The Emotional Challenges of Immigration: Strategies and Stories Of Those Who Stayed

Immigrants make up 3.15% of the world’s population, that’s 216 million people. How do you successfully progress from emigration to being a long term immigrant?

You may not have moved countries; you may have changed areas, such as rural to city. Have you ever felt disconnected to the place in which you are living, or struggled with the language, humour or behaviours? Have you have missed features of what was once your home, or found yourself wishing your family and friends were more accessible? If you have, even if you haven’t changed countries, you may be subject to the emotional challenges that immigrants face, and will find help in this book.

Emigrating and immigrating is more than removal companies and getting visas. There are many emotions involved. The combination of excitement and sadness from moving countries is just the tip of the iceberg.

In your new country, when you have recovered from the culture shock, and calmed down from the novelty of where you live, there is the ‘missing’ to deal with. The missing of family, friends, familiarity and the celebrations you would have had with them is often unanticipated and overwhelming. It is not to be treated casually. Immigrants often struggle or return to their homeland because of what they miss, rather than due to economic or practical reasons.

The book The Emotional Challenges of Immigration explores many of the emotional issues faced by immigrants or people away from home. In this strategy-filled, self-help book you will find suggestions of how to face the challenges.
• Whether you consider visits to your homeland a necessity or a luxury, you can learn how to make the most of your time there and how to make the most of visits from your family and friends.
• If you are a parent or plan on being one, you will find out how you can introduce your heritage to your children.
• What to do when you receive the news that a loved one is getting married, having a baby or dying. What were immigrants’ experiences when they have had big news to share, an engagement, pregnancy, child’s milestone.
• Do you and your spouse have the same priorities on visits to family? Whether a migrant couple or a transnational marriage, issues of homesickness and family visits have to be communicated.
• You will learn ways to gain or increase a sense of belonging where you are living.
• You will read that, although you are geographically distant from loved ones in your homeland, you still have a part to play in their lives.

Each chapter deals with particular emotional challenges for those away from their homeland. Immigrants’ actual experiences are shared and strategies are offered based on what has worked for them. It may be hard to adjust your thinking from wishing for a white Christmas to seeking shade in the heat of summer, but at some stage you have to let go of old traditions and create some your own. Immigrant challenges can be isolating. This book will help you know there are solutions and that you are not alone in your struggles. Through this book, you can find out how to become a more settled immigrant and how to feel more connection with the place in which you are living.

Ellie Baker has been an immigrant for 25 years. She has a transnational marriage and was recently termed a ‘successful immigrant,’ defined as an immigrant who contributes to the country and community she lives in. Her research into how immigrants cope has led her to offer solutions to survive the sad and bad times, and relish the glad times, of being an immigrant.

This book reveals the emotional challenges of being an immigrant. It is a book for immigrants to understand and help overcome their challenges. It is a book for potential immigrants and people who know or love immigrants.