In unlikely places
palm green on ice
What Amsterdam's parakeets taught me about migration
Parakeets in the Netherlands are an anomaly. After all, they are tropical birds, built for warmth, colour, open skies. And yet here they are, tens of thousands of them, living in Dutch cities, nesting in Dutch trees, entirely at home in an environment that was not designed for them and did not expect them.
That specific experience of being from somewhere completely different, arriving in a place that did not build itself with you in mind, and deciding to stay anyway, asks more of a person than most would imagine. Life carries its own challenges regardless. But to build one here means starting over inside a whole new set of elements: the cold, the bare trees, a sky that only offers you glimpses of blue. All of it different from what you knew. And that’s before the rest of it, the norms, the systems, the things nobody explains. Migration is rarely just the logistics of arriving. It’s the quiet work of adjusting to everything that comes after.
This is what thriving in the margins looks likeThis painting shows them in winter, the harshest version of the environment, the one furthest from what they know. And they are glowing. Their green is electric against the grey and white. They are not hiding, not diminished, not waiting for better conditions. They are just there. Fully themselves. In the snow.
This is what thriving in the margins looks like. Not assimilation, not erasure, just presence. The refusal to become less visible because the backdrop changed. It is for everyone who arrived somewhere new and chose to stay. Who dressed differently and ate differently and learned a new language and still, somehow, remained exactly who they were.
Palm Green on Ice
Series: Between the Margins
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