Each employed immigrant has his or her place of work. It is only

In the words of Amitava Kumar, we find a profound reflection on the nature of exile, labor, and belonging: “Each employed immigrant has his or her place of work. It is only the taxi driver, forever moving on wheels, who occupies no fixed space. He represents the immigrant condition.” This is no casual observation, but a poetic unveiling of the restless heart of migration. The immigrant seeks to build a home, to find a place in a world that is not yet his own. Yet even in labor, there is often displacement. The taxi driver, always in motion, becomes the emblem of this condition: present everywhere, but settled nowhere.

The meaning is clear: while many workers anchor themselves to a factory, an office, or a field, the immigrant in the cab roams endlessly through the city. He knows its streets more intimately than many of its native-born, yet he belongs to none of them. His workplace is a road that vanishes beneath his wheels, his hours measured not by permanence but by passage. He is the eternal wanderer, and his occupation mirrors his very identity—caught between the longing for settlement and the reality of forever moving on.

The ancients, too, understood the plight of those without a fixed dwelling. The Hebrews, wandering for forty years in the desert, were a people between bondage and promise, never still, always journeying. They pitched their tents, only to take them down again. Their tabernacle was mobile, their lives uncertain. Yet in their wandering they found strength, and their condition became a symbol of the human soul’s pilgrimage. So too does Kumar place the immigrant taxi driver in this lineage of wanderers: his cab is his tent, his journey both burden and destiny.

We can see this truth in the modern streets of great cities. In New York, in London, in Paris, countless cabs are driven by men and women from far-off lands—India, Pakistan, Somalia, Haiti, Mexico. They carry passengers to towers of wealth and avenues of power, yet themselves remain outside, their labor invisible except in brief encounters. Like Virgil’s boatman who ferried souls across the river Styx, they carry others to their destinations, yet their own destination remains uncertain. This paradox—the labor of movement without arrival—is the very immigrant condition.

Yet there is also dignity in this wandering. The taxi driver may not have a fixed workplace, but he has something greater: resilience, adaptability, and the power to navigate. He knows the pulse of the city, its secret arteries and hidden rhythms. In his hands, the wheel becomes a compass of survival. Though he may not “belong,” he becomes essential; though he is rootless, he sustains the life of the place. Kumar reminds us that the immigrant condition, though marked by displacement, is also marked by endurance, courage, and the quiet heroism of building life out of movement.

The lesson for us is profound: do not look upon the one who “has no place” as lesser. Instead, recognize in him the mirror of our shared human story. For are we not all travelers in some way, seeking belonging, moving from stage to stage, never fully anchored? The immigrant’s story is but the human story made visible: that life itself is motion, that we are always between what was and what will be. The cab, forever moving, teaches us that our strength is not in permanence, but in perseverance.

Practically, this means cultivating compassion for those whose lives seem unsettled. Respect the worker who bears the burden of dislocation, and honor the contributions of those who labor in motion. For in their condition lies wisdom for us all: to accept the impermanence of life, to carry ourselves with dignity even when roots are shallow, and to find meaning not only in arriving, but in moving faithfully through the journey.

So let us remember Kumar’s wisdom: the immigrant condition is not defined by the absence of a place, but by the resilience of the journey. The taxi driver, with no fixed space, represents us all—travelers on the road of life, bearing our burdens, carrying others, always moving forward. And in this endless movement, there is both struggle and glory.