“Coming to America”
As a child of the 80’s, Eddie Murphy’s movie holds a special place in my childhood memories. The satire of an immigrant coming from Africa and cluelessly wandering around New York— it equally glorified the American dream (boy meets girl who becomes princess), while highlighting the hypocritical elements of that dream(read: rat-infested hovels and minimum wage fast-food jobs).
Several decades later since having watched that film from the comfort of my suburban American family home, I’ve made my own personal journey from (East) Africa (not a country) to the US. Six years ago, I moved from Manhattan to Rwanda without a permanent job (a sort-of “volunteer” position at a former colleague’s start-up), without much knowledge of my destination, and without a plan. Fast forward to 2022 and I’m back, in the USA, where things and the “Dream” have changed to say the least.
When I left the US in 2016, it was pre-Trump and pre a lot of other things that are happening now. The country was polarized, sure, the police had their issues (a foreign ex boyfriend once called us a “police state”), guns were also a problem— and, yet, these things seem magnified in 2022.
From afar, I watched the election of the first president to never hold public office, the return of the KKK (in my home state no less), a congressional coup, DC institute martial law… and many many other things. Similar to a toxic breakup, from the comfort of the other side of the world, I had to hold the US at arm’s length and reduce my consumption of news in order to cope. I lived in a constant state of cognitive dissonance— homesick but at the same time grateful not to be there/ here to witness the shit-show in person.
The world has watched in horror, pity, and schadenfreude. Friends, colleagues, and acquaintances expressed their condolences the day after the latest American horror show to only follow with “well, now you know how it feels.” Fair enough. Much of the rest of the world has had to watch their presidents lie, cheat, steal publicly and watch their legislative bodies pass laws that take away human rights at semi-regular intervals. It’s human to want to see the decline of American democracy as inevitable, perhaps even just. For those of us who grew up being told we were special, the only successful true democracy in history, it has been anything but inevitable or just.
So where does this leave a repatriated citizen trying to reacclimatize? Well, my “Coming to America” story has been much less romantic than Eddie Murphy’s. I won’t be returning to the Land of Zamunda, but I won’t be staying here either.
