Source: China Daily Network
China Daily Network September 13 (Dang Chaofeng) Recently, the American website mic published an article written by writer Ian Kumamoto, "Why do young people of color want to leave the United States? 》. Kumamoto was born in Mexico , the capital of Mexico City , grew up in Texas, USA, and now lives in Brooklyn, New York. His works have appeared in " New York Times ", "VICE", " Washington Post ", etc. The article is excerpted as follows:
In the United States, as a minority, I feel very stressed. From my cultural values to my appearance, everything seems to be out of place with mainstream culture. Anyone may be anxious about not being a sense of belonging, but as people of color in the United States, this anxiety is inevitable.
At present, more and more American Gen Z and millennials are moving overseas, with many people of color. Mental health professional Dior Vargas said: "It makes sense that people of color will move to places where they feel more recognized, because psychological safety is extremely important to a person's quality of life."
Although we should live in a more progressive era, the Black Lives Matter movement and the COVID-19 pandemic have caused new questions about whether it is worth staying in the United States. z generation is the most diverse generation of Americans to date, yet they live in a country dominated by older white men. According to a poll from Harvard in December 2021, more than half of young people believe that American democracy is under threat, and one-third thinks that the situation is bad enough to lead to a civil war.
People of color are increasingly bored with American politics, moving forward and reverse to their parents’ homeland (29% of reverse to Mexico are due to “nostalgia” according to the Wilson Center) or to countries they have never been to.
The idea that anyone who has been a child who believes or has been instilled with American exceptional lies is novel. But for young people of color, it's not a radical idea.
This is partly because people feel that the United States does not have real upward liquidity. According to a 2022 study by US personal finance company Credit Karma, nearly one-third of young people aged 18 to 25 live with their parents, a result of soaring rents and wage increases that cannot catch up with inflation . Cooper, a 25-year-old African-American female teacher, has a deep understanding of this. Cooper was born and raised in the United States. After graduating from Tuskegee University in 2019, he has lived in Italy, Senegal , South Korea, Haiti and Mexico. She has a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering , and the jobs she applied for after graduation did not meet the expected salary or benefits, so she boldly left the United States.
Cooper said: "In fact, I've seen things better in other countries". Cooper currently lives in Mexico. She said that being an African American abroad could immediately feel a sense of peace and freedom that she could not get when she was in the United States.
According to a study published in 2019 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the widespread use of guns has caused a very high proportion of deaths among African Americans. One in every 1,000 African American men in the United States may be beaten to death by police. Racism in other countries is not always as severe as the United States. Living in a country that doesn’t worry about such problems can free up a lot of spiritual space. "Leaving America is not something I'm running away, but running to the lifestyle I've always dreamed of, looking for things that seem out of reach for people like me," Cooper said. "Having relief from violent racism seems to be a huge motivation for most people I talk to, many of whom specifically choose to move to Mexico. For people of color, Mexico is tempting: a country dominated by non-white people has a relatively low cost of living and a rich cultural heritage.
25-year-old Nasir Fleming from Connecticut is a content manager who moved to Mexico City in 2020 when it was at the climax of the Black Lives Matter movement.Fleming, an African-American, told me that when he decided to move, his mental health was at an all-time low. He said: "A lot of African Americans like me are moved by something foreign. We ask ourselves, 'What the hell do we do in the United States?'"
When Fleming left the United States, depression was greatly relieved. "When I moved to Mexico, I could feel my real existence and not worry about being beaten or shot by the police just because of my skin color." Fleming also said, "Of course, African Americans are not particularly valued in Latin America, but as a foreigner, I am not burdened with the burden of systemic oppression as I do in the United States."
