Finding Home as an Aromantic Immigrant
Written by UnYoung Word count: 950 words
AUREA’s Volunteer Onboarder Estimated reading time: approx. 5 mins
The topic of home has always been a complex one for me. I’ve never truly felt like I had a home, and I have this fear that it’s something I might never have. I’ve been searching for one for so long, but lately I’ve been wondering, is a home something I can have?
Home for me is complicated by the intersection of being an immigrant and being aromantic. I didn’t grow up in my country of origin in South America. I also moved around rather frequently, every two or so years, so I never felt like I had a permanent place. I had to build and say goodbye to numerous friendships and social networks. I don’t have a hometown or a childhood home. Growing up in the US, I was often reminded that I did not belong as people remarked on my accent or heckled me with “Go back to your country.” There comes a point in which you’ve lived in your host country for so long that you no longer know what your home country is like except for when you go to visit family. Questions like “where are you from?” cannot be answered with a word or two. Although I do have a physical space in which I reside, I feel a sense of cultural homelessness.
Being aromantic certainly doesn’t help (because of amatonormativity). Many would agree that home is more than a physical space. However, the abstract concepts of home tend to revolve around the idea of a nuclear family and romantic love. When you don’t want to have a romantic relationship and build a family in the normative sense, you’re left with few options. If home is where your family is, then what does that mean for me? I’ve tried building a home based on found family with friends for it to only fall flat because of amatonormativity. I’m very close with my parents, but although I love them very much, we have differences that would make it difficult for me to build my adult life around them. I could potentially look for a partner, but I’ve been questioning a lot lately whether I actually would like a partnership or if I feel that it’s necessary because it’s really one of the more viable ways for me to get my needs met.
Having little access to my cultural roots and the effect of amatonormativity on my life leaves me feeling not at home in the world. I feel rootless. I have always felt rootless.
---
If we talk about home as a physical and domestic space, amatonormativity makes it difficult for me to envision a home. As a “single” person, I might not ever be able to afford a home. Also, I don’t want to live in a house by myself. As a life-long immigrant who has moved so often, physical spaces often feel so temporary. Many times, I didn’t bother making a space my own because I knew I’d be moving. Even though I move much less often now, I still hesitate to put my stamp on a place.
If we talk about home as a place to be yourself, cultural assimilation and integration often ask of me to deny and give up my heritage in order to become more like the host culture. As an aromantic in a romantic world, there is also a sense of (forced) assimilation. I often feel like I can’t be myself as I have to water myself down in friendships because I’m too “intense.” Friendships are “not supposed to be” committed or deeply intimate, society says. I feel out of place as most people around me are so focused on romantic love and relationships and endorse normative standards of relationships and care. Even in queer spaces there can be a sense of assimilation when the focus is on “love is love.”
---
Over these past couple of years, I have grown to realize what it is that truly makes a place “home” for me, what it is that I’m really looking for as this longing and yearning for home gnaws at my bones. I’m now in yet another country, after having immigrated again. This last big move to the Netherlands in which I left everything and everyone behind has truly made me realize that it’s sharing that makes a place a home. Of course, having creature comforts, like your favorite mugs, blankets, and art prints, certainly contributes to that feeling of home. But all that feels a bit lackluster for me when I don’t have anyone to share it with. That is what home is for me. It’s about sharing memories, a space, a path. Sharing the little acts of care and closeness of living with someone. Sharing in the practice of customs of a place I had to leave behind. Sharing bits and pieces of information about ourselves by simply existing in a shared space together. But when many people around you aren’t willing to break the normative mold and form these sharing relationships with you - whether it be because of amatonormativity or xenophobia - then home feels very far away indeed.
One thing I’ve learned from being an immigrant, though, is that it’s important to be adaptable. While I may not have the life that I want now, I appreciate and cherish the moments when I can experience glimpses of what I long for. I still hope that someday I can find friends who are willing to build with me the home that I am looking for. In the meantime, I will try to create that in brief moments and close approximations. Perhaps someday this rootless aro immigrant will find home.