Too Foreign for the West, Too Distant for the Home Country: A migrant in Finland

Living between worlds is not a romantic notion when the in-between becomes a void. For many African immigrants in Finland, identity is a negotiation with constant reminders of otherness. The phrase "Too foreign for the West, too distant for the home country" resonates like a quiet echo in daily life—a truth that exists in glances, in silence, and in the spaces between belonging.

In Finland, the foreignness is undeniable. It’s in the stark winter that chills not only the skin but also the spirit. It’s in the awkward pauses after introductions, when your name—rich with heritage—is met with puzzled looks or polite but strained attempts at pronunciation. It’s in the way your accent marks you before you say much at all, and the assumptions that follow: where you come from, what you know, who you must be. There is a quiet politeness in Finnish society, but sometimes, politeness can be another word for distance.

Integration is more than learning the language or finding a job. It’s a daily act of translation—of culture, emotion, and self. You sometimes feel the need to adjust your voice, your dress, your jokes. You learn to shrink your stories to fit into the small spaces people make available for you. Still, the sense lingers: you are always slightly outside the circle.

Yet, home—once a source of grounding—no longer fits as it did before. When you return, even temporarily, the streets are familiar, the smells intoxicating, but you feel like a guest. You don’t speak quite the same anymore. Your views have shifted. You ask questions that make others uncomfortable, or you're silent in conversations where you used to speak freely. People say you’ve changed—and they're not wrong. You carry Finland in your posture now, in your sense of time, in your craving for quiet. But Finland has not fully claimed you either.

Caught in this limbo, you begin to ask: where is home? Is it the warmth of Lagos, Dakar, Nairobi, or Accra that pulses in your memories? Or is it the stillness of Finnish forests and the hush of snowfall that now feels familiar? Is home the place that built you, or the one that reshaped you?

"So,

here you are

too foreign for home

too foreign for here.

Never enough for both."

 -Diaspora Blues by Ijeoma Umebinyuo-

There’s pain in this in-betweenness—an ache that can’t be explained to those who haven't lived it. But there is also depth. You understand the world in layers. You speak in blended tongues. You move through life with a cultural elasticity that few possess. You know how to listen more than you speak, how to adapt, how to endure, how to empathize.

Eventually, you stop trying to fit cleanly into either world. You begin to build a life that is yours alone—one where your identity is not split but woven, like a fabric that holds many patterns. You teach your children both languages. You cook jollof rice while snow falls outside your window. You laugh in your mother tongue and try to think and speak in Finnish. You do not belong to one place. You belong to many.

Dear migrant remember that, that in itself, is a form of home. It is enough. You are enough. You will never fit in, so you might as well stand up and stand out. Be you!