20 Questions to Ask an Immigrant
Twenty questions for a genuine conversation with someone who moved countries, starting with practical ground like the first week and paperwork before reaching what they left behind and what home means now. The guide covers what not to ask, including anything about status or papers.
The questions
Open any question for the note
How long have you been here now?
Why ask it
A plain factual opener that lets them set the frame, and the number often surprises the asker. Someone who has been here twenty years is usually tired of being treated as newly arrived.
Where did you live before this, and what was the street like?
Why ask it
Asking about a street rather than a country gets you a real place instead of a flag. It also avoids the trap of treating a whole nation as their identity.
What do you miss that you cannot get here?
Why ask it
The answers are usually specific and small: a bread, a particular light in the afternoon, the sound of a market. Small answers are easier to give than a summary of loss.
What did you expect this place to be like before you came?
Why ask it
Expectations come from films, relatives and rumour, and the gap between them and reality is usually the best story they have. It also lets them describe your country without being asked to praise it.
What surprised you in the first week?
Why ask it
The first week is vivid and safe to talk about, and the answer is often something mundane like the price of fruit or how quiet the streets were. This works far better than asking about culture shock in the abstract.
What was the hardest practical thing to sort out when you arrived?
Why ask it
Bank accounts, phone contracts, rental references and getting a doctor defeat people with degrees and savings. This question shows you understand that difficulty is administrative before it is emotional.
Who helped you when you first got here?
Why ask it
The answer is often a cousin, a coworker or a stranger, and it lets them speak about kindness rather than hardship. It also tells you who their real community is.
What do people here get wrong about where you are from?
Why ask it
This hands them the correction rather than the explanation, which is a much better position to be in. Expect either a stereotype or an assumption about how poor or how dangerous home was.
Is there a food you make when you are homesick?
Why ask it
Cooking is concrete and shareable, and the question invites an invitation rather than a confession. Ask what is hard to find for it and you will learn about their week.
What is it like to speak a second language all day?
Why ask it
Most people underestimate the constant low effort of working in a language you learned later. The answer is often about tiredness by evening and about humour being the last thing to arrive.
Do people treat you differently when they hear your accent?
Why ask it
This gives permission to describe something they may usually let pass. Do not argue with the answer, and do not offer reassurance about how nobody meant it.
What qualifications or experience of yours do not count here?
Why ask it
Doctors driving taxis is not a metaphor, and unrecognised credentials are one of the most common losses migrants describe. Asking about it acknowledges a real cost rather than a personal failure.
What did you have to leave behind that you still think about?
Why ask it
It may be a person, a house, a career or a version of themselves. Leave a long silence after this one rather than filling it.
How often do you go back, and what is it like when you do?
Why ask it
Returning is rarely simple, because home has moved on and so have they. Some people cannot return at all, so accept a short answer without pressing.
How do you keep in touch with the people you left?
Why ask it
Time zones, video calls at odd hours and the strain of being the one who left are all in this answer. It often opens onto who is unwell or who they wish they could visit.
What has been hardest for your family here?
Why ask it
Children adapting faster than parents, a spouse whose career stalled, an elderly relative left behind. This question recognises that migration happens to households, not individuals.
What do your children know about where you came from, and what worries you about that?
Why ask it
Language loss between generations is one of the quieter griefs of migration. Parents often have a clear answer and are rarely asked for it.
Is there a tradition you have kept, and one you have let go?
Why ask it
The second half is the interesting half, and it is rarely asked. Letting something go is usually practical rather than a rejection, and saying so out loud can be a relief.
What do you call home now, and has that answer changed?
Why ask it
For many people the honest answer is neither place, or both, and being allowed to say so matters. Do not push for a single country.
What do you want people here to understand that they usually do not?
Why ask it
This is the question to end on, because it gives them the last word and the widest frame. Whatever they say, resist the urge to explain your own country back to them.
Asking Without Prying
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before You Start
Do Not Ask About Papers
Visa type, status, asylum claims and how someone crossed a border are not conversation topics. They can carry real risk for the person answering, and in many places asking a colleague or a tenant about them is unlawful as well as rude. If they raise it, follow their lead and do not press for detail.
One Person Is Not a Country
Asking someone to explain their nation's politics, food or religion puts them in the position of official representative. Ask about their street, their family and their own week instead.
Check That They Want This Conversation
Say plainly that you are interested and that they should tell you to stop at any point. A person who has been asked where are you really from a thousand times may not want another round of it today.
Do Not Trade Trauma for Interest
The story of why someone left may involve war, violence or a death, and curiosity is not a reason to request it. If it comes, listen and do not ask follow-up questions about the worst part.
While You Are Talking
- Ask about the practical before the emotional. Banking, housing and paperwork are easier to talk about than loss, and they lead there naturally if the person wants to go.
- Let them use the words they prefer for themselves rather than the ones you brought.
- If their English is effortful, slow your own speech and cut the idioms rather than raising your volume.
- Do not compliment their English as though it were remarkable. It reminds them they are being assessed.
- Resist comparing their move to a time you lived abroad for a year. The two are not the same and the comparison usually ends the conversation.
- If you do not know how to pronounce their name, ask once, repeat it back, and then use it.
Questions That Land Badly
Are You Going to Go Back
This can read as a suggestion rather than a question, however it was meant. What do you call home now gets at the same thing without the edge.
Do You Prefer It Here
It asks them to rank their old life against your country in front of you, which almost forces a polite lie. Ask what they miss and what has been easier instead.
Why Did You Come Here
Reasonable in theory, but it is the question everyone asks first, and for some people the honest answer is not something they want to explain to an acquaintance. Let it come up later, if at all.
Turning the Answers Into a Lesson
Using what someone tells you as material for a point about immigration policy, at the table or afterwards, breaks the trust that produced it. Their life is not an argument.