507 Quotes About Immigration

Home is where your mother lives. Home is where you can go back to. Home is a place where you can stay and no one dared ask you why you are there.

Né quelque part où il ne fallait pas, j’ai voulu en partir ; réclamant le statut de réfugié, j’ai dégringolé d’identité en identité, migrant, mendiant, illégal, sans-papiers, sans-droits, sans-travail ; le seul vocable qui me définit désormais est clandestin.

Immersing herself in a third language, a third culture, had been her refuge—she approached French, unlike things American or Indian, without guilt, or misgiving, or expectation of any kind. It was easier to turn her back on the two countries that could claim her in favor of one that had no claim whatsoever.

When you live in a country that speaks a language you don’t know, you learn a lot. You learn not to complain: too much of a hassle.

Who am I then? Am I everybody and nobody? Am I everywhere and nowhere? Is a state of multiple existence the only thing that captures my reality and the reality of countless other exiled and displaced peoples around the world today? Is a multiple existence a good thing or is it akin to nonexistence? Am I like God who is everywhere for those who believe in him and nowhere for those who do not?

Помня всички нужни и ненужни подробности от този първи ден на втория ми живот, но най-вече помня странното, напрегнато усещане, че не съм взел със себе си нещо крайно необходимо. Че не би трябвало да се качвам в самолета без него, но няма как да го побера нито в ръчния багаж, нито в куфара и ще трябва да го оставя тук завинаги.

As many Chinas as there were, there were that many Charleses as well. Every immigrant is the person he might have been and the person he is, and his homeland is at once the place it would have been to him from the inside and the place it must be to him from the outside.

Every life is a journey, regardless of whether you stay in one place, live like a global nomad, or end up being something in between.

He wasn't sure he liked everything that was happening, but a lot of it was "cultural," apparently, and you couldn't object to that, so he didn't. "Cultural" sort of solved problems by explaining that they weren't really there.