While the topic is hot…
Immigration
What with the recent historic immigrant strike in the U.S. and all kinds of related issues popping up in Europe, today I spent a majority of my time scouring the Internet on the topic, and eventually became transfixed by the stories of those searching for a “better life”. The BBC News has a series of articles they published two years ago about African migrants who leave everything behind to find better lives in Europe. The reporter spent 3 weeks retracing one man’s track and presented his journey from Senegal to Brecia, Italy in this article. And somehow, though I know that there is no connection at all, it made me wonder about my own grandfather.
As a kid growing up in Thailand, I heard the story of my dad’s side grandfather over and over again about how he arrived on a migrant boat from China with nothing but clothes on his back, a mat and a pillow. He worked and worked and worked, going from being a laborer to eventually becoming a wealthy business man who later was recognized by the royal court for his contribution to the country.
I never really paid much attention. He passed before my parents were married, so the only thing I know of him is this story that sounds just like any other Chinese people’s story to the point of being almost generic. And I supposed there’s a photo of him somewhere in my house. Even though we are only the second generation of the family to be born/raised in Thailand, most of my cousins and I have no memory of our grandfather. His story from struggle to success is a myth, he came from some distant land, and we can’t even read what’s written on his tombstone.
About a month ago, my father and his siblings made a trip to China. It was for the 30th anniversary of my grandfather’s death. My dad believes that the reason he can’t seem to reach prosperity like his father is because the ancestors were angry. So the siblings went to pay respect to the ancestors and visit the village where we are from. My aunt who now lives in America tells me this over IM:
“the house where he is from is still there, the village is still there. if you go see it you’ll understand why my father had to leave. there is nothing but a shack. no running water, no bathroom, no electricity, no _nothing.”
Though, I guess there are roads to take modern people into the village? I can’t imagine my aunts and uncles trekking a field in rural China. But that’s besides the point.
My dad said that some old people could even remember who left to go to Thailand and who was whose kids. At the end of the trip, the Thai siblings gave whatever money they had left to the relatives who were still living in that village and came home broke (according to my aunt). At least their homes have running water and they all have bank accounts.
So my grandfather left the rural, unfertile farm land to seek fortune in a better place. No different, I guess, from those who are fleeing Africa and willing to give up their lives crossing the Sahara for the chance to get to Europe, or those who cross the U.S.-Mexico border, or those who board little rafts to reach any new land. And once there, work a menial job in hopes of saving up wealth and building your future.
Leaving your wife and children behind (my grandfather had a family then left for Thailand, he would later send for them once he was established) and getting on a boat to a foreign land for an unknown future must be difficult, and there is no way for me to imagine what kind of trip that must have been. We don’t even know the length of the journey, the kind of boat (was it a real boat or a raft?), how many days it must have taken to cross the ocean. And, Grandpa, what did you do when you got to your destination? Did you like it? Did you know anyone? Where did you sleep your first night? How did you even start to make money? Tell me the worse part about your boat? And were you an illegal immigrant? Did you get a work permit? Did that concept even exist back then?
Millions and millions of these migration stories will go to the grave, never to be recorded or recollected in memories of the future generation, the immigrants’ children who owe everything up to these details.
And this is why it makes no sense to me that anyone living in the U.S. could even be anti-immigrant. Regardless of how and why your family is in the U.S., your ancestors were just looking for better lives too.