Year One as a Black American Expat (writes)

Written By Aaron Pellot

Changi International Airport - Follow my photography: @ajpeg.1

Expatriate [ek-ˈspā-trē-ˌāt] – often shortened to Expat [ˈeks-ˌpat]

 Transitive verb

 1: Banish, Exile

 2: to withdraw (oneself) from residence in or allegiance to one’s native country[1]

A few years ago, I had no idea what an “expat” was. A terrible admission for a Poli Sci grad, but it was never in my imagination to experience life as an expatriate. Before Singapore, I had only been out of the country only a few times, once to the Bahamas, once to Ecuador, and a few quick trips to Mexico, while living in San Diego. International travel wasn’t ever a thought in my mind. The term “expat”, was as foreign as countries I faintly thought about visiting. It wasn’t until a few years ago that a former friend of mine explained to me what an expatriate was. She had spent time in China, which I found attractive and fascinating. I remember the curiosity I held when she told me stories of her time living in expat communities and my reverence for her conversational Mandarin. Fascinated, and curious, I remember asking her “What was it like with so few Black people?” Her reply was, “I bring Blackness wherever I go”. Years later, that statement resonates with me quite often as I travel through Asia, now living, as a Black expat.

In May 2022, I (once again) packed up everything I owned, gave away my car, left San Diego, and flew across the country to the East Coast. It was there, my wife and I packed the rest of our things and took the longest flight of our lives. After 16 hours, losing a calendar day, and landing with the worst jet lag imaginable, Singapore greeted us at 5 a.m. A year after arrival, I think about those early days often. Moving is never easy, as much as I try to convince myself otherwise. My life has been spent nomadically, moving from New York to the Carolinas, to Connecticut, back to New York, to Los Angeles, and to San Diego. Each move represents a changing chapter in the many lives that I have lived. It would be obvious to say that exiting the United States presented a contrasting experience. My first five or six months dispensed a more difficult experience than I initially imagined, primarily due to the combination of my ignorance, pride, and arrogance. Leaving everything I knew, quickly showed me just how much I relied on the little bit I thought I understood.

Singapore is a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-lingual city-state. Singaporeans are ethnically diverse made up of communities ranging from Chinese, Malay, and Indian. Religiously diverse as it is ethnically, the city-state prides itself on its diversity, which is displayed through its food, politics, and art. Singapore’s history absolutely doesn’t begin with Britain, although its history as a former British colony is commonly highlighted, before later gaining its independence from Malaysia, in 1965. Singapore has four official languages spoken across the 31-mile country, including Malay, English, Mandarin Chinese, and Tamil[2]. Moving from the United States, language acclimation hasn’t been difficult, as most Singaporeans speak English or “Singlish”, equipping them to be better navigators of the world, far better than my American English and infantile Spanish. I ignorantly set myself up to believe the language barrier was going to be an issue, dismissing the possibility of cultural nuances and navigations that were so exasperating to my sensitive, unrefined spirit.

It's easy to forget how much time you spend educating yourself about the cultural nuances of your local cities. You come to understand the subtleties between your Harris Teeteres, and Publix, the differences between your Stater Brothers, and Price Choppers, while collectively understanding how different they all are compared to Trader Joe’s. This type of long-term, ever-building socialization leads to an almost subconscious understanding of geographically what stores to shop in, for what product, let alone what products are available. The early months in Singapore, became lessons, learning how my local grocery stores were built in towering malls. I filled our kitchen with local spices and condiments, with daily walks to our local mall NEX[3], one of the larger malls here on the island. The beginning weeks spent without phone service, or a bank account, because we didn’t have our visas, were first-world frustrations of normality I had taken for granted. Realizing just how much I previously relied on citizenship, was humbling. I stumbled through stores and hawker centres with an embarrassing nervousness unsure how to pay for the things I needed. It always felt like those around me were consistently judging my failure of normalcy. Early months of learning brought frustration and exhaustion, both mentally and emotionally. Physical exhaustion comes from beating equatorial heat, combined with a thick humidity, which doesn’t leave you moist, but simply drenched. With said exhaustion, came an emotional over sensitivity to my surroundings. My wife and I, newlywed, and newly divorced from our previous homes, bickered quite often in the early weeks, at times, about nonsensical things, in nonsensical ways: walking too slow or fast on the sidewalk, or deciding whether we walked underground or above ground going to the grocery store. We were overly cautious about adhering to Singaporean etiquette: standing on the left of the escalator, so others could walk by, avoiding j-walking, and never spitting in the street. We didn’t realize how emotionally tired we became, always mentally and emotionally fatigued. My own lack of emotional literacy at times, failed to match the graceful patience of my wife. We had only been married for a little over two months when we left our former independent lives, the people we loved, to be dropped into a new country, relying solely on each other, and growing together. My wife was and continues to be a gracious leader in this journey, especially early on all while being thrust into learning everything that comes with a new professional-level job. Lacking my own job, gives me the chance to contribute in different ways, allowing me the opportunity to fall back in love with cooking, in ways I hadn’t in years. It’s been a gift learning how to cook local meals. I found purpose in the daily and weekly chores: cleaning, running errands, prepping dinner, and doing what I could, to support her as much as possible, in the midst of her own respective journey.

