I have been in the US for 5+ years now, and I’ve many American friends. However, I’ve noticed a few times that some of the people I newly meet and get along with aren’t as friendly anymore as soon as they learn my immigration status.
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EDIT: Thank you so much for your warm comments, you guys! I was beating myself up over this, and I feel much better after reading what you got to say. It’s so nice to be reassured.
36 comments
You’ve met idiots then. As long as you’re here legally, you’re fine.
Yes..
Some Americans are xenophobic, some are anti immigration.
What is your immigration status. Legal or illegal? That matters a lot, actually.
Definitely. I’d be excited to know you and would want to know how I could help you feel more at home. Also, did you bring the family cookbook? Please share it.
Accents are a dead giveaway. Lots of Americans will ask where you’re from, purely out of curiosity.
That’s dumb. I’ve met tons of foreigners living in the states and I never treated them differently. You don’t need to be friends with those people.
I know a man who followed the rules when married an American and moved here. It’s so infuriating that some people who don’t follow the rules get better treatment. My grandma was first generation American. Again, followed the law. The USA is made better by immigrants, why have rules that are broken with no repercussions?
Don’t be friends with these people. Not all of us are like this, but as a fellow immigrant (immigrated when I was a minor) I’ve dealt with buttholes before. Idc if you are here legally or not. If you are a good person I will be your friend. Also, please share your recipes with me 😆
You just found some dickheads. I personally don’t care if you arrived here via trebuchet over the Rio Grande
yes. people are racist
The way I see it, where we’re all born is pure chance. If someone was born somewhere that’s suffering war, violence, famine, etc., they’re more than welcome to come here and try to build a life. In my mind it shouldn’t be hard to get a SSN so they can immediately work and pay taxes.
On the flip side, if one day shit hits the fan here, I sincerely hope another country will let me and my family in. I will be forever grateful and I will be a good contributor to society.
The people most likely to have negative attitudes are the ones you’re least likely to encounter in the major metro areas / professional work settings. Older white far right wing types in rural areas who watch Tucker Carlson are bizarrely hostile to immigration of any kind (I was surprised at how many are even opposed to letting in Afghan interpreters & Ukrainian refugees). Those people are pretty hateful in general though, & they also dislike a majority of native born Americans for various political/cultural/conspiracy theory reasons.
I worked at Intel for a time. There was definitely some annoyance among citizen engineers with the number of engineers there on work visas. The perception was that they took jobs from equally qualified citizen applicants. From my standpoint, I found them to be exceptionally qualified and far more dedicated to their work than citizens.
For all those who say that illegal immigration doesn’t matter have never been affected by it. The meme that they are taking jobs Americans won’t do is bullshit. Those are jobs Americans won’t do for the garbage wages those employers are trying to pass off.
In my small town we have a meat packing plant that used to pay a very decent wage to citizens. Wages that allowed a middle class life. Now 90% of the workers are illegal and the pay is shit. That has happened all across our country. Has anyone noticed the price of meat go down due to lower paid workers?
Look into the construction sector of California. Another middle class job source that has been opened up to illegal workers. And, again, the working citizen got the shaft so employers could make more profit.
I bet if the non working children or others who aren’t affected by illegal workers had to deal with it in their own industry their attitude of oh well would change very quickly.
My brother was friends with one guy for years before he learned that he was an immigrant, I think if you’re a good person it barely even crosses your mind. This same person lived here illegally from Brazil since he was a little kid and had his “American Party” at the age of like 17. He’s now one the people I trust the most.
In my experience, many 2nd gen and above filipino americans look down on first generation americans esp when they are teenagers.
Depends who you’re talking about. Unfortunately, a fair amount of my countrymen and women are terrible beyond imagination. If they dislike you, they probably hate me too, so at least there’s that.
For the most part no, most of our great great great grandfathers were immigrants. There’s certainly a higher rate of hating immigrants in red states, but it’s usually isolated to a few backwoods pockets.
As a fellow Non-American in the US on a work permit. Anytime I run into this problem I just a tell said person “Look I followed all the laws, so if you have problem with me being here, bring it up with the people who make the laws”. It only happened once or twice in a bad way, but it’s a solid line IMO.
And invariably the topic of illegal immigration gets brought up at times, as in this thread. Something I’ve noticed is you meet a lot of Americans who have sympathy for them, but ask anyone who’s dealt with immigration and they tend to have a lot less patience for it. Like they’re obviously they’re people like the rest of us and deserve to be treated with human rights and decency, but I don’t feel bad if you go to a country illegally then get deported as a result.
