You do not perceive me

''I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me." (from The Invisible Man, prologue). These words, perhaps the single most powerful personal and social statement of the 20^th century, were written by Ralph Ellison in his classic The Invisible Man. Today, as we celebrate Black History Month, I find that they still have much relevance today, although for different reasons than what Ellison was alluding to when he wrote them. I find myself in a similar state of alienation and isolation to what Ellison expressed. While the state of invisibility Ellison describes is a much more serious social problem than what I and 11 million other Americans are experiencing, the discomfort, frustration and difficulties that accompany that feeling are similar. I have been unemployed for over eight months and it appears as of this writing that I will reach the dubious distinction of having gone unemployed for one whole year.

I am living but I often feel as if I am on the periphery of society, that is, people see me on the street, but they do not know what I have been going through these last few months. They think I am just like them, when I am not. Often I feel a detachment from everyone I see; I have nothing in common with them. This feeling extends to most of my friends. Many still have work and are firmly connected to the routines of daily employed life. From them exudes a view of life different from mine. For this reason alone, I tend to associate more closely with friends who have lost their jobs. Only they can understand me at this moment. Right now, my ambitions have been put on hold and my dreams scatter around me like leaves in the wind, having been transmuted from permanent to ephemeral; from achievable to distant.

I feel like an invisible person whose presence is only detected by family and my close friends. Abandoned am I by the organizations in my field who claim to assist international educators, I have taken it upon myself to create a community where we ‘ghosts’ can interact with each other. It is funny, living as a number, a figure. Sure we make up a faceless community, whose existence is known to the general public only as a percentage and nothing more.

The simple fact of the matter is that there is an unseen wall between those of us with jobs and those of us ‘floating’ and struggling to regain our footing. It is a porous wall that allows us to intermingle with those who have work, but going through that wall feels almost like I am breaching some protocol. I have always been observant and my employment interstice has allowed me to look at society through a different lens. It is amazing how your status can affect how you view things.

I know I will work again, although I do not know when. It is funny, hearing university students complaining about how stressed they are about an upcoming exam. I just quietly smile to myself and walk away. It is funny to think about what we consider ‘stressful.’Although this experience has been far from pleasant, I have learned a great deal from it and it has made me a much better person; much stronger in outlook and perseverance. In the end, this is a characteristic I will cherish much more than holding a job.