Oh my goodness! America is huge and you don’t need to apply for a visa to go to another state. And you are free to move around anywhere and enjoy certain fundamental benefits that is available to all. When I first came to this country 22 years ago, I first lost my shit and then my mind when I found out that libraries are free! And anyone can checkout handfuls of books. I remember paying a monthly fee for a library card in India and can get only two books at a time. Standing in line outside American embassy and British council after school because you can’t fins Time magazine or Nat Geo elsewhere because they were expensive publication. Non vernaculars were not widely available. The Russian consulate had second Saturday chess matches and my mother would take me by bus and if I had a good play, I would get treated with ice cream. I rented a computer for a month when I found out what TCP/IP was and then had to get a phone connection for which the deposit was as much as our monthly rent.
I would hazard a guess that most immigrants would call the above problems mentioned as an uniquely first world complaint. Poverty, lack of opportunities..poor nutrition? It’s all crazy sounding to most of us. I remember when I studied for my college exams under candle light because the power grid in my Indian city was unreliable. And it’s not like I am quoting a Monty Python skit.
I won’t even get started about nutrition. It would literally sound like a MP skit. Student loans? My mother went into personal debt to put me through school and college. And she was a single mother. I can’t wrap my mind around what I see here in America. It is entirely unrelatable. It’s like..the country is a gazelle that has never been taught survival skills to be alive in the wild. And then...boom!!.. life happens.
I hear you but I want to let you know that for majority of people in the world, this would sound utterly bizarre and they’d gladly swap places with you.
No disrespect. Just a different perspective.