A few years ago a writer friend of mine told me the reason for why she has been living in Europe for the past thirty years. It was a choice that she and her husband had made to get away from "America's vastness" after living in the USA for several years. That comment stuck with me and I wondered myself what my reasons for staying back in the US are.
Having lived here for the last thirty-five years, I frequently have pondered whether if given the choice, I would have gone to another continent happily, or gone back to Bangladesh. Or, alternately, am I just content to be here? This is not an easy question to answer. However, I've decided to explore my reasons, as to why so many of us have found it hard to return, and instead made America our home.
What attracts so many of us to stay here for decades? Sure, America, the "land of opportunity" is a melting pot of all nationalities; the independent spirit of Americans is contagious. Why, though, do we really decide to stay back after we finish our mission here? Is it merely the "endless opportunities" that keep us from going back to where we came from?
For some, it is purely this country's economic freedom, and the option of living a better material life that otherwise would not have happened elsewhere. With relative peace, no huge political chaos, better medical care, and most importantly giving our children better education are some of the reasons behind staying.
In recent years, the political turmoil and the uncertainty of a stable future in some Third World countries make it difficult to return where there are no guarantees if one will have the security to live a stable life. People simply do not want to return to a place where they would have to be afraid of the people in power, won't make enough money to pursue their interests, or won't be able to exercise their freedom of speech and enjoytheir basic rights.
No matter what, the expatriate community in the US is generally homesick for the nostalgic past, and tries to justify their reasons. Often I hear friends lamenting: "Had the kids been younger, and then a choice was easy. Now we have their education to consider, and returning is not an option." Mind you, the kids were young not that long ago.
My point is: there are all manners of reasoning to stay in America, but one never draws the line that leads to a definitive best reason. Such back and forth reasoning continues for many of us until we are much older and still there are no right answers.
Materially, America has its distinct advantages. Some seem to (sadly) assert that life in suburban America is where ultimate happiness lies. Some find comfort in the monotonous life it offers, where essentially one can map out one's life for the year by marking all future milestones and happenings on a calendar. Nothing is unpredictable.
Since we rely on modern technology and have somewhat socially distanced ourselves we do not ask our neighbours for a cup of sugar, the way it was a necessity in pre-modern America. Most of us do not even need to interactwith our neighbours. Our neighbours leave us essentially alone and never get into our business.
I feel the utter selfishness of this society is the flip side of the coin of living in America. Such indifference and disconnect from others is something we all learn to accept reluctantly.
America's solace may be its relative "safety". For some this basic sense of security may overpower the need to go and rough it out at the very place where their forefathers came from. In America, life may only seem attractive - so much so that we pretend that we truly belong here. Underneath the glossy exteriors of the large cars and homes is very little substance.
Furthermore, I've found the expatriate community's obsession with material comfort to be a tragedy. They take the idea of "opportunity" very literally - competing with each other for bigger houses, wanting to live in wealthy and posh neighbourhoods, buying better brand-name cars like the latest model of Mercedes-Benz E-Class, installing expensive home theatre centre and buying 72 inch televisions - while ignoring the rich possibilities of art and culture that lie outside their door.
The new trend in the last two decades and ultimate goal among the relatively prosperous Bangladeshi immigrants in my state Maryland is to buy a house in the town of Potomac. In Potomac the per capita income is $86, 604, a number much higher than the national average of $28, 051. The median household income is $173, 289. In this white-collar town 97.79% people have white-collar jobs.
A lot of the residents' income in Potomac exceeds 7 to 9 figures. CEO's of bio-tech companies, high ranking IT professionals, scientists, astronomers, famous artists, designers, high profile media personalities and other like-minded professionals live in Potomac in their gated communities.
Here in the Washington D.C. area, I rarely see a Bengali expatriate take in a showing of HeddaGabler at the Folger theatre, going to the Kennedy Center to watch a Jazz show, or visiting the Smithsonian or the Corcoran Gallery of Art to see new exhibits, unless they are showing "the sights" to visiting relatives from out of town.
In my time here, I've only seen America become more super-sized and hyper commercial. In the mega-malls, one can get anything imaginable - yet most of the products, if checked, are crudely made in China. People spend hours at the outlet malls looking for great bargains and fill their car trunks with loads of things that they do not need.
