Living on the Outside
Senida Husic was 12 years old when she and her family left Bosnia to live in Bowling Green. Eight years later, she returned to Bosnia for a visit. The country preserved in her memory was not the same country she was visiting. Everything looked different. She had forgotten how underdeveloped certain places were. And somehow, she did not seem to belong.
“It was a culture shock,” Husic said. “Then reality hits, and you see the damages.”
She was not expecting to see abandoned buildings or the ruins the war had caused. Instead, she expected Bosnia to be as she remembered it.
Husic, now 22, is one of many immigrants who experience an “outsider effect” when their culture is split between two lands. Arnoldo Garcia, program director at the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights in California, said the feeling is common. Immigrants can find assimilation difficult or least a very conscious endeavor, even when they visit their native country.
“You return to a community you left ties with,” he said. “You no longer fit in. You’re a stranger.”
The realization that they no longer “fit in” can be hard to deal with, said Garcia, who works to promote greater rights for immigrants and refugees. Feelings of isolation surface.
“If you look different, don’t speak English, or speak English with an accent, express yourself differently religiously or culturally, you have a feeling of rejection,” he said.
Immigrants first experience the “outsider effect” when they first arrive in the United States, and find the culture to be too obtrusive or too different. Immigrants experience the “outsider effect” a second time when they return to their native country, even for a brief visit, and realize that the culture they left now seems different as well.
THE FIRST CULTURE SHOCK
Western Kentucky University French Instructor Eddy Cuisinier remembers his first impression of the United States. He first came to Seattle in September 2001 to teach French at Spokane Falls Community College in Spokane, Wash. His plane had just landed in Seattle, and Cuisinier expected life in his native city of Paris and in the U.S. to be virtually the same. He knew certain differences would exist, but overall, he thought the countries were enough alike. When he stepped off the plane, he realized life was not as similar as he imagined.
“It was like the movies,” Cuisinier said. “Everything was so big. The buildings, the food plates. It was beyond what I expected.”
When Husic first came to the U.S. as a refugee, she was dumbfounded by what she saw. Everything moved so fast in comparison to the village she came from. Husic had just left a war zone, where she said people no longer went out into the city or went to school due to the chaos of the war. It took Husic some time to adjust.
“You learn to bounce back,” she said.
Cuisinier had to learn new cultural manners. The first time he met a dean at his college, he dressed in a suit and tie, as he would in France. He was surprised that the dean wore shorts and sandals and told Cuisinier to call him “Jim.” Cuisinier felt uncomfortable doing so; to him it was a sign of disrespect.
“I felt like I was slapping him in the face every time I said ‘Jim,’” Cuisinier said.
FEELING LIKE AN OUTSIDER
Tatiana Sahanic, who came to the United States as a refugee from Bosnia, recalls feeling like an outsider because she walked to work. Walking was a common activity in Bosnia, but some Americans thought it was odd.
“You might not have a car,” she said. “Like that’s a sin.”
Sahanic now helps resettle refugees as a case manager at the Bowling Green International Center. Even after 14 years in the U.S., Sahanic feels uncomfortable when people make comments about her accent.
For Husic, one of the biggest challenges was not being able to speak English
“Without communication, you don’t feel like you belong,” she said.
Cuisinier had no real problems fitting in with American culture. He met his wife in Washington state, and in August 2005 he moved to Bowling Green for a teaching position at WKU. He found everyone to be friendly. But in 2002 when tensions existed with France over the war in Iraq, Cuisinier noticed a change.
Cuisinier had a broken moped and had no luck finding any place in Bowling Green to fix it. But when his wife inquired – with no foreign accent – she found a suitable repair shop on her first call. Cuisinier had spoken to the very same person.
“Maybe it’s my own paranoia, but my wife calls and on the first go – fine,” he said.
THE SECOND CULTURE SHOCK
Sahanic surprised herself when she visited Bosnia for three weeks. Rather than wanting to stay in her native country, she couldn’t wait to get back to Bowling Green.
Bosnia no longer felt like home. Even the mountain that sits above her hometown seemed large and imposing.
“It’s so crowded, so overpopulated,” Sahanic said. “Everything on top of everything. People, cars, buildings, countries. I was claustrophobic. Here(in Bowling Green) it’s open, flat.”
Cuisinier realized how much he had changed when he returned to France after being away for two years.
Cuisinier’s father picked him up from the airport. They went to a bar, and people told his father, “Oh, that’s your son. The American.” Cuisinier was perplexed. Who? Me? Then he saw his reflection in the bar mirror.
“Oh my gosh!” Cuisinier said. “I looked like an American tourist in France. I was wearing a baseball cap, a school T-shirt and pants.”
Cuisinier also noticed how formal France was. He witnessed two French men on the street arguing, but they were calling one another “Mister.”
“You could see they hated each other’s guts,” Cuisinier said. “But they were insulting each other formally.”
Many immigrants find it painful to realize that things move on without them in their native country.
“Things don’t stand still,” Garcia said. “You want it to be like where it was.”
For Sahanic, the result is that she feels like she no longer belongs in her native country.
“You’ll always be a foreigner,” she said. “So when you go back home, it never feels like home.”