Most expatriates would agree that repatriation is often the hardest part of the entire expat experience. They find themselves torn between two or even more places, missing their time abroad, the lifestyle, and the sense of adventure. Quite frankly, they no longer feel at home when they return.
However, there are also expats who find joy in coming back. I had the honor of interviewing Margarita Diaz, and her story is a refreshing example that repatriation can mean returning to a place where you are truly at home.
Tell us a little about yourself.
Who am I? In the context of my repatriation journey, I’m a New York City (NYC) attorney who moved abroad for 2 years for love. I say “for love” because I didn’t move “for” a person or even a relationship, but for the opportunity to give a great yet inconvenient love a chance. You see, my fiancé lived in Denmark and I lived in NYC. We met on a NYC salsa club dance floor while he was visiting New York. We fell in love despite the distance, appreciating as adults that great loves like ours don’t come along that often. After many long talks and planning sessions over coffees and late meals crammed into our cross-Atlantic visits, we decided I would move first.
It’s worth mentioning that I’m a New Yorker who absolutely adores my city. I was born in the Bronx, NY and have lived almost my entire adult life in Manhattan, with the exception of my 2 years in Copenhagen, Denmark. I’m Puerto Rican and Peruvian (in addition to American), moved around a lot within the Tri-State area as a child, and lived in Puerto Rico briefly during my childhood.
Why did you decide to move back to your home country after living abroad?
Moving back to NYC was part of the plan from the beginning. My husband and I agreed that Copenhagen was temporary and that New York would be our long-term home. I had applied for and gained acceptance into a Masters program at the University of Copenhagen, which helped us set the time frame for our Copenhagen residency at 2 years.
It was important to me that I learn about my husband’s culture and background. We both took a leap of faith in our relationship by each leaving our respective homelands (first I left, then he) for love, and our families trusted us as responsible adults to make sound choices. Our union was not about who would give up what, but rather about how we could best enrich our lives and that of our future child(ren) by capturing the most of what our cross-Atlantic love story could provide. Living my husband’s culture first hand, learning his native language, and getting to spend more than periodic visits with his family and friends strengthened our bond and provided a solid, multicultural foundation for our family and for the son we would later have. And for me, spending those 2 years in Denmark expanded my perspectives in both hoped for and completely unexpected ways.
What were your expectations of returning home, and how did reality compare?
This is really where my story seems to differ from many others (or so I’m told). As I mentioned earlier, I moved around a lot when I was little. A move doesn’t need to be international to have an impact on a child. I hardly spent more than one full year in each of my elementary schools. Changing schools, neighborhoods, or states can be challenging enough, and adding a switch to another language can really be disorienting to a young child. As I transitioned from English-speaking schools to a Spanish-speaking one (in Puerto Rico) and back through English-speaking ones in the U.S., I started to look for constants in other parts of my daily life. My parents’ deep love for my brother and me and the time we spent together as a family were cherished constants that provided stability and a sense of home. Salsa and merengue music and dance would also prove to be portable pillars of my sense of both home AND identity. I learned early on to recognize the things that inherently made me feel a part of, without requiring an invitation. I learned to identify the parts of myself that made me feel that way too. For example, when I sing or dance, I connect to music which connects me to others. When I write, I connect with myself and with the shared experiences we don’t even know we have, until someone has the courage to write them down and show them to the world.
All this to say, I didn’t expect the people or places I had left behind in NYC to have stayed the same when I returned.
I’ve often said that while we might return to a place, we can never return to a time. This isn’t meant to be melancholy but rather modest and humble. Lives move on whether we are there to witness this movement or not. Understanding this and accepting it actually grants us a lot of freedom to make the choices that seem best at the time, without angst about what might have been or what we might miss.
Such acceptance wasn’t just a perspective shift, as if shifting our way of looking at the world were as easy as sliding a switch over to another setting. This was a way of thinking developed over a lifetime of practice, whether consciously or not.
So when I returned to NYC, now as a married woman with international work, education and life experience, it felt like reuniting with an old friend and noticing how we’d each grown a bit during our time apart.
What aspects of life abroad do you miss the most?
Do I miss aspects of my life abroad? I am immensely grateful for the experience, but I wouldn’t necessarily say that I miss aspects of it. My 2 years in Denmark are and forever will be a part of me. I left a physical place when I moved back to NYC, but my connection to Copenhagen and its people exists through what I do, not where I live. That said, certain friendships that didn’t withstand the distance after I moved back to NYC are what I miss most.