They only start to care when they find out your immigration status? That’s a bit strange, if somebody was going to be racist or xenophobic I think it would be based more on your appearance or accent or whatever (if you have one)
Most people wouldn’t know or care.
There are some bigots and racist idiots out there.
I think mostly it’ll be fine. Maybe some asshole will say something, but if they do, ignore them.
Most people are nice. It’s the loud and obnoxious minority that get the headlines.
I’d bet you’ve just run into some bad eggs. But to be fair, it could be how you bring it up. Like if you are asked where you’re from and say “I’m from Canada, I’ve been here for a few years” that’s fine, just saying where you are from. But responding with “Canada, my immigration status is as a Foreign National”. That’s gonna rub some people the wrong way. Most people don’t know different immigration statuses, and will just assume the worst.
Some people are dicks about it. My wife runs into that a lot, she’s interviewed, been told she’s hired, then ghosted when they see her green card. Her parents are dutch, she’s Canadian. They just assume she’s American.
I can’t imagine anyone I interact with caring that you’re a legal immigrant. If anything they would be excited about it. I threw a party for one of my friends/coworkers last year when he got his US citizenship, but being a green card holder before that never affected our friendship.
I could see an illegal immigrant potentially having issues though.
Yes. Some people choose to make politics an identity. You’ll find some people who hate you and some people who trip over themselves trying to kiss your ass, and others everywhere in between, all because of your status. I’d say don’t bother getting involved with either of them because they both see you as an immigrant first.
Some people resent the fact that corporations are allowed to import people for certain jobs just to break our ability to be paid what the job is really worth. Not your fault really, but there is justifiable resentment.
I guess it’s possible. How is this coming up in conversation?
Depends on the person I guess. It doesn’t make a difference to me personally, but this is a large country and there’s a lot of people who aren’t as welcoming.
Always going to have assholes but I, personally, love meeting people visiting from other countries. I think the majority of people would be welcoming. Obviously in bigger cities like New York or LA you would be less of a unique thing to people but I don’t think you’d have any trouble.
i generally have a more favorable opinion of people who chose to be here as opposed to people who hit the u.s. on their birth lottery, all other things being equal.
I fucking love foreigners! Y’all are often some of the funniest, kindest people I’ve met! And I love foreign accents, they’re super cute! You probably just met some right dickheads, because most Americans love foreigners. It’s kind of our thing!
The short answer is yes. The long answer is that this will depend a lot on their politics. Right now, tension between conservative (generally, rural) and liberal (generally, urban) Americans is at an all-time high.
Conservatives often care quite a lot about their status as American and can be very exclusive, even towards other Americans.
Liberals often do not value being American, and may even like you more for being foreign. The only people they frequently exclude are conservative Americans, but this exclusion is fierce.
It depends more on how you talk and dress than your ethnicity. I live in a hugely diverse city with no majority race, so when I hear someone speaking perfectly non accented American English, I assume they’re American, no matter how they look. However, if I do hear an accent, I don’t just assume they aren’t American, though. It’s just inconclusive. At the same time, I don’t treat anyone any differently either way. There are so many different kinds of people here that anybody, no matter their ethnicity, would not stand out as long as they aren’t wearing super foreign clothes. A while back, we had a bunch of Japanese tourists complaining about being asked for directions, thinking “Why would you ask an Asian appearing person?”, but since the vast majority of Asian appearing persons you run into are English speaking American locals who probably know their way around, most Americans would think “Why exclude them if you need help?”
There shouldn’t be any difference. But some people are just sour and mean. Hopefully the majority of the people you meet are kind, generous, and nice.
I know many people who have coke to the US from all over and they’re some of the hardest working people I know. I’d give any of them the shirt off my back, as they would do for me.
Don’t let negative people get you down. I know you’ve been here for 5 years but welcome to the U.S.
Wdym my immigration status? Like if you’re undocumented or not?
As long as you’re either here legally or in the process of obtaining citizenship I have no issue. People who take issue with immigrants who are trying to or have obtained citizenship are dipshits who don’t realize that America is a country made up of a huge amount of immigrants and their descendants. Maybe it stuck out because you just got unusually unlucky with amount of those kinds of people you’ve encountered.