In an interview with The Atlantic, author Edwidge Danticat offers a perspective on the immigrant experience — that of artistic creation (via @simranik):

My parents spent their entire lives in Haiti before they left. They didn’t know much about the United States except that, at that time, there were opportunities there. They basically packed two suitcases and came. That experience of touching down in a totally foreign place is like having a blank canvas: You begin with nothing, but stroke by stroke you build a life. This process requires everything great art requires—risk-tasking, hope, a great deal of imagination, all the qualities that are the building blocks of art. You must be able to dream something nearly impossible and toil to bring it into existence.

Danticat also discusses the pressure on first generation immigrant children to justify the sacrifices made by their parents. Read more at The Atlantic.