The foreign-born population in Columbia is a little over 12,000 people, according to the 2020 Missouri census report. Anecdotes from those who arrived in Columbia show the different realities associated with the pursuit of opportunities, success and happiness in the United States.
As America’s semiquincentennial celebration continues throughout the year, four residents share their stories and reflections.
‘There is a particular aspect of unity that Americans have that I don’t really see anywhere else’
Oliver Millán de Miguel, a freshman from Madrid, Spain, came to the University of Missouri to pursue athletics and an American education. After graduating secondary school, de Miguel was accepted into the Spanish National Training Center Joaquin Blume, setting him on the path to represent his country globally as a professional swimmer.
Despite this, de Miguel had always found competing for an NCAA “Power 5” conference in the United States as an attractive endeavor, and he began to reconsider his future.
“Ever since I was a kid, my family and I always had this notion of wanting to go study or live in the U.S.,” de Miguel said.
He said he initially set aside this goal to focus on elite training in Spain. After dissatisfaction with his athletic development and academic progress during the previous season, he chose to move to the U.S.
“If I want to do this, I gotta do it now,” de Miguel said.
When de Miguel visited in August, he said he was warmly welcomed and made comfortable with the program. Since arriving on campus in January, he has found that same warmth in Columbia.
“Receptionists, secretaries, cashiers, people who are face-to-face with customers; I say that’s very different here than how it is back home,” de Miguel said. “It’s like you actually get the feeling that people want to help you out whenever you ask questions. The culture seems to be built around this sense of openness and hospitality.”
He said there’s a strong culture within the institution surrounding both academics and athletics, and spoke about vast differences of choice in higher education in the U.S. compared to Spain.
“By the start of high school, you are expected to more or less know what you want to study, and it’s very difficult to change that once you’re in university,” he said.
His experiences in both Spain and Columbia have shaped how he views American culture, particularly national identity.
“I feel that part of American culture, that certain aspect of patriotism here, loving your country and standing by it,” he said. “I find that very admirable because no matter what differences anyone might have, individually or collectively, everyone still wants what’s best for the country. It’s a backbone of your society that is not going anywhere.”
He believes that as a people, it is easy for Americans to look through a negative lens. He stressed the importance of celebrating accomplishments.
“In every aspect of life, every single victory that you gain, however small it may be, needs to be celebrated,” he said.
“Something like having a nation that has lasted for 250 years now, and has no signs of stopping anytime soon and has been one of the powerhouses of the entire world basically since its conception, it’s definitely something to celebrate,” he added.
‘Native Americans are not a history page’
When looking at the history of America, it is important to recognize what came before and what still remains in the form of sovereign nations.
Anabelle Wilson is an Alaskan Native student at Mizzou. She was born of the Sugpiaq tribe, but was adopted outside of her tribe at a young age. Wilson was raised mostly by her grandmother in California until they moved to Kansas City when she was in fifth grade.
For Wilson, being a citizen of both a sovereign nation and the United States is a complicated relationship. While she understood she was different from others, she was raised by her white grandmother and considered herself white.
She added that since her grandmother could not pass down cultural ceremonies, rituals and traditions, it led to a real disconnect from that part of herself.
“I acknowledged that part of my family, but it wasn’t like a central part of my identity until recently,” Wilson said.
As she has become more comfortable with the Alaskan Native part of herself, Wilson said that balancing her citizenship often felt like a war.
“I don’t think of myself necessarily as an American, but as someone who descended from people who came before,” she said. “They do come together sometimes, but a lot of the time it just feels very warring because I know that the entire point of having an America was to replace what came before.”
As 250th anniversary celebrations are happening, Wilson said she feels that Native Americans are just an afterthought.
“I think it’s not totally on purpose for some people — sometimes it just happens like that. But there are also people who intentionally make sure they are brushed off,” Wilson said. “So when it comes to celebrations, like the Fourth of July or the birthday of America, it’s more so just like: ‘We came, we made a country and the people who were there just kind of disappeared.’ … we just feel very invisible.”
Wilson says she feels there is an isolation when it comes to celebrations of America since they only represent a certain period of time. In reality, research from the National Park Service suggests that people have been here for as long as 30,000 years.