It was easy to miss how overly exhausted and emotionally sensitive I was then, in all aspects of my life. I was already cranky walking down the streets…receiving stares from both adults and children alike, only made me incensed. The scent of ignorance in the air was seemingly unavoidable, producing a continual space of anger. I am an Afro-Latino man standing at 5’10’’, 230lbs, with a thick beard and locs down past my shoulders. I am aware my looks are not racially ambiguous, but the stares I received in those early days were of constant indignation. MRT rides brought (and still bring), stares from the aunties and uncles, people who would leave their seats to avoid sitting next to me, and pointed fingers from the kids, with comments that varied from “scary” to “whaa”. I remember the irritability I carried, and embarrassing bitterness towards children and the adults who were, in my mind, supposed to teach them to be better. There was an animosity I carried towards Singapore, a place that prides itself on “racial harmony”, but made my wife and I feel immense discomfort when we first walked through Little India. I hated getting profiled by Singapore’s airport customs, and still haven’t stepped foot in the Sephora I was profiled in and followed around. At some point in my bitterness, I found myself missing the moments in front of me, whether with my wife or in my daily travels. I was reminded of the words of Toni Morrison who in her 1975 keynote address at Portland State University[4], tells us, “The function, the very serious function of racism is a distraction. It keeps you from doing your work[5]…” In my anger and frustration, I found myself distracted from my work of community building, art, being a better husband, being present, simply because I was upset about not being able to recognize the devil of U.S. grade racism, which had been centered so much in my American life. The absence of white folks does not mean the absence of whiteness. I left the U.S. wounded after two years of the COVID pandemic, and I now found myself, at times doing the legwork of whiteness, separating myself from communities in a new country. I had continued to carry my wounds here into Singapore, unknowingly, as much as hindsight would like me otherwise to believe. Hyperaware of the lack of Black folks, I was completely unaware of my audacity expecting to see faces like mine in someone else’s home.  Writer Henry James wrote, “It is a complex fate to be American[6]”. I quickly was living this complexity of my own American centeredness, realizing I am unavoidably the thing in many ways I have always hated…American. Blinded by my arrogance, I had been failing to realize I was centering my own anger, my own existence as if mine was the one that led the show. 30 years of limited perception, and failed assumptions about how the world operates, only to be plunged into a different reality, brought a disappointment of the façade I had created, and with it, a realization of how much the failed pretenses of American exceptionalism still fashioned my thoughts.

In James Baldwin’s The Discovery of What It Means to Be an American[7], the saint states, “Even the most incorrigible maverick has to be born somewhere. He may leave the group that produced him-he may be forced to-but nothing will efface his origins, the marks of which he carries with him everywhere.” I am no maverick, nor do I pretend to be one. Leaving the U.S. makes me realize more as the days pass how the marks of my origins are carried with me everywhere I go. It is here in my travels I feel like an American for the very first time. Not nationalistically, nor do I feel patriotic, but very much aware that I am an American visitor in someone else’s home. “The devil that I know”, is still the devil. It’s quite a paradox to sit in anger, thinking about the devil that I left behind. One of the oddities I found in my early frustrations as an expat was, a longing to recognize the devil that I know so well. The early racist experiences of Singapore were frustrating, but not new, and certainly not scarring in the ways that life Stateside ever produced. My familiarity with the lack of familiar faces is actually quite normal with my suburban upbringing. I was raised in South Carolina, the belt buckle of the Bible belt. I have seen the klan, been called a “nigger”, and grew up in a racist church. Leaving the South again, I further realized life outside of the South just presented a different flavor of the same racism. I’ve lived in various places in the liberal north, including Bristol, Connecticut, a county that voted for Trump in 2016[8]. I have seen systemic racism, while living in New York City[9], and encountered neo-nazis, racist families, and have been tear-gassed by police while living in San Diego. This new part of my life presented nothing new in terms of racist ideas and certainly wasn’t anything I hadn’t encountered. What I did start to realize is although the existence of whiteness certainly exists out of the United States, I certainly found myself at times, doing its leg work in how I responded. It’s easy to be consumed by a racist system when your scars bring it everywhere. Distracted by the devil, in those early months, it was easy to miss the privilege of the moment, easy to miss the opportunity of being present during this gift of a lifetime.