There's a way in which this country almost encourages such a narrow way of material living, stimulates us to keep buying more and keep worrying about material things and ceremonies that we never cared for when we were children in Bangladesh.
Sometimes, I see, in the name of the spirit of the season, Bengalis celebrating Thanksgiving Day by roasting a twenty pound turkey soaked incorrectly in ginger water overnight, and struggling to carve the undercooked meat the next day.
During the holiday season I see some Bangladeshi immigrants decorating their houses, by hauling twelve feet Christmas trees so that their children can learn to appreciate mixed culture. If anything, living here can be confusing and strange for many Bengali families - eagerly seeking some sense of a rooted tradition, whether adopted or their own.
I don't have an opinion for these people; nor do I have the need to celebrate such radically different cultural traditions. However, some people find joy in this mix-and-match aesthetic.
The vastness of America is disconcerting to me at times; our remoteness from one another makes it easy to get lost in one's ego. We often walk in a zombie-like state, totally oblivious of our surroundings. Through self-involvement, we are not able to share in the happiness of others or feel affected by their sorrows. A lot of the time all emotions become muted.
For people like me, from a distinctly different home country where I spent my first twenty formative years, America can fall short spiritually. There is no sense of living for intrigue or drama here.
While walking through America's colossal national parks I sometimes spy, in the distance, a piece of land that resembles the little pasture where the cattle grazed in my ancestral home in the outskirts of Dhaka.
While in the market in the organic vegetable section, I seek for the smell of my mother's winter vegetable garden while carefully picking out perfect red sun-ripe Roma tomatoes (with a Product of Mexico sticker) or a nicely shaped West Indian summer squash, that is imported straight from the vegetable patch of a Honduran farmer.
Why do I have this prolonged pain that seeps through my heart and reaches to the very centre of my being when I am taking a river cruise on the Potomac on a sunny summer afternoon? In my mind's eye, I am thinking of a faraway memory: when I was a little girl, taking a boat ride at dusk in a wooden boat with my mother in the gentle breeze of the enchanting Shitalakhya River.
For me, the free spirit of the Americans attracts me most about this country. Here I can be totally alone and never feel abandoned while I take solitary long walks. It is this immense sense of being in control of my own individual self - is the most gratifying feeling for me.
Here I do not have to follow any particular rules (as long as I am within the boundaries of law) in living my life. I can make my own rules and pass them onto my immediate family without giving a mandatory explanation to the extended family, which is an unspoken requirement in Bangladesh.
In America, I am able to move freely between worlds. I am content eating fried fish at my dear old friend Runu's house (in the kitchen, a tape of Abdul Alim's heart rendering folk songs playing) where she still uses 'bothi' to clean fish. After cooking she takes out her carefully packed Corell dishes out from the cabinet that she still calls 'almari,' after thirty years in America.
While in Massachusetts during Christmas, I am equally happy having a grand feast at my sister's good missionary friend Charlotte Goslink's, sitting in their immaculate dining room with place settings, using Charlotte's mother's fine China from Belgium (Beethoven playing in the background and their happy dog Bolaram snoozing near the fireplace).
To be able to move freely in both worlds gives me an enormous sense of self, without changing my essence. I belong, and I do not belong at the same time. I am still following this maze, so to speak, hoping to find a real answer for my being in the here and now.
I get the sense that being part of a community here can legitimize one's not returning home to Bangladesh. I think of a quote by Salman Rushdie: "There are people who don't belong...Anywhere. To anything, to anyone; comets travelling through space, staying free of all gravitational fields...but the only ones who see the picture are the ones who step out of frame."
I often wonder if I'm travelling through this land blissfully unaware that I do not belong to any place. Thirty - five years ago, did I cross what Rushdie describes as "a translucent membrane across the sky, between us and the last high road into the west, the unseen frontier"? Does it not matter to me that as long as I am breathing, it might as well be in any place on this earth?
The writer is a freelancer Email: zeenat.khan1983@gmail.com
America\\\'s vastness
Zeenat Khan | Published: February 07, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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