“In an alternate world, we would still be here and we’d still have these secular nations,” Wilson said.
While Wilson sees many cultures in Columbia, she says there is a serious lack of anything to do with Native Americans.
“There is not any semblance of Native culture here,” she said. “And if there are Natives, usually their families had to hide their Native history.”
For Wilson, the semiquincentennial is a milestone of what her people have had to endure throughout the past 250 years. It is a marker for survival rather than something that should be celebrated.
“Native Americans are not a history page. We’re not an ancient culture. We’re not a history book. We are still here and we will always be here.”
‘The country is steering to a point where that melting pot is starting to burn’
Shah Zadehahmad Sabzi is a third-year student at Mizzou who immigrated from Iran at 9 years old. He and his family moved often once they arrived, living in the Chicago suburbs, Southern California and finally in Columbia in 2021.
Shah’s father struggled to find a stable job as they moved around the country due to language barriers and other challenges.
“He was a very experienced person in his field. He was a metallurgy engineer, and he was a CEO of a manufacturing company back in Iran,” Shah said. “When he moved here to the U.S., it was kind of like he was starting from scratch.”
Shah reflected on his family’s struggles with poverty, saying his father was working two or three jobs at a time — about 70 hours a week — to afford living expenses.
“Even the amount of hours that he worked was still not enough. My older brother was working about 70-plus hours a week also,” Shah said.
After his childhood when his family was settled in Columbia, he still recounted times where he dealt with feeling unsafe.
“As of the last couple of years, I have had more of a steadily growing fear of what could happen to me or my family if I was more outspoken,” Shah said. “There’s been that growing fear with everything going on — just making the wrong move or doing the wrong thing, and it kind of messes things up for us.”
“I think it stands as a melting pot; I’ve thought of it as a melting pot and that’s always what I heard as a kid too,” he added. “I do think at the same time that the country is steering to a point where that melting pot is starting to burn.”
With options between living in the U.S. and staying in Iran, Shah said he is still grateful to be here despite challenges.
“While I do think that the country’s state is not leading in a very ideal direction, and there are so many things that can be going better when it comes to policies, laws being passed and the people in charge, the freedom that I have here is much larger than what I would have had in Iran,” Shah said.
‘Discrimination has become a tradition’
Izn Naqvi is Pakistani-born senior at Mizzou. He moved with his family from Lahore to New York when he was a toddler while his parents pursued health certifications to become doctors. Although he left Pakistan at a young age, his background is still a cornerstone of his identity.
“I have a lot of memories from that time and a lot of cultural experiences that helped connect me to Pakistani culture and inform me on my opinions,” he said.
During his early childhood, Naqvi and his family frequently moved in search of higher-paying jobs and better places to raise a family.
“You could actually see us move up the social or economic ladder,” he said.
His family lived in Wisconsin for a year, he said, until moving to Georgia for warmer weather. They remained in Georgia for six years, but eventually sought a more accepting community. Columbia has been their home for 12 years.
“(Georgia) was a lot less friendly to people of color, and for my sake, my parents started looking at places that were more amicable to immigrants,” Naqvi said.
Naqvi’s experiences have shaped his understanding of immigration and acceptance in the United States, describing discrimination as a recurring challenge many newcomers face while contributing to the country’s cultural diversity.
“Looking at the broader picture as a more recent immigrant, facing discrimination has become a tradition. People will come to this country, add to diversity and ultimately reject when more diversity is coming,” Naqvi said. “It’s an ongoing process in a way that it might feel a little toxic, but I can also be appreciative of it.”
Naqvi said immigrants’ experiences in their home countries, with exploitation by leading global nations, often influence them toward more progressive views. He said this in hindsight of friends and family from the Indian subcontinent who generally live a poor quality of life, and uncles who go to war for reasons Naqvi feels aren’t for the greater good of Pakistan’s people.
“Everyone in Pakistan feels it to some degree,” he said. “It’s that type of stripping of the dignity of choice that America does in a lot of third world countries.”
Despite this, Naqvi is optimistic.
“I don’t mention America’s exploitative foreign policy in order to put people down,” he said. “I say it so people can get organized, stay together and really think about, ‘hey, we’re all people.’”
