Pardesi (Immigrant)
The word immigrant have different impact and associations with different people, but if your self is classified as immigrant than there are hell lot of positive and negative experiences and stories to to tell. Every immigrant have it's own story.
Though immigrants can be classified in many segments but I will start with two major categories which are popular in the world today. Legal and Illegal though by name that sounds two very different pol apart but the real pain points and celebrations are similar.
History have witnessed, immigrants played a crucial role of catalysts in growth of civilizations but they never got there due. Surprisingly this category of humans often are very educated or very hard working but they never gets democratic right in any part of the world. You always on the mercy of the current government and dispensation and their populist measures. Some societies are graceful enough to accept immigrants in their day to day life and some societies are not so welcoming. Local population have their own legit concerns about their culture and way of life being very different than immigrants.
Interestingly you don't know when immigrant of today can become local of tomorrow. The race and color of immigrant does matter too. A European Caucasian can merge very easily in North America than and Asian and a Bangladeshi or Nepali can easily merge in India than an African or Caucasian.
Immigrant always relocate in search of better carrier and life style and in the end they end up bringing valuable knowledge and money for home country and bring value and services to the host country.
The experience is not always pleasant if the local government do not have any way to track immigrant, local mafias and syndicates will emerge and start utilizing untraceable immigrants and become point of stress for local population. Too much uncontrollable immigration can change the demography of the region. Though it is good in creating diversity of the region and increase competition and making locals more competitive. It create more jobs for local population in terms of rent, food and other services etc.
Immigrant have their own concerns. They always under guilt of leaving their home country and feel obliged to teach their kids their own culture and put pressure on them. If you are in North America you have lots of resources to do so. One of them is hindiusa where you can enroll your kids for language learning and cultural exposure at nominal cost as this organization is not profit. First generation Immigrants never feels settled and always swing between two minds to stay or go back. Local rules and regulation make it difficult for them to take decision and they loose vital time to settle down.
As nobody represent immigrants and no body care about their rights in host countries often laws do not treat immigrants as humans. If they are in legal trouble regarding there immigration issues often there is no court they can go easily and the decision taking in most of the case is opaque, secret and unilateral in nature.
Recently immigrants are suffering from one more issue which is security. In current world scenario, immigrants are facing more strict measure and often the security aspect and local emotion against immigrant are getting blurred and as usual if immigrant suffers no body care. So as immigrant you should be ready with documentation and be honest and clear in answering all the time when questioned.
I myself is immigrant and working in North America for many years now and gone through these emotions. Though the general population is very receptive of immigrants and it is not common you face issues due to your race, but it is not isolated as well. Every population have all sort of people. In most of the regions in North America the most of people have some kind of exposure of immigrants and they are very sensitive about their behavior and make sure they do not hurt somebody's emotions. Though the laws are very rigorous to enter and remain in North America, which is understandable due to "most desirable place to migrate status" of region. Most of the part is good enough considering tough nature of being immigrant itself. But sometimes due to time to time policy changes and often random behavior of decision making, you can be collateral damage without any explanation. Though nothing can decrease the popularity of North America among immigrants around the world.
One more issue which every immigrant encounter is how to stay with your parent as most of the time parents get limited visa and they do not get medical facilities and on top of that they do not like to stay in foreign country. Problems are too many and they are not going to be resolved soon as well. With current pace of civilization progress and too many people are still deprived from food, education and quality life it will still take more than 200 years for world to become boundary less. The divide between privileged and poor population will remain here for sometime. On top of that the problem of terrorism makes things worst and it seems the word is preparing for some kind of clash of civilization in coming years. But if world survive this phase without any big clashes or wars, there is possibility that earth will become border less and we will become inter planet civilization in next 200 years.
If you are immigrant than plan your life early and make sure you have arrangements in home country and host country. make sure you respect the host country and follow their laws. Make sure you do not hurt anybody's emotion due to difference in sensibilities.
World is not bad place after all!
