Duty: The Sacrifice of Immigration

The final day before I moved to study in Glasgow, my parents cried. They wept with pride that their child was stepping towards a life unimaginable to them. My father wished he had received an education—not only to provide his children with academic wisdom, but so they could succeed in every way imaginable.

My mother spent her early years in education, nurturing and blossoming her mind. At 17, she was pushed into an arranged marriage. In Pakistan, her father believed a woman’s education was unnecessary and took away the promise of studying from her.

My father also spent his early years being educated; however, the necessity of immigration ended this. He and my mother moved to Edinburgh in 1989, both sacrificing what could have been their youth and the forming of their academic minds. Education was out of reach, as they were forced to learn how to survive in a new Western landscape.

When I was born, this sacrifice adorned every meal, every article of clothing, every time the house was heated. Taxi driving, corner shop work, cleaning—working-class jobs were forced upon them, so we had a chance to eat, a chance to survive. They were not afforded the beauty and importance of education, but were instead forced to endure.

As a teenager, I pushed away my ethnic identity, embracing Western freedom and individuality, rejecting the duty I had to uphold. I feared the colour of my skin, forever being outcast. I avoided having friends in my home because of the unfamiliar smell of spices, the way I spoke, my features, and my confusion towards aspects of Western society that made me feel excluded.

What I failed to realise in neglecting my heritage was what my parents had done for me: the blood, sweat and tears they shed to ensure my life could be better than theirs. I rejected this, chasing a life of hedonism, and only found at the end the shadow of my own unfulfilment—the spirits and demons of their sacrifices.

And here lies our duty. We, as students—students of parents and families who were not granted the opportunities we are—must and can break the cycle of sacrifice. We have been given the opportunity to be in academic institutions, or simply to find work that can provide a quality of life our parents were never able to uphold.

When I say duty, I mean the recognition of sacrifice: the recognition that our families stripped away their own lives to provide us with one.

Being an immigrant, or coming from a family of immigrants, is a label that marks us. It can defeat us every day. And it is our responsibility to bear this cross. To do what we can with the remnants of our families’ hopes, for what our parents or guardians were never afforded.

Let us speak up about injustice. Let us use our privileges. Let us challenge the issues that exploit the working class and the immigrants of our society. Let us educate ourselves and form better lives.

This is our duty as individuals. Whether through university or any means we can, we must read, study, educate ourselves, and fight for a better life. We have the power to change the things our parents never had the opportunity to affect; to challenge the oppressiveness that suffocated them.

We observe our differences daily: the shuddering feeling of being out of place, or the constant belittling questions of where we are “really from”. Under all this frustration, we can embrace what makes us different. Hold it. Adorn it with pride. This is you. There is a culture you have come from—keep it close to your heart, and remember why you are here: to make a change, to make a difference, to use all the facilities now available to you to create a life free from the cycle of immigration.

We cannot change our heritage, nor our features that make us stand out, but we can strive for greatness and use our new opportunities to exceed our constraints.

With each opportunity afforded to me now, I check in with my parents. The beauty of modern technology allows me, in an instant, to be met with their presence. I can see the glitter in their eyes when I tell them I am pushing forward, working towards something. Whatever that may be for you or for me, I hold on to their joy. I know that, whether I say it or not, internally I want to make sure their sacrifice was worth it.

When you walk past homes in the evening and the scent of familiar dishes takes you back home, embrace this. When you see families that resemble your own walking through parks or the city centre, and when a woman resembles your mother and you wonder if she has faced the same hardships—feel this. Know that we can make a change. Through our daily tasks, our endless days of studying, working and exhaustion, never forget: not only are we doing this for ourselves, but for our families and our communities.