Why Do The Irish Like Being Told How To Live? Immigrants Expectations and...
My lesson for prospective immigrants reading this post is: you cannot always believe what you see, hear, or read when you are on the outside looking in. The reality in country is likely to be quite...
View ArticleIreland Is Not One Thing: Why Immigrants Should Travel More
When we moved to Ireland in 2011, my wife and I promised ourselves that we would travel more faithfully in Ireland than we had in the United States. Though we’ve traveled quite a bit in the U.S., we’d...
View ArticleWe Come Bearing Gifts: Immigrant Contributions to Society
When I wrote about an incident of racial profiling that my wife and I suffered in Dublin, much of the feedback from Irish locals was along the lines of “Well of course we dislike ‘them’ (immigrants)....
View ArticleThe Right Question: Cultural Nuance For Migrants (and Others)
A thought has been gnawing at me. A question. Several, actually. I was recently at a gathering of folks from the travel industry, and struck up a conversation with a woman who has been, for lack of a...
View ArticleThe Privilege of Immigration: The Honor of ‘Elsewhere’
Earlier this month I went back to the United States for both work and family reasons. On that trip I was reacquainted with a guilty pleasure available exclusively to immigrants. When asked where I...
View ArticleThe Song Of My People: The Expat’s Guide to Foreign Language
For anyone traveling overseas, speaking the local language is not just useful, but may well save his or her life. For expats and immigrants, threading the needle of “becoming a local” (if that’s even...
View ArticlePlaying the Skins: The Expat’s Second Chance At Life
As adults we rarely get the chance for a “do over”. When you move overseas, you are, to a greater or lesser extent, given the chance to change who you are. You can try on different masks, and be...
View ArticleThe Leading Edge: Quality Of Life In a Small Country
Please recognize in advance that everything in this post is my opinion, and any “wisdom” is based solely on my lived experience. No experts were consulted, no “facts” are involved, and your mileage...
View ArticleLove You From Afar: An Expat’s View Of Change At Home
For expats knowing where (and what) “home” is can be difficult. For many of us, we’re not really “locals” yet, but we aren’t really part of that place we came from anymore either. We’ve moved on....
View ArticleThe Land Of All Things: For Expats There Is No “Perfect” Place
For those of us who like to travel, and have long wanted to live overseas, we often imagine that there’s some country/place out there, some golden, shining bastion of goodness that will cure...
View ArticleA Better World: The Refugee Crisis and What It Says About Us
I regularly refer to immigrants, emigrants, migrants, and refugees in this blog. And, to some extent that last category has always been a somewhat obligatory attempt to cover all bases. And to my mind,...
View ArticleImmigrant Dreams: Fantasies of Prosperity, Happiness, and a Sense of Place
In light of the recent refugee crisis, many of us have had the migrant’s pursuit of happiness and a better life on our minds. But those of us privileged enough to choose emigration, rather than having...
View ArticleGetting On With It: Lessons in Making A Life
One of the things that simultaneously aggravates and inspires me is the Irish notion of, “It’ll be grand”, of just getting on with it, and making do. It seems so casual and whimsical, but “getting on...
View ArticleEverything Is Ireland’s Fault: Or Why I’m a Bad Immigrant
Hey, Ireland, I’ll let you in on a little secret. As much crap as you talk about the immigrants within your borders, we talk about you too. Even after nearly five years of living in Dublin, a town I’ve...
View ArticleImmigrant Awareness: American Isolation, Social Media, and Brexit
It seems all too obvious that living in another country would, or should, increase our awareness of the world; but I was not prepared for how much it would open my eyes not just about the rest of the...
View ArticleMulticulturalism and This Immigrant
Apologies for taking so long to post something, but it’s been a busy couple of months. In August I returned to filmmaking, my first love, and was fortunate enough to put together an amazing team of...
View ArticleThe World As We Know It: Local Experience & Global Impact
In light of recent political events, and the global protests this past weekend, it occurs to me that we immigrants are in a unique position. Having lived for extended periods in at least two cultures...
View ArticleI Thought Having the Paper Would Help: Meditations on NOT Being Irish
First, my deepest apologies for not writing sooner, and particularly for not writing in the lead up to my naturalization ceremony (originally postponed due to the hurricane, and ten rescheduled and...
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