What does it feel like to be an immigrant?

I came here with my parents and brother in 1995 from Russia. Yet I wasn’t born there because I immigrated from Azerbaijan in 1989. That gives me two different experiences of immigration and in both instances my family was foreign to the new place… but at least in America, given that I have no accent, not many people can tell I’m not ‘one of them’. This is always interesting both when people make fun of immigrants and when Russians around me talk about people and think no one is the wiser. I have learned that status or wanting expensive things aren’t real things – when we just came here, shopping in Rainbow or Payless was ‘the shit’ because we were in the community that accepted those stores as a sign of status (better than 99 cents stores, we figured). Later on I learned that these were not stores others considered cool but I’d never know if I didn’t take myself out of my original community. It’s funny to me because I still shop there and everyone thinks I have such great style and it all looks ‘so expensive’. So that’s just one example. Being an immigrant teaches you a lot, I think – knowing what the processes for getting food stamps, Medicaid, WIC are makes you knowledgeable about topics that most people just make assumptions about. You realize it’s not as easy at people make it sound and you know the pitfalls. These days I am successful in this country, given its culture and language and rules. Some people assume that I am this wary or that way because I tell them I’m Russian and they always (not knowing it’s condescending) commend me on how well I speak the language given that other people they know don’t and it must be so hard etc, I must have been brought here as a baby – it must be so hard for me to see women working and I must love to drink, eh?

But mine is only one story, what’s yours? What does it feel like to be an immigrant, for you? (that is, if you are one)