How easy or difficult was it to readjust to the culture of your home country?
It was fairly easy for me to readjust to American culture and the rhythm and pace of New York City. New York is in my blood. Coming back home simply felt like a true homecoming. It felt like being reunited with a little piece of my heart that had been left behind for 2 years. It also felt like the parts of me that were trapped behind a language barrier (try as I did, I achieved some proficiency in Danish but nothing close to fluency) were finally able to reemerge, allowing me to feel more like a version of myself with many more possibilities for expression. Readjusting wasn’t so much about what had changed, but about reuniting with the aspects that kept me connected throughout life’s changes: the constants.
Was there anything you wish you had known or done differently during the move back?
This is another question that makes me smile as it’s a version of a “what if?” There is truly nothing I wish I had known or done differently during our move back. That doesn’t mean there aren’t things we could have done better. I remember filling out tons of paperwork to ship our clothes and items to the U.S. as we had sold all our furniture, and packing all our shoes in suitcases to bring back with us as the paperwork for shipping shoes seemed overwhelmingly complicated! I suspect there must have been an easier way! But I don’t regret it. It’s part of our story.
So often we hear stories about how challenging it is to move back home, yet your story is so different. Why do you think that is?
I think everyone’s experience is different. There are so many factors affecting our repatriation journey: How long we were away, why we moved to begin with, how we felt about our home country or city, how closely connected to that home we remained while living abroad, and whether or not we have a propensity for wanderlust can all heavily influence our repatriation experience.
That said, I really think our expectations are critical. If we are expecting (consciously or not) to pick up right where we left off, we are likely going to be surprised and/or disappointed. But even expats who know that people and places may have changed while they were away can feel a loss at having been “left behind,” or a sense of “drifting” between the home they used to know and the home they hoped to return to.
But the good news is that we get to influence our expectations. How?
My suggestion is to leave the past version of your home in your heart, draw the image of the home you hoped to return to in light pencil ✏️ strokes in your mind, and try to look at your home country/city with the wonder of a tourist and the inside knowledge of a local.
Be mindful of getting caught up with what’s changed, but focus on reconnecting with the constants that never really left you. My favorite diner might have been gone when I got back, but having breakfast for dinner was a part of NYC living that remained the same. A lot of the faces in the salsa scene continue to change, but how I feel when I sing or dance salsa in NYC is an unwavering anchor between NYC and my soul.
What would you tell someone who is about to repatriate? Any advice?
Repatriation is truly so individual. Aside from the suggestions I’ve shared above, the only advice I dare to offer is general in nature. If you can prepare, it’s always helpful. Without knowing I was “preparing,” I was doing some of the things I much later learned were recommended preparation: I kept informed about what was going on back home; kept up with news, pop culture and local happenings. I maintained my cell phone number the whole time, which made it much easier to reconnect when I returned home. And as I’ve said before, I didn’t expect my city or my relationships to be frozen in time while I was away. I didn’t expect things to be exactly as I had left them. So as with all advice, take what’s useful; prepare as best you can, and know that there are other repats out there ready to share their experience and encouragement.
Would you consider moving abroad again in the future? Why or why not?
We don’t currently have any plans to move abroad again, but we never know what the future holds.
What else would you like to share with us?
On the concept of home:
I’ve said this before . . .
Home isn’t where we came from, it’s where we want to stay.
Every time I board a plane to return to New York City after a vacation or an exciting adventure away, like many of us, I feel a twinge of sadness that the excursion away has ended. But as we approach NYC from the sky and I see its glittering ✨ lights out my airplane window, my heart fills with joy and gratitude that THIS is the place I get to come home to.
Hang on to the places that fill your heart that way. ✨
Aside from being an attorney, Margarita Diaz is a teacher, trained diversity professional, researcher and writer. She’s passionate about using critical thinking to help us all understand and communicate better across our differences. You can find her insights on her website https://diverseinthecity.com where she offers thinking prompts, exercises to help build your critical thinking skills, and practical tips to improve communications that might otherwise feel challenging or intimidating. Follow her blog for fresh perspectives in your inbox 📨 1x or 2x a month.
You can also find her on Instagram as @diverseinthecity at https://www.instagram.com/diverseinthecity
and on LinkedIn at http://linkedin.com/in/margarita-diaz-8692804b .
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