Tourist or Resident?

“Tourist or Resident?”

The immigration officer’s question was routine but it caught me off guard. After a 15 hour circumpolar flight in the middle of a pandemic, all I could think of was finally going home to Dubai. It had been almost two years since I had seen my parents and the house that I had spent much of my childhood in. After two years stuck alone on the other side of the world, it was a relief to finally be back.

“Tourist.”

I replied almost automatically. I’d answered this question a thousand times by now, but this time was different. As I waited for my entry stamp, for the first time I reflected on my curious reply and the bizarreness of coming home on a tourist visa. Trapped in the constant hustle of pre-pandemic life, bouncing from this visa to the next, I had scarcely paused to consider this.

However, during two years of pandemic induced isolation — months of it entirely alone — had cultivated a habit of thinking about interesting questions, especially if they challenged my worldview. With her routine question, the immigration officer cut right to one of the most fundamental questions about myself that I didn’t have an answer for: where am I from? What is my identity?

I’ve been an immigrant virtually my whole life. I was born in Delhi but whisked away to Singapore at 6 followed by Dubai at 9 (or maybe 10 — it’s a bit hazy) due to my dad’s job. When I became an adult in control of my own trajectory, naturally I hurled myself across the globe to California at 18. My education has been in Indian and British schools, and now in American universities. Because of this, I am a third culture kid: someone raised in cultures different from that of their parents. This naturally results in a complex identity, much like a complicated tapestry woven together from the threads of all the cultures one is exposed to. When this tapestry is woven in diverse city-states such as Dubai and Singapore, where all the cultures of the world come together, it becomes even more difficult to associate with one place. The notion of a solitary “home” loses meaning and “Where are you from?” goes from an innocent question to a quagmire of clarification and introspection.

The simple solution is to just follow the paper trail and let the documents decide this question. My passport is Indian and I have a US student visa. Apart from this there is no document which associates me with any other place since my UAE and Singapore residencies expired long ago. Therefore the easy answer, as any immigration officer around the world can verify, is that I am an Indian and India is home. Usually, when someone asks me where I’m from this is the answer I give because it’s short, sweet, and not false.

But that can’t be it. I am Indian but it isn’t because I have a little black booklet with the words “Republic of India” emblazoned on it in gold letters. It’s because I was continually raised in an Indian culture at home. It’s because I speak the same language and share the same traditions as my parents and grandparents. Even though I genuinely enjoy various cuisines, the food I cook in my kitchen is almost exclusively Indian and Indian food will always have a special place in my palate. Even after two decades of Western education, I still hesitate to address friends’ parents by their first names even if they’re the most laid-back and chilled out Californians, because they are my elders and I don’t want to disrespect them. I would have no problem greeting my friends’ parents by touching their feet with the traditional Indian praṇāma, but they would probably be a bit mortified by such a gesture, so a simple “Hello Uncle/Auntie” will do. Even though my schooling has been almost entirely in British and American institutions and I am fluent in the mores of Anglo-Saxon society, the foundation of my values is built from those of the place where I and my family come from.

But on this foundation rests the combined influence of all the other places I have been fortunate to call home. My insatiable curiosity to learn about different cultures comes from a childhood of constant exposure to people from all over the world. Virtually all of the kids in our Singapore apartment building were Japanese, my school was full of British kids, and Singapore itself was majority Chinese. In Dubai, I’d be the only Indian playing basketball with crowds of Filipino and Arab players. Unconsciously, I absorbed many of their habits and even a little of their languages. Thanks to the influence of my time in Singapore and Dubai, multiculturalism is irreversibly ingrained in my DNA.

The US has also had a profound impact me. This is the place where I became truly independent and learned to stand on my own feet. I’ve absorbed the spirit of individualism that gives this place its fabled dynamism, even though it sometimes comes in conflict with foundational Indian values such as deference to authority. This conflict is what makes me still feel out of place whenever I go back to India. Even though my values are built on Indian culture, there is a degree of tension between me and my de jure home.

On a more concrete level, the US is the only country which I have paid taxes to. In fact, since I’ve been here for so long, Uncle Sam now taxes me just as he would any US citizen despite my temporary visa status. Beyond a point even the documents don’t give clear answers anymore.

So tourist or resident? The answer comes down to what one considers to be home, and that’s not necessarily an easy question. The naive answer is just to follow the documents, but to do that is to strip away the critical essence of how identity is shaped. Although it has considerable influence on our life and the opportunities we have access to, a passport does not fundamentally determine identity. If it did, children of immigrants would have no claim to their parents’ heritage. Instead, it is the influences of the places and cultures we live in that determine our identity. These are the threads that form the colourful tapestries of our lives.

Given this, what is the fundamental difference between tourist and resident? It’s simple. When a tourist visits a place, they only take photos, souvenirs, and a handful of memories with them, which they may or may not forget about. A resident takes neither photos nor souvenirs, but instead the values and culture of the country that they unconsciously absorb by living there. These values shape their identity and cannot be forgotten even if one tries. We may or may not leave a mark on the places we live in, but they always leave one on us. When a place leaves a mark on you forever like this, then it becomes home.