Riz Ahmed has never personally filed an immigration petition, yet his story captures the second-generation immigrant experience with rare emotional precision. Born in Wembley, London to Pakistani parents, Ahmed has spent his career as an actor, musician, and activist articulating what it feels like to be asked "where are you really from?" despite being British-born. His Oscar-winning short film "The Long Goodbye" reframes the immigrant experience as a toxic relationship—a metaphor that resonates deeply with anyone who has struggled to belong in a country that views them as perpetually foreign. For artists and entertainers pursuing U.S. visas today, Ahmed's story offers both a mirror and a roadmap for understanding the psychological dimensions of immigration that bureaucratic processes often ignore.
Ahmed's story begins not with his own immigration but with his parents' journey from Pakistan to Britain. His father was a shipping broker while his mother raised children in Wembley, a working-class neighborhood in northwest London. This origin story matters because Ahmed argues that his family's presence in Britain predates his parents' physical arrival—through the labor and resources extracted during British colonialism.
The paradox Ahmed articulates resonates across diaspora communities:
Ahmed explains that his ancestors helped build Britain before they ever set foot there, referencing the contributions of colonial subjects in World War I and the lives lost in the Bengal famine. This reframing challenges the premise that immigrants are guests who should be grateful—instead positioning them as stakeholders who helped construct the very nation that now questions their belonging.
For many foreign nationals pursuing U.S. work visas today, this paradox feels familiar. The question isn't just whether paperwork will be approved—it's whether approval will translate into genuine acceptance.
Ahmed's childhood required constant identity performance across radically different contexts. He describes navigating three distinct worlds daily: traditional Pakistani culture at home, the "posh" environment of his scholarship school, and British-Asian street culture with peers.
At home, Ahmed learned Urdu, observed Islamic practices, and absorbed Pakistani cultural values. This world emphasized:
A scholarship to Merchant Taylors' School placed Ahmed in an elite educational environment where he was often the only brown face in the room. Survival required:
Outside both home and school, Ahmed found community with other British-Asian youth who were inventing their own hybrid identity. This culture featured:
Ahmed later described the 1990s as a golden period for British-Asian culture—a time when integration seemed possible and cultural fusion was celebrated. Shows like "Goodness Gracious Me" brought South Asian humor to mainstream television, while bhangra and jungle music created genuinely hybrid British sounds.
This code-switching experience mirrors what many entrepreneurs and founders face when building companies across cultural contexts. The ability to move between worlds becomes both a survival skill and an exhausting performance.
September 11, 2001 fundamentally altered the British-Asian experience. Ahmed describes a jarring identity shift: in the 1980s, South Asians in Britain "were called black, at least politically black." By the 1990s, "we were Pakis"—a slur, but one focused on ethnicity. After 9/11, "suddenly we were Muslims."
The consequences were immediate and lasting:
Ahmed has spoken about being detained at airports repeatedly and questioned by security services. In one incident, he describes being physically handled roughly during a search—the kind of experience that accumulates into a sense that you will never truly belong, no matter your citizenship status or achievements.
This shift from ethnic to religious categorization created new barriers that persist today. STEM professionals from Muslim-majority countries often face enhanced scrutiny in visa processes—a systemic suspicion that mirrors what Ahmed experienced personally.
In 2020, Ahmed released an album and short film that crystallized his immigration philosophy into a powerful metaphor. "The Long Goodbye" treats Britain as an abusive ex-girlfriend named "Brittney"—someone Ahmed loved deeply but who ultimately betrayed him.
Ahmed's framework maps the immigrant experience onto familiar relationship dynamics:
The brilliance of Ahmed's framework lies in its emotional accuracy. Immigration debates typically center on economics, security, or legal technicalities. Ahmed insists on discussing how it feels—the heartbreak, betrayal, and self-doubt that accompany rejection by your homeland.
"I'm an artist; I'm just responding to what are personal matters," Ahmed explains. "I want to safeguard my right to focus on how it feels rather than saying what the takeaway should be." This approach transforms immigration from a political issue into a human one.
Director Aneil Karia, who helmed the short film, describes creating something "fucking terrifying" that feels "grounded in reality, the reality of people's fears." The film depicts a dystopian scenario where a British-Asian family is violently removed from their home—but the horror comes from recognizing this as only a slight exaggeration of existing hostility.
Beyond personal narrative, Ahmed has worked systematically to change how immigrants and Muslims appear in the media. His framework for minority actor careers illuminates the systemic barriers:
Early career options for actors of color typically include:
The middle stage involves playing characters whose ethnicity is central but who challenge stereotypes—immigrants portrayed with complexity, Muslims shown as fully human. These roles "loosen the necklace" while still centering ethnic identity.
Ahmed's breakthrough role in HBO's "The Night Of"—an Emmy-winning performance as a Pakistani-American college student accused of murder—exemplifies this stage. The character's ethnicity matters to the story, but the portrayal humanizes rather than demonizes.
The ultimate goal: roles where a brown actor plays characters whose ethnicity isn't the defining trait. Ahmed's casting in "Sound of Metal" as a drummer losing his hearing represents this freedom—his Pakistani heritage matters little to the character's journey.
Ahmed's advocacy isn't just personal; it's backed by research. The USC Annenberg study found that only 1.6% of speaking roles in top 200 films from 2017-2019 were Muslim characters. Of those, 39% were portrayed as perpetrators of violence.
