I landed in America from Kenya nearly two decades ago with nothing but a one-way ticket, my spouse by my side, a single suitcase, and a story I hadn’t yet learned how to tell.
The first years felt like walking through fog with weights strapped to my feet, and every step was slowed by paperwork, the maze of opening a bank account, pleading for an unsecured credit card, and chasing job after job. “Credit history,” the words hit with sticker shock, strange and heavy in a language I hadn’t yet learned.
At first it was bewildering, a hidden currency I didn’t know I lacked. But once I grasped its power, it became a kind of game, a test of will, and I wondered how far I could climb on this invisible scoreboard.
I remember the unfamiliar cold most vividly. We arrived at the tail end of winter, sliding into early spring, a timing our host recommended to make acclimating easier: “Avoid arriving in winter; summer is best.” The cold was so sharp it carved into my bones, foreign and relentless, made harsher by the pale remnants of snow that clung to the sidewalks even as the sun blazed overhead.
Beyond the weather, daily life felt like a crash course in navigation and choice, learning to drive left-hand-drive cars on vast superhighways, figuring out exits and marveling at the clean, well-maintained roads and parks, while bracing for high car insurance premiums. I had no U.S. driving history, which is typical for newly arrived immigrants, most insurers only start your record on the date your first U.S. license is issued.
Costco runs and grocery shopping became their own education, aisles overflowing with options, ten brands for a single item, and milk offered in what felt like a dozen varieties. Even our diet had to be relearned. My tongue betrayed me in every syllable, my accent branding me as foreign, my words clumsy to American ears.
I stumbled through driving tests, scoured used-car lots for something reliable that could carry us from place to place at least for the first few years, and learned to live within the narrow borders of what we could afford.
We weren’t fleeing gunfire in the night, but chasing a whispered promise: stability’s warm embrace, education’s open gates, a life unburdened by want’s crushing weight yet we stayed. Why? Not naivete, but calculation.
A 2025 Pew survey shows 818,500 immigrants naturalized in fiscal year 2024 alone, a 12 percent rise from pre-pandemic averages, many citing children’s opportunities as the glue. We endure not from masochism, but because the U.S. offers tools to rewrite our stories—better schools, scholarships, networks that lift rather than limit.
Now, the trials are less visible but cut deeper. No longer about cars or cards or credit lines, they are about belonging in a nation divided against itself, about carrying an identity that feels too Kenyan to be American, and too American to be Kenyan.
I exist in that fragile in-between—no longer fully there, not entirely here. I call it emotional refugee status: the quiet, lifelong negotiation of dual loyalties, where joy in your adopted home clashes with grief for roots left behind.
This isn’t only my story. Many immigrants feel the same pressure to prove they belong, follow changing rules, and still show up for their families and communities. Most Americans now say immigration is a good thing for the country.
Yet policies still change quickly.
When rules shift with little warning, families and employers get nervous, plans for school, work, travel, or starting a business are delayed, and that “waiting game” wastes time and energy we could spend contributing. Positivity in public opinion is welcome; predictability in policy is what lets people plan their lives.
For African immigrants like me, these currents run deeper, layered with racial othering that sets us apart. Sub-Saharan Africans now form 43 percent of Black immigrants, the fastest-growing group, up 246 percent since 2000, totaling over 2 million.
We embody the “Black immigrant paradox”: over 40 percent hold bachelor’s degrees—higher than U.S.-born averages—yet face persistent barriers. A 2025 Kaiser Family Foundation report shows 56 percent of employed Black immigrants report workplace bias, like denied promotions or harassment, rates far exceeding Asian (32 percent) or White (18 percent) immigrants. Healthcare disparities hit hard: 38 percent encounter unfair treatment due to accent or skin color; socially, 55 percent feel more vulnerable in stores or with police than U.S.-born peers.
On Sept. 21, 2025, the Trump administration imposed a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas that critics say will hurt startups, spark lawsuits, and drive tech talent elsewhere. For highly skilled foreign professionals, the H-1B visa is often the only real way to get a long-term job in the U.S.
After a decade, culture shock eases, but subtler challenges persist—unrecognized credentials forcing doctors into cab driving, remittances draining 10-15 percent of income to support kin abroad, and mental health strains from cultural dissonance, with depression rates 20 percent higher than among other immigrants. Visa restrictions in 2025, like the June travel ban on Chad, Eritrea, Somalia, and others, exacerbate fears of family separation.
I know the retort some might muster: “If it’s so hard, why come? If you don’t like it, go back to Kenya!”
Fair question, but it misses the math. I came for safety, opportunity, and the promise of a better life, the American dream, and the chance to build. I stayed because I invested here: paying taxes, volunteering, mentoring, and raising a family. Many of us also support relatives back home, which means our work lifts two places at once. We believe in America enough to keep building, even when the rules keep changing. Living with that contradiction is part of emotional refugeedom and most Americans now agree immigrants are a net positive.
Yet the contribution side of the ledger is undeniable. In 2024 alone, 818,500 people raised their hands to become Americans—the culmination of years of taxes, work, and community ties. Globally, remittances sent by migrants to lower and middle-income countries hit $656 billion in 2023, often outpacing foreign investment and aid, hard evidence that migrants lift two economies at once.
Being an emotional refugee isn’t defeat; it’s defiance, blending roots with new branches. Imagine a system that welcomes builders, not burdens. I came ready to work but spent too much time finding my footing. I needed something simple: a well funded national network of free newcomer services, job search help, oral communication skills, interview skills and professional appearance coaching and community connections. That’s how you move people into better jobs and safer workplaces. That’s how you build everyday confidence. Faster integration and less confusion would follow, and the economy would be stronger for it.
I know this because I lived the slow version. We can choose the faster one.