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November 27, 2024

Going Home: Your guide to leaving the U.S.

In Conversation with Tina Strawn

To understand how others have decided to leave the U.S., I interviewed Tina Strawn (she/they), a writer, speaker and the author of the book. "Are We Free Yet? The Black Queer Guide to Divorcing America," which came out in January 2023. They also led a TEDx Talk about it last year in LA called "Blaxit: The New Underground Railroad." Currently based in Costa Rica, we chatted about her decision and the impact of this most recent election.

Nicole: Thanks for being here, Tina! We're hearing a lot of people, especially Black women, talking about leaving. You made that choice in July 2020. What was that decision like for you?

Tina: The decision began in my mind when I stumbled upon a Black American expat on Instagram who was living in Vietnam in 2018. I was living in Georgia at the time, and Stacey Abrams had just lost the governorship to Brian Kemp. I was pretty active in volunteering at the time. It was kismet in the sense that there was the perfect combination of disappointment around what I was watching happen politically in Georgia, as well as having this new idea of Blaxit—what is it? What do you mean that Black Americans are moving out of the states?

By 2020, my then-wife and I made the decision to get rid of everything we owned and become nomads. I had work lined up in Durban, South Africa, where I was going to be leading anti-racism and yoga workshops. Then COVID hit and everything got canceled.

My wife left me unexpectedly, so I had to make a decision: start over from scratch in the States, which many of us have done before, or start over from scratch outside the states. I decided to leave and found myself in Jamaica with a friend.

I got a few book deals in the Spring of 2021, and while I thought I was writing about grieving my seven-year marriage, I actually found that it had more to do with me grieving leaving the United States and wrestling with what it means to be a Black American, queer, woman and trying to find where is home. Where on the planet can I feel safe and free in my queer Black woman body?

Nicole: How are you feeling now, almost four years later? How does it feel watching from afar?

Tina: It's been heartbreaking to watch. I've still been very heavily involved in racial and social justice advocacy in the states from Costa Rica. That's one of the surprising things—even though I moved out, I was still very much concerned, involved, and wanting to participate in how we can save as many people as we can.

Being on the outside has allowed me a level of distance that a lot of other folks don't have. It has been really affirming to be out. These past four and a half years since I left, I am grateful for the decision every day. It has not always been easy. It has had its challenges but it has absolutely affirmed my ability to get myself free in ways that feel true for me.

Nicole: We often hear this debate between "if you're not happy then just leave" versus "you're abandoning your country and communities." How do you feel about that discourse?

Tina: I want to invite people to interrogate a little bit deeper what that means, making a choice to leave a violent situation from a place of empowerment versus abandonment. People leave relationships when they identify that they are harmful or not serving them. People leave cities and states for other opportunities for a better life and quality of living. That is literally the same thing that many of our ancestors did, from the enslaved people who were led by Harriet Tubman and escaped plantations, to the Black folks escaping the South to the North starting in the early 1900s during The Great Migration.

Everyone doesn't want to leave, and that's valid. And everyone can't leave for a variety of reasons. I do feel that there's a measure of privilege in leaving, but I also believe that there's a measure of privilege in staying.

I consider us as Black Americans to be in a toxic and abusive relationship with the United States. I'm not abandoning anything because I am a Black American with a blue passport no matter where I go. That is the fact that my ancestors built that country, though against their will and through tremendous suffering, violence, terror and exploitation that continues to this day. That is my connection to that country, and my passport, the least it owes me. I believe that freedom means choice. If we are truly free, then we should have a choice where we can live and thrive and have rest and joy and peace and pleasure. These are all things that should be human rights, and I believe that having choices, as in the choice to stay or to leave, is what my ancestors hoped and dreamed for me, for us.

Nicole: What else did you realize you were shifting your relationship away from as you moved?

Tina: That's actually a really important question. I think there's a common experience of Black expats leaving the United States and still having the mentality of being in the states. I am a guest in someone else's country. I have not left the states so I can buy up property and open up Airbnbs. That's not my intention or desire.

It's not just about leaving the physical land of the United States—it also has to deal with unpacking your relationship to all systems of oppression. You have to dig into your relationship to white supremacy, to capitalism, to misogyny, to the patriarchy. It's very important to say anti-Blackness is global.

So it really is a matter of not moving to another country with a colonizer mentality. I live in a little Tico town—Tico is what Costa Rican people call themselves. I live with the local folks, not in some place where all the expats are. It's important to me to do things like learn the language and prioritize spending my money by investing in the local community where I live.

The Black folks and community I live with of other Black expats—we have a completely different experience here in Costa Rica of interacting with the police because the cops here are not predatory and do not target or over-surveil us as Black people. They don't know what school shootings are here. They only hear about that because of the United States. Costa Rica abolished their army in 1949, so they are able to prioritize things like their health care and education system. I live in a country where I see and experience much of what I want and what we hope and fight for in the United States.

Nicole: What does home mean to you?

Tina: I am home. Home is wherever I am, wherever I choose to be. And that's coming from someone who has a dysfunctional family situation, who has both an ex-husband and an ex-wife, and has three adult children and an ex-country. I have learned that wherever I am, home is right here with me. I don't get homesick because I'm never away from home. Home is right here.

James Baldwin on Getting Out

In The New Lost Generation, written in 1961 about leaving the U.S., Baldwin explores the complex experiences of American expats in post-WWII Paris, beginning with his own decision to leave America following his friend's suicide and expanding into broader observations about why Americans flee their homeland. Baldwin argues that while leaving America can offer a path to self-discovery and artistic freedom, especially for those marginalized by American society. Esquire >

Thinking of moving abroad after the election? Here are 4 financial challenges you'll face as an expat. Forbes >

Americans who want out. Some liberals insist that they're not joking this time: They are very scared, and very ready to leave the country if Donald Trump is reelected. The Atlantic >

Specialists in relocating Americans to Europe and Canada are seeing the phone ringing off the hook since the Trump vs. Biden debate. Fortune >

Americans are flocking to expat websites after the election. ‘They want out, fast’. CNBC >

These Americans want out. Ronda Kaysen spoke with 30 American voters about why they want to leave the United States and how they are doing it. NYTimes >