On Being an Immigrant

My French-Canadian friend once asked me “Why do all foreigners who live outside their home country get labeled an immigrant, but when Americans travel overseas they are called expats?”

Illegal Immigration is a hot topic in America 2017, mostly because of Donald Trump’s finger on the American frustrated pulse.  If I could guess at the issue from afar, I don’t think it’s immigration at the cause, I think American’s are getting squeezed from a ton of government-backed lobbied-up industries.

-Two year contract, with cancellation penalty, for cell phone service?    I pay $4.5 a month in Vietnam and signed no such thing.

-$100 a month for TV packages to feed you advertising?  How about $0 a month and buy a USB cord to connect your laptop.  The internet killed this industry 5 years ago.

-$35k for a brand-new car?  Make sure to buy at your local government-backed dealership monopoly.

-15-18% tip at a restaurant?  That’s certainly not paying for “service”.  I get the same smile and small-talk at no tip.

-Health Insurance?  Well, I don’t even need to touch that topic.

With the amount of negative press immigrants receive, you would think they were coming into the USA just to write terrible laws for the government.  They are blamed for everyone’s lack of spending power. It appears to be a symptom of a disease that permeates America.  USA screamed #1 for so many years it caused the American ego to disregard the many new successes around the world.   The slow decline of a great nation is not comfortable for anyone to witness.

Personally, as this is my 12th year outside the USA (Wow!) I am hedged as well as I can muster.  I don’t have any ill-will to my homeland, but its an open world for us immigrants, and my productivity will go where I’m treated best.  Much like employee loyalty to a company went away during my generation, I predict that nation loyalty will start to dissipate during the next generation.

I’ve had great experiences in all the Asian nations I’ve lived in (Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam).  For this I am grateful and lucky.  The powerful US passport does still hold sway.  But I can’t help but notice many groups of people who don’t get that freedom.  It is absurd that being born on one-point of a rock grants you freedom of movement.  Absurd in a way that only human-apes could justify to themselves.

I do hope good trends in immigration continue to increase into the future.  I want to see countries like Myanmar become great.  Isolation isn’t going to solve any real world problems.  South East Asia is so vibrant you would think other regions would take notice.  When I’m bored I love to browse the world on Google Maps and think how cool these cities and countries could be when their governments get out of the way.  But sometimes I’m forced to question “Do the people who make these rules for the world even understand it?”