Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road
America is divided, but the Americans who have intentionally immigrated abroad are not. Whether it’s correlation or causation, we all seem to share left-leaning political and moral beliefs, which should not really be surprising to anyone.
Not only are we all in the same situation, living in our adopted countries, but we’ve all learned, through trial, error, hard work, and frustration, that “there’s no place like home.” When you love two places, you always compare them in your mind.
Like Dorothy, when we’re stuck in Oz, we long for home. But when we return, we can’t help but dream that the grass is always greener. We carry pieces of both lands inside our hearts and minds, and keep mental tallies of what’s wonderful and terrible about our native and adopted lands.
But unlike Dorothy, we were not unwittingly swept away. We came to Oz by choice.
Some of us got out to broaden our horizons. Some of us got out because we saw a better way of life in other countries. And some of us got out because we saw what was coming.
“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”
–The Wizard of Oz, 1939
My family and I first moved to London in 2014 for a two-year contract. It felt like a temporary adventure, and a chance to travel and experience other cultures. When our time was up, I was anxious to go home. I missed my large American bed, my car, my friends, my grocery store.
Looking back, the things I missed seem insignificant compared to what was really at stake. We felt rumblings that all was not well, even before we booked our travel back to the states.
After months and months of protests, Brexit was voted in the spring of 2016. The political vitriol against immigrants and migrants that seemed to be bubbling just beneath the surface boiled over, and it was slowly spreading like lava.
That summer, we moved home, blissfully unaware of what was to come.
We came home to a nation on the brink of disaster, though in my left-leaning coastal metropolis, it never felt as though it would really happen. But somewhere in the gray, a switch had been flipped.
In the years we had been away (or maybe long, long before we left, or maybe always), American politics had become not a difference of opinion, but a difference of morality. The division that was always there was given a voice, and ammunition, and airtime, and slowly spread to a fault line that threatened to swallow the nation whole.
In November of that year, the mic dropped. Donald Trump was elected President, and the ever-looming threat of dictatorship was finally realized.
The next four years went by in a blur of doom scrolling, protesting, underground networking, fundraising, and controversy. When the pandemic hit, and the Trump administration handled it so poorly, we hoped it was the final nail in his political coffin.
It was – at least temporarily. We welcomed Biden – not the perfect candidate, but far better than the alternative – to the White House after 4 very long days of waiting for results.
We took a labored breath through our masks, confident that the threat to our rights and humanity had now passed. Between school shootings and mass casualty events, we – somehow – could breathe through the newscycle, confident we had a person on our side in the White House.
But living in a liberal city and state is deceiving. When you’re surrounded by only people who share your beliefs, you’re in a bubble. You begin to believe that your way of thinking is the way the rest of the country thinks. But, as we’ve found out time and time again, it’s an illusion: a folie à deux that both democrats and republicans share within their separate circles.
Even in our blue haze of 2021, we could see that the orange ogre would never fade into the background. He was playing the long game, like the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain, deceiving everyone with a pompous display of power. He denied the election results, stormed the capital, and could never, ever go quietly into that good night.
My husband and I, fearful that Trump would come roaring back with a vengeance, quietly began calculating our move back to the UK. We knew that if he took power again, our children – all of whom would be directly impacted by Trump’s policies in ways big and small – would not be safe.
We had fallen in love with the UK during our first residency, and had always longed to go back. Yes, it was an escape, but it was also a deep desire to go back to the country that we love. Two things can be true at once. We started getting our ducks in a row.
“As for you, my fine friend, you’re a victim of disorganized thinking. You are under the unfortunate delusion that simply because you run away from danger, you have no courage. You’re confusing courage with wisdom.”
-The Wizard, –The Wizard of Oz, 1939
Without ever voicing it to one another, we knew that this move would probably be permanent, especially if the 2024 election went the way we thought it would. The 2020 election had only added fuel to the fire: now the other side was angrier and more motivated than ever before.
We packed up our home, closed down our American life and affairs, and took our three children back to London.
Sadly, it was the right thing to do. But since the 5th of November, I’ve had a hole in my gut the size of my home state. I’ve been frozen, trying to figure out what it is that I feel.
