Living with Uncertainty

The Emotional Weight of Being an Immigrant

? The Ever-Present Question of Belonging

Lately, I’ve been feeling an uncomfortable weight in my chest — the kind that comes with seeing anti-immigrant sentiments gaining global traction yet again. It’s the painful unease of wondering if the place I call home today will still see me as part of it tomorrow. It’s a quiet, nagging fear—the kind that lurks in the back of your mind as policies shift, as doors close, as the future becomes more uncertain.

For many immigrants, this feeling is not new. It’s an undercurrent we’ve learned to live with, a reality that never quite disappears, no matter how long we’ve been here. It’s present in casual conversations where people ask, “Where are you really from?” It’s in the news cycles that debate our worth in economic terms. It’s in how we brace ourselves for elections, new policies, for the possibility of being told, in subtle or explicit ways, that we don’t belong.

🌋 Navigating a Shifting Landscape

This feeling isn’t new for me either. Even when I lived in Johannesburg, South Africa, where most people looked like me, I still felt the weight of exclusion. Questions of identity, belonging, and who gets to claim space were just as present. There, I wrestled with the contradictions of being in a place that should have felt like home, yet a lot of times, it didn’t.

And now, here in Berlin, I feel it again, this time with a different urgency. With the rise of far-right extremism, the term remigration is now part of public discourse — a chilling reminder that belonging is not always permanent and that the idea of home can be fragile. I’ve noticed the shift not just in news headlines but in the air around me. Conversations have changed. The subtle ways that people interact with me feel different — sometimes it’s a look, a hesitation, an assumption about my status. The same streets I once walked with ease now feel slightly heavier underfoot, as if the ground itself is reminding me that my presence here is being questioned.

What is particularly unsettling is that this isn’t just an abstract political debate — there are real consequences. Policies can change overnight. The safety net that immigrants work so hard to build can be weakened in an instant. And the hardest part? It’s never clear when the shift from unease to outright hostility might come.

In South Africa, I often grappled with the irony of feeling like an outsider in a place that was as close to home as it gets. Now, in Berlin, I wrestle with a different kind of exclusion — one tied not just to race, but to nationality, to migration status, to the very idea of who gets to belong. It’s a strange feeling to have experienced exclusion in two vastly different places, for different reasons, but with the same underlying message: this place might not be yours to call home forever.

👫🏽 Building a Future Amid Uncertainty

This uncertainty feels even heavier as my wife and I stand at a juncture in our lives where we would like to start a family. We want to raise our children in a safe, stable environment, one where they don’t have to constantly question their place in society. But that vision feels increasingly complicated when the place we thought could be home starts to feel less welcoming.

At the same time, we’ve always hoped to use our position here to make it easier for our family back home to follow in our footsteps — to create opportunities for them that might not exist where they are. But now, we are torn. We can’t shake the thought that bringing them here might mean exposing them to a situation that could go on to become worse than the one they are trying to leave behind. It’s a painful contradiction: wanting to build a better future for ourselves and our loved ones, yet fearing that the foundation beneath us is shifting in ways we cannot control.

💪🏽 The Strength in Community and Conversation

We have gotten used to adapting. We learn new languages, navigate unfamiliar systems, and work twice as hard to prove we belong. We have molded ourselves into shapes that fit, making peace with the compromises that come with it. We celebrate the opportunities we’ve carved out for ourselves, but we also carry the weight of knowing that acceptance is conditional — that belonging can sometimes feel temporary, no matter how much we contribute, how deeply we invest, or how many years we call a place home.

But no amount of resilience makes it easy to watch the world tilt in a direction that feels hostile.

I don’t have a resolution for this feeling. It lingers, coming and going in waves. But I do know that fear thrives in isolation. And if there’s one thing that makes it lighter, it’s knowing that we’re not alone.

Conversations matter. They remind us that our experiences are shared, that our fears are valid, and that our presence is meaningful. They remind us that we are not invisible, no matter how much rhetoric tries to erase us.

So, if you’re feeling the same way, know this: your presence matters, your work matters, and your story matters. Even in difficult times, we keep moving forward - and we do so together.