Inexplicable Sorrow: Being an Immigrant in America While Bombs Fall on My Birthplace

In front of me, at a community dinner table, sat three kind older white women. During the course of our meal, we conversed about vegan food, our tolerance for spices, the aromas around the room that marveled us, the unforgettable tastes of our dishes. It would have been just a cozy evening filled with love and community, had it not been for the fact that Israel was bombing Iran as we ate.

Since the ongoing genocide in Palestine, I, along other conscious humans, have been devastated, witnessing a daily massacre that our government proudly funds with our tax dollars. My mind and body have become accustomed to heavy grief in its various forms, to utter disbelief, agony, outrage, an ongoing, unstoppable roller coaster of emotions.

But when news came that Israel bombed my birth country Iran, my brain made every effort to bypass it. I don’t think I knew how to process it. I saw headlines. I knew it was real. My family was reactive, upset, frantic, but I found myself unable to connect and feel.

Baba, this America you loved, is a war machine.

Then something happened after the dinner. I realized a feeling had washed over as I talked to the women. I couldn’t figure it out, something akin to envy.

I wondered how it might feel to be an American and never know the ache of immigrants, the deep innate sorrow of losing one’s homeland. For an American, what happens overseas is far out of reach and might even be out of mind. No matter their level of empathy and understanding (and I am grateful for their compassion and humanity, the collective needs it especially now), they can’t know how immigrants feel unless they experience immigration.

The immigrant experience is one of resilience, adaptability, nostalgia, tolerance for humiliation and suffering, and—depending on the circumstances, at varying degrees—also of significant grief. Grief of losing one’s home, people, language, and culture.

After the dinner, back at the comforts of my suburban home, I sat by my altar and said Salam to my Baba like I do daily. Then the tears came, then the full sobs. My Baba loved America. He was proud to be here. He got to stand atop of one of the Twin Towers. He loved the fresh air he could breathe here unlike Tehran’s polluted air. He, like many immigrants, worked hard and didn’t care what job he held because he loved being in America. He worked so that he could bring his family over, and he did.

What would he say now?

Baba, I said aloud to his spirit in the middle of my loud sobs, America is a killing machine.

I am tired, Baba. Not too tired to fight, for we don’t have a choice but to fight. It’s our moral obligation to fight in the belly of the beast. Witnessing America and Israel murder brown people is too much. The violence is too much. Children’s bodies wrapped in white sheets. Bodies dismembered and amputated. Women wailing, bodies contorted in the shape of grief. It’s too much.

Baba, this America you loved, is a war machine. Immigrants are no longer welcome here. The government is kidnapping immigrants, tearing families apart. Grief on top of grief. Where is home when no country keeps you safe?

If we don’t stop the machine, soon there will be no planet, let alone humanity to fight for.

I miss you, Baba.