarrassing their establishments. Sorry state of affairs!

Its not about Islam, this could have been a Hispanic, an islander or a black. Its about people’s inherent bias and the microcosm they dwell in.

Surely a hard drinking pub culture cannot be an excuse for being boorish! Irrelevant? Not quite! Something I have faced and what some people now go through is most certainly far worse!

http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/perth-boxing-club-fires-worker-after-banning-woman-for-being-muslim-20160808-gqniyo.html

The Journey of an immigrant- Part II

The Saudi feeling is starting to sink in; well you can never really get that feeling in you entirely. True to belief it felt like I had been sentenced to a one year rigorous imprisonment in a minimum security prison. The camp was a compound by the Red Sea, a set of box modular structures and I could imagine this to be another Gulag with less security. Have you ever been kicked in the mouth by a rampant horse?

The inner conditions do not get too better as days transition into weeks and weeks transition into months. I could never really come to grips with that life especially in those surroundings. I would actually thrive in these conditions decades later but in 1995 I left myself for dead. A few thing to write about would be the weekend trips to the port city of Jeddah which was trying its best to look like fast food America and the air conditioned malls I had not been in before. Jeddah is also the home to the infamous “Chop Chop Square” where convicted rapists and petty criminals have their heads or hands cut off.

Mecca the holy city for Moslems was not too far from the camp I was in, where the signs to the checkpost proclaiming “For Moslems Only” still stirs an ominous feeling inside me. The tranquility in midst of this temptest was the lucid turquoise waters of the Red Sea and I was even blessed to catch a few views of Flying Fish, which I had only seen in one of my favorite TinTin publication, “The Red Sea Sharks”. After all these years when I stop long enough to delve on my Saudi experience I am convinced it wasn’t Saudi, it was me that kicked myself into this baleful whirlpool of darkness.

And just as I reckoned, it was rock bottom and the only way after this episode was to lift myself and at least see the azure skies of hope.

Alexandria

My journey took me next on a teaser trip to which eventually was going to become my home eventually but that cold dark January evening when I landed at Dulles, Washington DC I wasn’t so sure. Just as I had experienced dealing with cabbies back home, I was sure the guy would cheat my precious $75 out of me.So of course as the taxi starts, the guy in all likelihood is attempting to be friendly and asked me if this was my first trip to the US. And me, in all my devious bent, say “Oh yeah, I have been here several times, in fact I love the east coast and of the west coast cities, Chicago is my favorite city.” Deathly silence and that was the last exchange we had for the rest of the journey. The names he may have called me under his breath, I don’t think I would have been able to repeat. However, being in the promised land sent a shiver of optimism through my veins. It was going to last, I hoped as I-495 beltway outside the taxi looked like a parade of pearls and rubies.

—To be continued…

Washington DC- An immigrant’s Diary-Part I

The Journey of an immigrant- 

I was not born in this county, I was not born in the State, I wasn’t even born in this country. Its been close to 17 years for me in this country. An immigrant with aspirations, dreams and looking to touch and feel that I had only seen through postcards, movies and commercial clips and Time magazine. A few decades back I would have made my way on a steamer across the Atlantic, processed at Ellis Island and made my way into the Big Apple.

The sheer romance of this journey, the awe inspiring narratives were what my dreams started to be spun around. It took a British writer,  Jeffrey Archer to vividly describe the success of an immigrant from small town Poland. “Kane and Abel” that is the book. The graphic and vivid portrayal of Abel Rosnowski and his rags to riches story was the recipe for several of the west bound aspirants. And as time rolled by, the dream seemed to get far and further away with each passing year.

And then you start to wonder- Opportunities do not come around if risks are not taken. Life definitely gives you lemons, but being served lemonade is completely unheard of. If the New York bound ship is not docked for you at the harbor, then you start to look at options. You could still set out west but you may have to have a few pit stops. Now that is something that clicked inside me. I am thinking, even the Arabian peninsula is west of where I grew up.

The journey begins- Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

It was an extremely sunny cloudless day in Oct 1995 (I later realized 364 of the 365 days are extremely sunny and cloudless) and I landed with a deep sense of foreboding, not sure what to expect but somehow fairly certain that I was a second class citizen. This is not fiction and the way the immigration officer waves me through I started to resent my own self, my seemingly impulsive decision to even set foot in the peninsula. And then the journey to a remote camp, 150 miles into the desert hugging the Red Sea was me slumped in the backseat, still unable to fathom the deep change that was happening right in front of me. Miles and miles of dunes, herds of camels, some of them on the back of Toyota pick ups and the relentless sun refusing to hide. Now I am starting to hallucinate- I am going to be asked to join a plethora of workers, whipped across my bare back and pull the huge pieces of rocks to create a pyramid like structure. Not entirely delirious but the projection of fears emanating into something evil.

I arrive at the camp and instead of running across the Bedoins or even hearing the Arabic dialect, I almost get run over by group of loudly chattering Filipinos. Then some Sri Lankans, some Indians then I spy some gringos. This was going to be my microcosm, a camp by the Red sea, by no means a resort but certainly not made up of stuff I had earlier imagined. Reality sinks in and the jet lag hits me. I am off to lala land.

To be continued……

 

Accents- Funny or prejudice?

Accents- A microcosm

Why do different accents sound funny when you clearly know a non-native speaker of that language  is attempting something out of their comfort zone? Just on the subject of English accents, a myriad accents you come across just in the Continental United States.

Why do people feel the compulsive need to belittle a manner of speaking that sounds different? So much so that stand up comedians have made it into a fine art to evoke laughter by pandering to the illiterate desires of their audience, so much so that it totally reeks of prejudice. Humor to some extent is quite welcoming and especially so when it is delivered without a touch of prejudice. But the humor turns into incessant mockery, lines have to be drawn. And anecdotally, how about grammatical correctness that is conspicuous by absence in the colloquial “native” English speaking people? Do you feel the need to mock it or do you feel sorry for them?

A hard working immigrant is trying to make a new life and if this land is indeed a land of opportunities and while doing so, they are attempting to grasp a foreign language. Why is that funny?

Speaking to them  in a loud slow manner is not the solution you morons. Learn to respect other cultures and remember, their English is better than your Spanish, French, Hindi or Mandarin.