The Resilience of Immigrants

17 Nov 2022 · 0 min

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Hadar Shemesh (speaker) describes how immigrants and speakers of English as a second language often feel inadequate or pressured to work harder, and frames those experiences as producing resilience, persistence, diligence, and determination. The excerpt highlights the emotional cost of leaving one’s home and the identity and linguistic adaptation required, portraying these struggles as evidence of strength.

Speakers of English as a second language. We always feel like not enough or we have to work harder. And first of all, that alone has made us so resilient and persistent and diligent and determined. That journey, immigrants in particular, having to deal with changing your home and saying goodbye to everything that you've known and adapting and changing your internal rhythm and immersing yourself in the language, all of that honestly says so much about you.