I glare at the pull-down menu on the laptop screen, the arrow painting each choice baby blue as I send it running up and down, up and down. With each click, a new country or continent. Congo. Costa Rica. …
Two years ago, as I prepared for my first in-person writing workshop at the Kenyon Review, my wonderful instructor Rajiv Mohabir prompted us to write three hundred words answering the question, “Who are you?” I obsess about this question—along with the related, “Where are you from?”—because I grew up in Yugoslavia, which no longer exists. I’m from the two parts that went to war against each other—Croatia and Serbia—and I have since lived in Canada and the United States on different passports and visas. I view the world through the lens of an immigrant and a perpetual foreigner.
On forms and applications, I often don’t have accurate boxes to check off. I wanted to illustrate these bureaucratic restraints and show how powerful governments and institutions can reduce people and their nuanced histories.
I am easily intimidated by a blank page, so I told myself to simply write about a time I struggled to fill out an online job application because I fell through the cracks of these over-simplified categories. The piece poured out of me and Rajiv and my incredible workshop group (I love you, Disobedient Mermaids!) encouraged me to lean into storytelling around these annoying technicalities. When I expanded the essay, I zoomed in—on the screen, the cursor, the rectangle. I read it in front of the whole conference, then revised again based on reactions I felt from the crowd. I submitted it twice, got rejected, revised again.
I come from a journalism background, don’t have an MFA, and learned English as a Second Language. I don’t consider myself particularly skilled with experimental forms, but this piece speaks to the power of a supportive community; being around other writers stretched my creative muscles. I wrote it quickly without thinking about rules, the format, and other constraints that sometimes stifle us. It’s a short piece, but I hope it reveals some of the big, visceral emotions I feel as an immigrant in a country that often does not make space for immigrants and seeks to erase us.
VESNA JAKSIC LOWE(opens in new tab) works as a nonprofit freelance writer, writes creative nonfiction, and runs the Immigrant Strong(opens in new tab) newsletter. Her work has appeared in three anthologies—Back Where I Came From: On Culture, Identity (BookHug Press) and the Connecticut Literary Anthology 2024 and 2023 (Woodhall Press) and is forthcoming in two more anthologies. Bylines include The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York Daily News, Catapult, Electric Literature, and Los Angeles Review of Books. A former award-winning reporter, her creative writing has been supported by Hedgebrook, The Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, Tin House, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. Find her on Instagram @vesnajaksiclowe.