Vindicated? Absolutely not.
“I told you so”? Never.
Blessed? No way, because I don’t think there is some higher power watching over us. If there was, that man and his compatriots would not be breathing air.
I’ve come to realize that the feeling is this: emptiness. Vacancy. Grief.
In the blink of an eye, there is no more “home.” There is no place to return to. There is only here, and only now, and we have to make it work, no matter how much struggle with daily life in England or miss our friends back home.
Most Americans abroad will tell you that if it doesn’t work – if you really hate your life in your adopted country – you can just go home. That’s your fallback plan, and it feels as though you have a net to prevent a freefall.
Now, there is only the freefall. There is no backup plan, and no plan B (pun intended).
We live here now. Our response to the looming “what ifs” was to get out, and we did. But it doesn’t mean we are automatically happy or content in our life here. Half of our minds and hearts always live back home, because when you pack your bags, you can’t leave your history behind.
We’re not in Kansas America anymore. But, unlike Dorothy, we have no yellow brick road to follow. We now live in Oz, and can only watch from half a world away while the tornado of vitriol, bigotry and misogyny demolishes what’s left of our homeland.
We are incredibly privileged to have gotten out. I never take that for granted.
But why me? Why us? Why were we the ones who got out, when so many more deserving families should have gotten the opportunity? Why do countless families risk life and limb to cross the border to safety, when all we needed to do was a lot of paperwork and spend a lot of money?
Because we’re white. We’re educated. No one bats an eye at us, and the political vitriol is never pointed toward white immigrants. Only the brown ones. No one shouts at us in the street, “go back where you came from, you damn Yankee!”
The only difference between us and the families swimming the Rio Grande, or crossing the Mediterranean in an inflatable boat, is privilege. Donald Trump’s proposed immigration policies are not a war on only one particular race. It’s a war on poverty.
“Dorothy: How can you talk if you haven’t got a brain?
The Scarecrow: I don’t know! But some people without brains do an *awful* lot of talking, don’t they?
Dorothy: Yes, I guess you’re right.”
–The Wizard of Oz, 1939
So why do people believe that he’ll help improve their financial situations, when he can’t manage his own? Why do the poorest Americans in the reddest states vote for him, when they are the same demographic (minus their skin tone and birth certificates) that he wants to deport?
I wish I knew the answer. To the people who have been really paying attention for the last decade, there is so much that makes no sense at all, and yet makes perfect sense if you remember all that has come before. “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” said Churchill, and he was right.
While I’m thankful that my children are safe, my heart is with all of those parents and children who are in fear for their lives right now. My body is here, in London, but my heart and mind is flying through my home country, trying to scoop up every trans child, every queer couple, every immigrant, every woman of color.
I imagine a hot air balloon, swooping in during the dead of night and carrying American families to safety. I dream of Dorothy’s tornado, sweeping my friends to safety here in Oz.
If I click my heels, will the 49% of the country that knew the Wizard was all a ruse from the beginning be transported here to safety? Will the other 51% ever come to the same revelation?
In Dorothy’s hero’s journey, she returns to her everyday world with a new appreciation for her life in Kansas. What seemed dreary before her adventures in Oz now seems special, and never to be taken for granted.
I felt the same way when we returned to America after our first European sojourn. I appreciated every smile from a stranger, every long walk through the woods, every hug from a friend.
“It wasn’t enough to just want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em – and it’s that – if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with! Is that right?
-Dorothy, The Wizard of Oz, 1939
“There’s no place like home,” I whisper in my sleep, “there’s no place like home.” In dreams, I soar through the plains, dip my toes into the Pacific, and walk the streets I know by heart. I greet friends and family, say hello to neighbors, and take long drives with the windows down.
But then I wake up in Oz, and remember that there is no home at all. The “home” that I remember was only a dream.
More Thoughts on Living Abroad
The Loneliness of Living Abroad: Where is Home?
Remember, Remember, the 5th of November?
More on Moving to the UK
How Much it Really Costs to Move to the UK
What it’s Really Like to Live in London (as a Foreigner)
The Truth About Moving Abroad: Expectations vs Reality
