08/09/2026
“I came here for you,” my dad would say to us kids. “Why else would I spend six months of the year in the freezing cold when I don’t even speak French?”
The foundations of our Maslowian pyramid have been secured. We are educated. We are housed. We are employed. We have provided for ourselves and our families successfully.
And yet, rather than moving beyond the self, many of us remain fixated on preservation, of comfort, of status, of ease, leaving little room for much else.
Like the grown elephant who does not realize it is no longer bound by the small peg in the ground, we too have failed to recognize that we are safe to progress beyond survival mode. That we can detach from the status quo and walk an alternate path.
For the Identity edition, badil.alt reflected on something many children of immigrants are experiencing as a result of searching for purpose, also fueled by host societies that demand gratitude while simultaneously reminding them of their ‘otherness’.
Read the full piece by Badil in Identity, available to subscribe or order at the link in the bio.