Be grateful. You know, if you have the opportunity to travel, you know, you are lucky, you are fortunate. If you are lucky enough to go to Thailand, or Singapore, or Spain, don’t go there sitting down and say ‘I’d like a tuna sandwich, or club sandwich, or a hamburger.’ You’re there to experience as much you can, free of fear and prejudice. Never say ‘no’ to anything. Eat as much as much as whatever is around as you can, drink all the local beverage that is offered you. Get drunk with strangers, and be grateful for the fact that you are lucky enough to do it. And show that appreciation. Food is the best purest example and expression of an entire culture...a cultural and regional identity…Be a grateful and polite guest…I think that’s the best you can hope for.[10] - Anthony Bourdain  

Let me be clear: my life is not difficult, nor do I consider this journey to be a burden. I am a tag-a-long husband, searching for work, with the opportunity to expand my skills in photography and writing. I am lucky to follow my wife around the world, support her dreams, and am lucky to be her husband. I love being Black anywhere and everywhere, recognizing daily, here and everywhere we travel, how we are one of the most imitated cultures on this planet. It is a privilege to be here, with my best friend, supporting HER journey and HER career, in any way that I can. It has been an immense privilege to live in this space and live these experiences. I do not do this alone and owe it always to the communities that have graciously allowed me to participate with them, both here and back home. Living in Singapore, in South East Asia, continues to teach me immensely. Being a visitor in someone else’s home is a privilege. In the last year, it’s been a gift to travel and experience community in places such as Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, Bali, the Maldives, and other gracious spaces. Anthony Bourdain’s words provide guidance for me, as I try to eat and drink my way through Asia, eating BBQ stingray in Singapore, waterfall chicken in back alleys in Vietnam, or Tom Yum soup in Thailand. In many of the spaces we venture into, I tend to be one of the few faces of Westerners. Drinking beers with locals, trading stories and laughs, full of love. Cultural exchange has been a gift. During travel abroad, the objective is to always be respectful as possible, and grateful to those who receive us. With this travel, comes an unavoidable recognition of the relationship here between privilege and imperialism that has touched the spaces I have visited. It’s impossible to dismiss how many spaces in Southeast Asia have been decimated by American imperialism, from war, and historic exploitations, to the point that some communities continue relying on a tourist economy[11], further exploiting various communities. My intention during travel is always to listen to the stories of those willing to share, honoring the space with respect and reverence, and never dismissing the realities of where we are.

Community continues to be the bind of it all. Community continues to be an unearthing process, revealing the ugliness within myself at times. These ugly truths force me to see and participate in the space differently. Little kids will walk up to me, curious about my hair, about my Blackness, but seemingly MORE curious about me being an American. I try to receive this curiosity with generosity more than ever. In the States, it was normal to see the names of foreign cities on the shirts of those around me. Now it’s common to see shirts listed with the places I’ve lived: Brooklyn, San Diego, Los Angeles, foreign to the locals here wearing them. I can see the curiosity in faces when I tell people I used to live in the cities that reside on their clothes. I hear the questions of a “maskless” United States, fear of mass shootings, but overall curiosity about my home, while I’m visiting theirs. This exchange of perspective is a gift. The concept of this exchange is nothing new, as James Baldwin writes in The Discovery of What it Means to Be an American[12]:

This perpetual dealing with people very different from myself caused a shattering in me of preconceptions I scarcely knew I held. The writer is meeting in Europe people who are not American, whose sense of reality is entirely different from his own. They may love or hate or fear or envy this country-they see it, in any case, from another point of view, and this forces the writer to reconsider many things he had always taken for granted. This reassessment, which can be very painful, is also very valuable.

