The Face Of Immigration

I had lunch with a 30-something woman who lives here in Brisbane. She, her brother, and her parents emigrated to Adelaide when she was 15 from Moscow. Her father was the co-founder of an engineering company in Moscow and had to walk away from it (a partner who sold his share of the company 10 years later made $1 million). The family had $2000 when they got here and they spoke virtually no English.

She said her father (who is 55) has no hope of retiring at 65 because he's only had 20 years to build up his retirement account here and doesn't have nearly enough. My lunchmate and her husband moved here because her husband lost his job in Adelaide and could only find work in Brisbane. Her parents would like to move from Adelaide to Brisbane to be closer to their daughter and grandson but it would be hard for her dad to find his kind of work in Brisbane, so they can't.

I asked what motivated her parents to move here. She said "Us. My parents wanted us to grow up to live healthy and have opportunities." Apparently she and her brother got sick every other month of so because of the pollution in Moscow among other things.

Can you imagine walking away from everything you have for that? Your house, your family, your friends, your professional accomplishments and standing, your retirement account, your furniture, your car(s), your language -- everything -- because your kids can't be healthy where they are?

Would you give up being American?
Would you give up being Australian?
Permanently.

Imagine your kids desperately needed to leave America (or Australia) and your choices were Japan or the Czech Republic. And the only thing you could bring with you is your clothes and about $5,000. Which country would you choose?

And imagine once you got there that half the people you met in Japan/the Czech Republic looked down on you for "stealing" local jobs and being a drain on society and not speaking Japanese/Czech as soon as you got there. Oh, also, you're diluting "the culture" by keeping your own American/Australian traditions.

It's a hell of a thing to abandon home, family, culture, language (not to mention money and possessions) on the hope -- not the guarantee, the hope -- that it will be worth it in the long run. Probably not for you but for your kids.

I can imagine it but only just barely.

Immigration isn't a new issue. In DC, I'm surrounded by people who've immigrated and whose story is just as hard, often harder. Why did this story connect for me?

Because she's white, like me. Because she's a writer, like me. Because she speaks fluent English, like me. Because she's middle-class, like me. Because she's a foreigner here, like me. Her story can sink in to me because I allow it. I allow it because I identify with her. The truth is, everything is easier to hear and see when we recognize ourselves in the other.

Am I callous because I haven't opened myself to the immigrant stories around me in DC (and I haven't, not really)? Maybe, maybe not. I wonder if I will experience the immigrant stories around me more viscerally when I return to DC, now that I've had a taste of being a foreigner. I hope so. I hope my heart recognizes myself in the others.

If so, it will be because of this lovely Russian-Australian.