I especially enjoy my walk from the station to the inner-city faculty on Monday morning. The city is empty then. I walk in a quick pace, even though I sometimes dread the destination. I study politics and international relations. As a child, I had a big map of the world hanging above my bed. Before going to sleep, I would trace my little index finger over the coloured paper from country to country. Being a mixed-race person, whose family is the result of involuntarily migration, means I have always looked beyond the lines the country written in my passport consists of. 

My parents left their homes in the late eighties of past century. They met in a for them foreign country’s small-city guest house where both were accommodated in. My parents are refugees. My dad fled from the war in Iran. My mum escaped communism. They created a life in a country neither was familiar to. That country’s name now rests on my passport’s first page. 

For a long time, I wanted nothing more than to be fully like those who share the same passport as me. I remember being ashamed of my brother speaking our mother’s native language to me on the bus to school. I have been born in this city, yet, no matter how well I have mastered the language, whenever I’d arrive late in the classroom, my teacher would say: ‘In this country, we are on time’. I know we are, for I’ve never lived anywhere else. 

Now I moved here. Politics and international relations have always had my interest. But coming where I come from means I do not look at the world map with a sole rational mindset. I remember being in class one day. We were discussing the Iraq-Iran war. The articles we read were written by Americans. They said: ‘Iraq had so many tanks. Iran so many.’ I fell quiet. This was a topic I do not discuss at the dinner table, because it had been a traumatic event for my dad. 

When entering the classroom, my backpack is not solely filled with books, notebooks and a passport. I carry a family history of fleeing, fear and discrimination too. As a child, I learned that being non-white means you are less, really less. I learned this the hard way. Now, when we discuss racism and discrimination in class, I sometimes get emotional. People often do not understand these emotions. And what one doesn’t understand, one turns against. ‘You are too emotional. We cannot discuss the topic like this.’ But tell me, whilst you are intellectualizing these experiences, where would you like me and my family’s pain to go? 

I have arrived at the faculty. Inside I find a warm shelter from the Dutch winter rain. I like the building. It feels cosy. In ten minutes, my class begins. I quickly get a cup of what-should-becoffee from the machine. Today, we are discussing borders. I have read the articles we’ve had to read, written from historical, post-colonial and even feminist perspectives. But above all, I am thinking of my parents, who have crossed borders to be safe. I wonder when this will be a story I can tell in class. ​ 

Author: Judith van Lookeren Campagne