Being present has been a gift. Being away from America has been a gift, releasing me (a bit) from some of the devils I have been forced to hold so close, for so long. I realize it is a privilege to be able to gasp for air, away from an American culture that suffocates the imagination. I do not miss the constant inundation of American propaganda, I will not miss the fuckery of the 2024 election, and I do not miss the apprehension I feel as soon as I land in the States. This does not mean things are perfect here in Singapore. One of my best friends Jim, reminds me: “The absence of one thing, does not mean the presence of another.” I have little worries about my wife walking down the streets, aware Singapore is “safer[13]” because the country isn’t bashful about being a hyper-surveillance state. The workforce in Singapore in many ways is a classist one and builds its economy and opportunity off of an unequally treated migrant workforce [14]. Even in this racially harmonious country, those with darker skin complexion seem to be typecast in jobs such as construction and landscape, always working under the rarely forgiving equatorial sun. This place isn’t perfect, it is far from the mirage it presents, but it is my home for now. A home I look for ways in which to respectfully participate and just be present. 

I now find myself protective of the space, protective of how members of this community are treated, and how people are treated within this community. I’m less angry now…even if only a little bit. I know my anger is just, but again, I’m trying to receive the curiosity of being a visitor in someone else’s home, and with it have found myself exchanging more smiles than glares. Sport and culture continue to operate as mediators, as I find myself consistently in conversation about Liverpool Football Club when I wear my jersey. The culture of sport is always being exchanged, as I always see jerseys through Asia from the Padres, LaMelo Ball Hornets jerseys, the Lakers, and always the Yankees. Blackness exists in these spaces in obvious ways, through fashion, as I see shirts with Pop Smoke and various rappers. Music has brought unique conversation as I have laughed about the recognition of J. Cole, and “trap music” in Indonesia. Community is always being exchanged in the hawker centres here in Singapore, patience given to me, with my lack of Japanese in Kyoto, and direction given to me with wandering through Bangkok. Perspective is a gift. It is perspective that is given to me, when I see little kids, absent of adults, getting off the trains here in Singapore or Japan, observing how communities here treat children with dignity and respect, looking out for them collectively, as a shared responsibility. I choose to focus more on the community of the Aunties and Uncles who wave and smile on my morning runs, while they practice Tai Chi and yoga. My wife and I, are finding community here, connecting with locals and expats alike. I’m choosing to see this life from a different perspective. Whether here or while traveling, and now it's comedic to see the playful shock on people’s faces when we tell them we live in Singapore. There is an unspoken mutual understanding that people who look like me, don’t traditionally come from this space. In Indonesia I’ll be asked “…But where are you really from???” In the UK, I’ve been told “Singapore?? That’s mental”, and I’ll never forget the Maldives, being told by native Maldivians, (a people I had never thought about having a connection with) “I’m just happy to know there are Black people like me in Singapore”. I’m much more comfortable, a bit more at ease, after working to realize I’m not that special, and this journey isn’t about my selfish perspective. This journey is not about centering whiteness, so I’m always working to unlearn how to do its residual work. The beauty of community continues to be a great edifying gift, and a privilege to experience. Yes, the looks are still there some days, they now just become staring contests. Sometimes, the New York in me leads the way, when I decide I’m not going to shrink myself on the MRT or move out of the way of someone who blatantly sees me walking on the right (left) side of the street. I try not to let those moments lead my experience of life in Singapore. The goal is to be present with my wife, and our life here in Asia. What I do miss, I am trying to be honest about. I miss my family, and my friends, both in California and on the East Coast. I miss listening to Larry June while riding down the 405, under the California sun. Some days I crave New York pizza and basketball with communities that I love. I miss laughing with my friends in person and I wish I could’ve experienced the Blackness of Beyonce’s “Renaissance” in the States. These are among the things I now watch from afar, but I am so grateful to experience this life right here in front of me, making memories together with my partner. I have been so grateful for the gifts of marriage and rest, granted to bestowed by my wife. I am so grateful to explore my photography and writing again, and although it’s taking time, I am grateful for the community and perspective being exchanged on this journey. 

“You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down” –

Toni Morrison - Song of Solomon

Aaron Pellot

Communications Specialist from Southern California, currently based in Singapore.

https://www.aaronjpellot.com
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