A. MEMMI Writer (Tunisia) There is some distance between immigrants and their children born or raised in the West. Children do not have the same memory of their homeland that their parents have, they have a different understanding of the future, and in general they belong to different worlds. CHILDREN OF IMMIGRANTS For their children, there is no question of "going back" at all, because they didn't go anywhere. And even if they happen to go to their parents ' homeland for a vacation, they "don't find anything again" there, they "don't recognize"anything and no one. Rather, it is a journey in which they make some discoveries for themselves, sometimes depressing. Vacation (or vacation, or vacation) spent "abroad" is, rather, a practice borrowed by an immigrant from Europeans, the French. But with the difference that the immigrant will definitely go to "his" country, while his children would rather go to see Germany or Italy, where their sons sometimes "wash off" with their girlfriends on holidays. The immigrant lives, as it were, by the necessity of double belonging, double subjection - both to his East and to the West, where he is located. He's always looking for harmony. And the son already approves it (of course, in different ways, depending on the mood and circumstances): "I'm French!" Or, if it protests: "I'm Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian." But this happens less often when he is provoked, or if he wants to challenge others. Sometimes immigrants just don't understand them, even though these young people are the generation born of them. The immigrant had a goal, and it was achieved one way or another: he hoped to escape poverty, integrate as much as possible where he came, mix with others as much as possible, while maintaining his religion and some traditions, so as not to lose his identity at all... He even dreams (or has already bought) a car; his children go to school with others, and even if they are not as diligent and attentive in class as the French (of cours ... Read more