Dr. Stacy Smith of USC Annenberg notes there's "absolutely no reason" casting directors can't act on this data immediately. Ahmed has partnered with the Pillars Fund to create the Blueprint for Muslim Inclusion and award $25,000 fellowships to Muslim filmmakers working to change the landscape.
For artists seeking O-1B visas in the arts and entertainment fields, Ahmed's career trajectory demonstrates what extraordinary ability looks like: Emmy awards, Oscar wins, and systematic advocacy work that changes industry practices.
Ahmed's story doesn't end in bitterness. His journey toward self-acceptance offers a template for immigrants wrestling with belonging:
A key insight from Ahmed's framework: you cannot wait for the toxic partner to change. Britain's acceptance of immigrants ebbs and flows with economic conditions and political winds. Building your sense of self on that shifting foundation guarantees instability.
Rather than choosing between identities—Pakistani or British, Muslim or secular—Ahmed advocates for embracing "the whole beautiful mess." This means:
Ahmed's collaborations with artists like Heems (in Swet Shop Boys) create spaces where hybrid identity is normal rather than exceptional. When enough people share your experience, the question "where are you really from?" loses its power.
"The Long Goodbye" won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 2022. The recognition validated Ahmed's approach—proving that mainstream institutions can embrace immigrant stories when told with artistic excellence.
But Ahmed cautions against viewing awards as the goal. External validation from the same institutions that perpetuate exclusion is inherently limited. The Oscar matters less than the work itself and the communities it serves.
Ahmed's diagnosis of the immigrant experience—dehumanization, bureaucratic nightmares, constant suspicion—points toward what solutions should provide. While no technology can solve racism or guarantee belonging, modern immigration services can address concrete pain points:
For executives and managers transferring internationally, or recent graduates launching careers, these practical improvements address what Ahmed's art illuminates: the immigrant experience involves both systemic barriers and personal dignity.
Ahmed's story continues to evolve. His work challenges both the countries that question immigrant belonging and the communities that sometimes demand cultural purity. The honesty of his approach—acknowledging anger, fear, and heartbreak alongside resilience and creativity—offers a template for processing complex immigrant experiences.
For immigration services committed to treating clients with dignity, Ahmed's work serves as both warning and aspiration. The warning: bureaucratic processes that treat people as case numbers contribute to the dehumanization he describes. The aspiration: systems that combine efficiency with empathy can be part of building the belonging that policy alone cannot provide.
Ahmed studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) at Oxford—a prestigious program that has produced numerous British prime ministers. This elite education gave him intellectual frameworks for analyzing systems of power while simultaneously highlighting his perpetual outsider status, as he was often the only person of color in academic spaces. The experience deepened his understanding of how British institutions maintain exclusivity despite formal diversity commitments while connecting him to establishment networks that would later amplify his advocacy work.
The Riz Test is a five-question framework created by UK researchers and activists Sadia Habib and Shaf Choudry, inspired by Riz Ahmed’s 2017 speech in the House of Commons and modeled in spirit on the Bechdel Test, to evaluate how films and TV shows portray Muslim characters. It looks at whether an identifiably Muslim character is tied to terrorism (as speaker, victim, or perpetrator), depicted as constantly angry, shown as superstitious or “backward,” framed as a danger to a so-called Western way of life, or—if male—portrayed as misogynistic, or—if female—presented as oppressed by men; if any of these apply, the work is considered to fail the test. Today, the Riz Test is primarily used by critics, researchers, and educators as a tool to call out recurring negative stereotypes about Muslims in popular media and to encourage more nuanced, humanizing representation, rather than as a formal standard adopted by studios or streaming platforms.
Ahmed's second-generation narrative differs significantly from traditional immigration stories in that first-generation immigrants often emphasize sacrifice, adaptation, and gratitude for opportunity, while Ahmed argues that gratitude should flow both directions given colonial history and immigrant contributions. He experiences a unique form of statelessness—too British for Pakistan, too Pakistani for Britain—that first-generation immigrants may not face as acutely. However, both generations share experiences of discrimination, code-switching, and questioning whether full belonging is achievable.
Before pursuing acting, Ahmed was deeply involved in British-Asian youth culture, including the daytime rave scene where South Asian and British musical traditions fused. These events—held during daylight hours so participants could return home before parents noticed—represented a genuine hybrid culture that neither mimicked mainstream British norms nor retreated into ethnic enclaves. Ahmed has described this period as formative, showing him that new identities could be created rather than simply inherited, and the post-9/11 collapse of this cultural moment informs his sense of loss.
Beyond raising awareness, Ahmed's work has generated measurable outcomes including Pillars Fund fellowships that have distributed $25,000 grants to Muslim filmmakers and the Blueprint for Muslim Inclusion that provides specific recommendations studios can implement. USC Annenberg's research, commissioned in partnership with Ahmed, created baseline data against which future progress can be measured. While representation statistics remain poor, Ahmed's systematic approach—combining personal storytelling, institutional partnerships, and data collection—has created accountability mechanisms that pure advocacy lacks.
Ahmed's description of performing different identities across contexts—home, school, street—has direct implications for workplace culture, as employers sponsoring foreign national employees often assume that visa approval equals successful integration. However, Ahmed's framework suggests employees may be performing exhausting code-switches that reduce productivity and wellbeing even after legal status is secured. Organizations that create genuinely inclusive cultures—where employees don't need to minimize ethnic identity to succeed—address the full immigration experience rather than just its bureaucratic dimensions.
