Ideas change everything

What it's like to be the child of immigrants

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Michael Rain |

TED Residency

• November 2017

Michael Rain is on a mission to tell the stories of first-generation immigrants, who have strong ties both to the countries they grew up in and their countries of origin. In a personal talk, he breaks down the mischaracterizations and limited narratives of immigrants and shares the stories of the worlds they belong to. "We're walking melting pots of culture," Rain says. "If something in that pot smells new or different to you, don't turn up your nose. Ask us to share."

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

Michael Rain is on a mission to tell the stories of first-generation immigrants, who have strong ties both to the countries they grew up in and their countries of origin. In a personal talk, he breaks down the mischaracterizations and limited narratives of immigrants and shares the stories of the worlds they belong to. "We're walking melting pots of culture," Rain says. "If something in that pot smells new or different to you, don't turn up your nose. Ask us to share."

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

This talk was presented at an official TED conference.

Read our curation guidelines.

Check out ENODI to learn more about first-generation and immigrant people of African, Caribbean and Latin descent.

Learn more about Michael Rain.

About the speaker

Digital storyteller

See speaker profile

TED Resident Michael Rain communicates ideas through written and visual stories.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference.

Read our curation guidelines.

Check out ENODI to learn more about first-generation and immigrant people of African, Caribbean and Latin descent.

Learn more about Michael Rain.

Transcript (28 Languages)

I remember one morning when I was in the third grade,

my mom sent me to school with a Ghanaian staple dish called "fufu."

(Laughter)

Fufu is this white ball of starch made of cassava,

and it's served with light soup, which is a dark orange color,

and contains chicken and/or beef.

It's a savory, flavorful dish

that my mom thought would keep me warm on a cold day.

When I got to lunch and I opened my thermos,

releasing these new smells into the air,

my friends did not react favorably.

(Laughter)

"What's that?" one of them asked.

"It's fufu," I responded.

(Laughter)

"Ew, that smells funny. What's a fufu?" they asked.

Their reaction made me lose my appetite.

I begged my mother to never send me to school with fufu again.

I asked her to make me sandwiches or chicken noodle soup

or any of the other foods that my friends were eating.

And this is one of the first times

I began to notice the distinction between what was unique to my family

and what was common for everyone else,

what was Ghanaian and what was African

and what was American.

I'm a first-generation American.

Both of my parents are immigrants.

In fact, my father, Gabriel, came to the US almost 50 years ago.

He arrived in New York

from a city called Kumasi in a northern region of Ghana,

in West Africa.

He came for school, earning his bachelor's degree in accounting

and eventually became an accountant.

My mother, Georgina, joined him years later.

She had a love of fashion

and worked in a sewing factory in lower Manhattan,

until she saved up enough to open her own women's clothing store.

I consider myself an American

and an African

and a Ghanaian.

And there's millions of people around the world

who are juggling these different classifications.

They might be Jamaican-Canadians or Korean-Americans or Nigerian-Brits.

But what makes our stories and experiences different

is that we were born and raised in a country different than our parents,

and this can cause us to be misunderstood

when being viewed through a narrow lens.

I grew up in New York, which is home to the largest number of immigrants

anywhere in the United States.

And you would think growing up in a place like New York,

it would be easy for a first-generation person to find their place.

But all throughout my childhood,

there were these moments that formed my understanding

of the different worlds I belonged to.

When I was in the fifth grade, a student asked me

if my family was refugees.

I didn't know what that word meant.

He explained to me that his parents told him

that refugees are people from Africa who come to the US

to escape death, starvation and disease.

So I asked my parents, and they laughed a bit,

not because it was funny but because it was a generalization.

And they assured me that they had enough to eat in Ghana

and came to the US willingly.

(Laughter)

These questions became more complex as I got older.

Junior high school was the first time

I went to school with a large number of black American students,

and many of them couldn't understand why I sounded differently than they did

or why my parents seemed different than theirs.

"Are you even black?" a student asked.

I mean, I thought I was black.

(Laughter)

I thought my skin complexion settled that.

(Laughter)

I asked my father about it, and he shared his own confusion

over the significance of that when he first came to the US.

He explained to me that, when he was in Ghana, everyone was black,

so he never thought about it.

But in the US, it's a thing.

(Laughter)

But he would say, "But you're African.

Remember that."

And he would emphasize this,

even though many Africans in the continent would only consider me to be

just an American.

These misconceptions and complex cultural issues

are not just the inquiries of children.

Adults don't know who immigrants are.

If we look at current trends,

if I asked you: What's the fastest-growing

immigrant demographic in the United States,

who would you think it was?

Nine out of 10 people tell me it's Latinos,

but it's actually African immigrants.

How about in academics?

What's the most educated immigrant demographic?

A lot of people presume it to be Asians, but it's actually African immigrants.

Even in matters of policy,

did you know that three out of the eight countries

in the so-called "travel ban"

are African countries?

A lot of people assume those targeted Muslims only live in the Middle East,

but a lot of those banned people are Africans.

So on these issues of education and policy and religion,

a lot of things we presume about immigrants are incorrect.

Even if we look at something like workplace diversity and inclusion,

if I asked you what gender-ethnicity combination

is least likely to be promoted to senior managerial positions,

who would you think it was?

The answer is not Africans this time.

(Laughter)

And it's not black women or men,

and it's not Latin women or men.

It's Asian women who are least likely to be promoted.

Capturing these stories and issues is part of my work

as a digital storyteller

that uses tech to make it easier for people to find these stories.

This year, I launched an online gallery of portraits and firsthand accounts

for a project called Enodi.

The goal of Enodi is to highlight first-generation immigrants just like me

who carry this kinship for the countries we grew up in,

for the countries of origin

and for this concept called "blackness."

I created this space to be a cyberhome for many of us who are misunderstood

in our different home countries.

There are millions of Enodis

who use hyphens to connect their countries of origin

with their various homes in the US

or Canada or Britain or Germany.

In fact, many people you might know are Enodi.

Actors Issa Rae and Idris Elba are Enodi.

Colin Powell,

former Attorney General Eric Holder,

former President of the United States, Barack Obama,

are all the children of African or Caribbean immigrants.

But how much do you know about us?

This complicated navigation

is not just the experience of first-generation folks.

We're so intertwined

in the lives and culture of people in North America and Europe,

that you might be surprised how critical we are

to your histories and future.

So, engage us in conversation;

discover who immigrants actually are,

and see us apart from characterizations

or limited media narratives

or even who we might appear to be.

We're walking melting pots of culture,

and if something in that pot smells new or different to you --

(Laughter)

don't turn up your nose.

Ask us to share.

Thank you.

(Applause)