Halfway Somewhere

Dear Reader,

Recently, my asylum case was approved. I’ll spare you the details of how it happened, but it was a very long and difficult wait. Although I am deeply relieved and grateful, today I want to talk about something different: what it feels like to be a refugee living in a place that isn’t your home country and being considered an alien with an A-number.

When I first filed my asylum case, I was assigned an “A” number. I wasn’t sure what the “A” stood for. I guessed it was just an alphabetical system for organizing cases. Later, I found out it stood for “alien,” and it was the first time I truly felt the weight of the word. I looked it up and learned that “alien” comes from the Latin alienus, meaning “belonging to another” or “foreign.” It originally referred to something or someone that didn’t belong to a place, group, or country. I sat with this literal definition for a while and slowly realized how accurately it reflected my feelings as a refugee and perhaps the feelings of all refugees.

I don’t know if refugees are called aliens simply because they are foreigners, or because of the alienating emotions they experience in their host countries. All I can say is that the term doesn’t sound welcoming. For someone like me, it was the first reality check of a refugee’s place in a new land. Most refugees become aliens not by choice, but by circumstance. You might think it doesn’t matter what label a refugee carries and you would be right. I wish the label was the only way a refugee ever felt alienated, but sadly, it runs deeper.

I first came to my current host country as an international student, and I know how the change from student to asylee affected me. My attitude shifted from that of an explorer in a foreign land, excited by every difference, to someone struggling to fit in, find my place, and prove my worth. The excitement of the new gave way to nostalgia a craving for the familiar, not the thrill of the unknown.

I consider myself a privileged refugee because I speak the language of my host country fluently. I can’t imagine how much harder it must be for those who cannot, and how their inability to communicate might constantly remind them of how much they do not belong. I won’t even attempt to describe the depth of those feelings.

Writing this now makes me realize that, like most things in life, being a refugee exists on a spectrum. Familiarity with the host country might define your place along that spectrum but wherever you stand, you are still considered an alien.

It’s a confusing place to be. You no longer belong to your home country because you’ve been away too long, and you don’t belong to your host country because it’s too soon. You live in this odd, in-between space where you don’t fully belong anywhere. You can’t really connect with friends back home because too much has changed. The experiences that once brought you close are now distant. You might be able to listen, sympathize, and appreciate, but you can no longer truly relate. And when that happens, it’s only a matter of time before once-close friendships become distant memories from another lifetime. You lose the appetite to celebrate the festivals you once loved – celebrations are fun when you’re part of a community. And you don’t participate in the host country’s festivities either, because you can’t fully relate. The only satisfaction I get from public holidays now is the time off from work.

The very things I once took for granted in my home country – family, food, belonging are the things I miss the most now. I miss them in an indescribable way. There’s a constant feeling of nostalgia that follows me. Randomly, a memory will surface: my father driving us somewhere, my mother’s chatter, my siblings’ noise. I see the road so vividly; I can even feel a turn coming up. I can almost see the school’s signboard hanging above the entrance. Suddenly, I am completely consumed by the memory, everything in it alive and vivid, while my current reality feels like a dream.

You might assume these feelings stem from the daily challenges of living as a refugee the constant stress of adapting and worrying about survival. But that’s not the case. I’m fortunate. My life is comfortable, and I’ve been spared many of the hardships others face. What I’m trying to convey is something harder to put into words: the quiet, persistent ache of being a refugee. Even when your basic needs like food, shelter, work are met, the longing for belonging remains, never truly fading.