The Benefits of Being an Anonymous Immigrant

The unexpected advantages of starting a new life where no one knows you

People always talk about how hard it is for immigrants to adapt to a new country, make new friends, find a support network, make a new life. Yeah, there’s a lot that’s hard.

For some reason, though, no one ever mentions the benefits of the situation. You’d think there’s a conspiracy to keep them a secret. Or maybe we focus too much on the negative. Or perhaps we just forget.

On July 1, 2000, I moved from Venezuela to the US with my family. It was not the first time I’d moved to a new place where I knew no one. But it’s the only time I’ve done so out of necessity more than choice.

We came seeking better opportunities for my then 6-year-old son Diego, who has autism and is intellectually disabled. Nearly twenty years later, it turns out we found not only what we came here for, but also benefits in our initial anonymity.

There are certain advantages that are unique to being an anonymous immigrant. Finding yourself where no one knows you disrupts the arc of your life. There are no expectations about how you should act. You don’t disappoint or surprise anyone.

Without even realizing it, you’re just more daring, ask more questions, explore more options.

Then there’s the family. Having neither friends nor enemies, you’re stuck with your family. We all talk about how family’s the most important thing and how we don’t have enough time to do things “as a family.” Yet we somehow end up filling up our “free time” with plans centered on friends and personal pursuits.

We ask grandma to babysit while we go out with friends. If grandma’s not available and we can’t find or afford a babysitter, we drag our kids with us where we want to go.

We may know plenty of child and family-oriented places and activities where we’ve always lived, but how often do we take advantage of them? How often does the whole family take a trip to the zoo, the park or the museum?

Not so often, and when we go on such outings, it may just be mom and the kids while dad visits grandpa, or dad and the kids while mom goes on a bike ride.

When you first arrive anywhere, there are no invitations to accept or turn down, no FOMO, no favorite places or events, no ill relatives to check on. Plus things are novel to everyone in the group.

The town we moved to is about an hour drive or train ride into New York City. During our free time, we would go everywhere together: the Statue of Liberty, The Museum of Natural History, the Intrepid Air and Space Museum, the World Trade Center (we were last on the deck of one of the Twin Towers in July 2001), the Central Park Zoo, Bronx Zoo, Brooklyn Aquarium — all the places you find on guides with titles like “Top 10 Places to Visit with Family in NYC.”

Name any family friendly spot and chances are we went there, multiple times, our first couple of years in the US. Do the same with any family who’d lived in our town for years (or generations even), and I bet you my house that they’d been to a fraction of these places.

I’m no exception. A friend of mine lived in Venezuela for about four years. She visited more places in the country than my six siblings and me put together. And we’re like 11th-generation Venezuelans on my mom’s side of the family.

If, as I did, you have a partner when you immigrate, your goals either align or you’re done. Your partner is the only reliable adult company you have, so you either grow closer or you stop liking each other.

Whatever the case, the situation gives you clarity when it comes to your relationship. In our case, anonymity brought us closer.

Another benefit of my immigration experience is that it gave me a new perspective on money and happiness. This fresh outlook also had to do with the anonymity factor.

For us, as for so many immigrants, moving to the US came with deep changes in our financial situation.

For the first few years we lived here, we relied only on my husband’s salary from his job for a Venezuelan company. I’m not going to lie, his pay was good, not Connecticut-hedge-fund-manager-good, but food-industry-manager good.

Still, a dollar in the US didn’t go nearly as far as a dollar in Venezuela. It was like taking a 60% pay cut — at least.

And here’s where the the benefit comes in. Anonymity is the best possible situation to be in when your family income shrinks 60%. Let’s be real, it’s easier to deal with a big financial setback where others can’t judge you — or worse still, pity you.

It’s a well-known fact that money correlates with happiness — up to a point. The point, more or less, is where your family’s needs for food and shelter are either at risk or not being met.

To be clear, we were never near that point. But we had to make changes from day one. As it turns out, because we haven’t come close to the same relative income level since moving to the US, the changes have been permanent.

When you suddenly have less money, you must revise the balance between spending on things vs experiences. Our balance shifted strongly and permanently in favor of the latter.

When it comes to happiness, it’s also well documented that, beyond the basic things, experiences provide more of it. This is why I’ve made a mental note to myself that, if I ever win the lottery, I will keep the same things-vs-experiences balance.

There’s more: immigrants appreciate. Ask my mother-in-law, who arrived in Venezuela in 1962 as an anonymous Italian with the man she’d just married. Fifty-eight years later, she remains there and loves, more deeply than most Venezuelan-born citizens like me, what no politician has been able to ruin: the mountains, the approach to life, the climate, her friendships, the air she breathes.

Wouldn’t you know it? Also well known when it comes to happiness is that gratitude is a major contributing factor. Perhaps this is also why you’ll seldom hear my mother-in-law complain about anything.

What do you think? Should you move to a new country to seek fortune and happiness? Not really, the outcome will be different for everyone. Also, it will take years and the gift of hindsight to take stock of your experience.

Please do this, though: When you think of immigrants, remember that they often end up with a deep appreciation of their new country and having a more positive attitude toward life. And don’t think this is the case for documented immigrants like me only. I’ve seen the same phenomenon amongst my undocumented brethren.

This benefits not only us immigrants, but also every native-born American citizen who was here first.