AN AMERICAN'S IMMIGRATION
/A personal reflection on an American's immigration process:
Choose. Pick your country, any country! You, dear American, have unrivaled access to the world! Take your time and consider your wealth of options. There's no hurry. It's not as though you're trying escape ruinous economic conditions or the threat of war or a doomed future for your children; you're just looking for adventure! Want a place with a great climate and laid-back way of life, close to the beach and the mountains, where you can work in a world-class institution and your kids can get a top-notch private school education? Consider it done.
Move your stuff. Fretting over which of your way-too-many things to bring? Don't worry, it's not like you have to carry it yourself. Your employer — from that respectable job you locked down months in advance — will help subsidize the moving expense. And shipping containers can totally handle American overconsumption levels, especially when you get a full one to yourself. Bring it all!
Move yourself. No walls to climb or rafts to board; just hop on your one-way flight with some good reading material and a few suitcases stocked with oodles of extra American toiletries — you know, in case you get homesick and miss all of your essentials. Rest comfortably on your overnight flight, after your glass of wine and hot mid-air meal, knowing that even if the airline lost everything you brought, you've still got that little blue book in your pocket with the five magic words on the front: "PASSPORT United States of America." No inconveniences for you! Sweet dreams.
Arrive. Meet your relocation agent who's dedicated to helping you make a "soft landing." She'll be a huge help when it comes to things like opening a bank account or signing a rental agreement or connecting your utilities — because after all, you just moved to a country where you don't speak a lick of the language. But you speak English! Don't most self-respecting people these days? Any reasonable website or form will surely have a translation available. You'll learn eventually, but no one can expect immediate perfection!
Integrate. Look for other people like yourself. Maybe you can Google some meet-up groups. But don't use the wrong search term — you're not an immigrant, silly! You're an expat, with its cachet of cool and cosmopolitan. You're now entitled to networking events and cocktail hours, where you can mingle with other foreigners and chit chat about all the bemusing aspects of local culture. Welcome to the club!
It's sure to be a great few years, and when you're done sampling life abroad, your cushy American life back home awaits you. Enjoy!
While I like to think that our own move abroad was not nearly so cavalier, the facts are the facts: The disconnect between an American's immigration process and the American immigration process is reprehensible and embarrassing. As we live as expats/immigrants/outsiders in someone else's country, it has become impossible to defend the actions of our own.
Be better than this, America.