Why Do Some Immigrants Look Down on Other Immigrants?

We’ve all experienced it.

Someone who looks like us—but speaks with a better accent, with bigger words.
And the moment the conversation starts, we feel it: the hostility. The contempt.

The immigrant who scoffs at the new arrival struggling with English.
The one who made it and looks down on those still trying.
The one who says, “We did it the right way, why can’t they?”

Instead of lifting each other up, some push others down.

Is it survival instinct—trying to distance themselves from the struggle they once knew?
Is it internalized bias—the need to align with the powerful, to prove they are different?
Or is it just human nature—some people climb the ladder and pull it up behind them?

No one understands the struggle like we do.
No one knows how hard it is more than us.

So why do some of us become the very obstacles we once fought to overcome?

And what would happen if we chose to lift each other up instead?