The Immigrant and the Eggs

by Iman Zamir, Young Center Volunteer Child Advocate

Imagine this.

You wake up one day, finding yourself transported to a strange new land miles from your home — miles in terms of distance, and worlds apart in terms of all things else. And your first thought, as you take in your bearings, is breakfast.

For those born and raised in the same country and culture, craving breakfast is as simple as getting out of bed, waltzing over to your kitchen, opening the refrigerator, and building a meal from the limited or extensive list of ingredients you have at your disposal.

For a new immigrant, the first independent breakfast would beg the following questions:

Navigation:

· What is the nearest grocery store I can go to?

· Can I walk there, or do I need transport?

· How does the bus system work here?

At the bus station:

· How do I get a ticket? How does the ticket machine work?

· What do these different coins and cash amounts mean?

On the bus:

· Am I going in the right direction?

· Am I allowed to sit on this seat?

· How do I tell the bus driver I need to get off at the next stop?

At the grocery store:

· Where are the eggs?

· Is $8 too much for a dozen eggs?

· What’s the difference between cage-free, free roaming, farm raised and organic eggs?

· Where are the “normal” eggs?

(followed by the same questions about milk and bread)

And so on and so forth….

Being an immigrant, irrespective of what age you arrive, is like being a baby, always curious, always with more questions than answers, and always vulnerable.

As someone who came to the US at the age of 25, I am no stranger to how isolating the immigrant experience can be. I remember very clearly the day I went shopping for eggs for the first time, and how completely lost I felt at a task I had assumed to be simple enough. And I was an adult. A well-educated, English speaking, globally aware woman who had chosen to leave my country out of choice (instead of compulsion or any form of personal or political duress). The first two years as an immigrant were flabbergasting, in all and every sense. Google, and later ChatGPT were my trusted compatriots, answering the questions I posed and predicting which ones I’d have next.

So, when I found out about the Young Center (YC), about 18 months into my arrival in the US, the connection was so strong I felt it in my bones. Two words from the YC mission struck me — “unaccompanied (immigrant) children”. Two words my naïve self would never have imagined put together.

“What do you mean unaccompanied children? You mean children crossing the US border on their own? How? With whom? Why? Without their parents and guardians? Children under the age of 18? How do they get here safely?”

These and many more questions raced through my mind. If I, as an adult with my husband as my support system with me, was struggling so much, I could not fathom what it would be like for an unaccompanied child. All I knew was, I needed to be a part of this organization at whatever cost!

Once I began my training to be a Volunteer Child Advocate with the Young Center, my naivety once again got the best of me. I had thought that the journey from homeland to US mainland without one’s parents would be the hardest part of the story, but to my dismay, the story only gets worse.

I found out first through my training and subsequently through the lives of the two kiddos I have been paired with over the last year, that it gets a lot harder before it gets easier. The complexities of the US immigration system, the tactics of the new administration, the red tape and all the anti-immigrant rhetoric makes life way worse for that child who thought he/she had already seen their worse and were now coming into safe arms. The lack of homeliness in detention centers, the absence of choice while living between various immigration statuses and the loss of childhood that occurs while navigating this system is what greets innocent young children once they cross the US border for what should have been “greener pastures”.

At the end of the day, all children deserve love. I’d contest that unaccompanied immigrant children deserve love even more. And the Young Center’s volunteer program is a pathway to just that. A familiar face in a multiverse of unfamiliar realities. A human Google or ChatGPT to answer our kiddos’ gazillion questions and be the guide they can think back to when they go to purchase their first dozen eggs. That and much more is what being a Volunteer Child Advocate means to me.

In the end, I will say, children all over the world are witnessing first-hand what we categorize as PG and R-rated scenes in the world of movies. As humans with a working conscience, it is our job to protect our children. Our children do not belong to a particular race, color or religion. Our children should not be defined by borders. Young Center’s volunteer program is a great way to overcome these differences, and to be the guiding light for children whose light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel seems a bit too far away for their little imaginations.