Identity is not a static concept but a dynamic one, constantly changing throughout life. The way we define ourselves at one moment may change in the next stage of life, especially in the context of migration.

When leaving one’s country of origin, the distance is not only geographical but also marks the beginning of a process of identity reconstruction in a new and different cultural environment. This includes social and linguistic aspects in some cases, raising the question: how is the self-defined when stepping into the unknown? Is it possible to redefine oneself without losing the essence of who one has always been?

Identity crisis and rootlessness

The first feeling one may experience after emigrating is rootlessness, as familiar points of reference—such as social norms, language, geography, and customs—are lost. At home, certain movements are natural: going to familiar places and knowing what to expect. However, when emigrating, one must make a conscious effort to understand a new environment, which can lead to an identity crisis, in which a person questions their belonging to the new community.

At this point, the emigrant may feel fragmented between what they once were and what they must become to integrate into a new social sphere. As Jean-Paul Sartre argued, identity is not something given but something built through decisions and actions. When the emigrant arrives in a new country, they carry a great responsibility: the task of redefining themselves.

Cultural negotiation

In this new reality, the emigrant may go through the stages of grief—denial, anger, depression, acceptance—and reach the stage of negotiation, where migration also becomes an opportunity for reinvention. However, some may feel that they do not belong anywhere or that they have dual or multiple identities.

In light of philosopher Zygmunt Bauman’s reflections on “liquid modernity,” one could understand that identities today are not permanent but malleable and fluid. Identity also undergoes this liquidity, where a person must find a balance between the demands of the new environment and the cultural traditions they have inherited, shaping a hybrid identity in which different experiences and cultures coexist.

The reconstruction of the Self

Reconstruction involves integrating past and present experiences. Fortunately, humanity has survived a constant process of evolution, which has brought it to the present. Through internal coherence, a person can come to feel their own authenticity without denying the changes they are experiencing.

Paul Ricoeur’s theory of narrative identity is particularly relevant here, as he argued that human beings construct their identity through storytelling. In this sense, the emigrant also begins to rewrite their life story, adding new chapters that do not erase the past but give it new meaning.

In this process, memory plays a fundamental role, as it allows the individual to preserve the link between their origins and their present without denying the events they are now experiencing.

Is it possible to return home?

A constant theme among emigrants is the possibility of returning to what was once known as home. Many dream of going back to familiar places, but even if they do, they often realize they are no longer the same people they once were.

Having experienced new places and lived through different situations in foreign lands, they may feel like strangers in their own homeland. This raises the paradox of return: does one truly go back, or does one arrive to experience a new kind of exile within their country of origin?

According to the philosopher of being, Martin Heidegger, there is a “dwelling of being,” understood as the place where a person feels completely at home. However, for the emigrant, this dwelling is no longer a single place but rather a combination of spaces filled with experiences and memories that shape their identity. In this sense, migration is not just a journey with a destination but a continuous process of transformation.

Emigrating is an experience that challenges everything one knows or once believed to be certain, paving the way for a process of fragmentation and reconstruction. It is a journey in which the emigrant becomes a being that inhabits different worlds, with an identity that merges the familiar with the unknown—like a river in motion, always searching for new places to reach.