On "the boat people"

Someone asked me the other day what I think about refugees, specifically the illegal immigrants that enter Australia on boats and are intercepted by Australian authorities. These last specifiers are important because they make this situation particularly unique. It’s no secret, and I consider this absolutely nothing to be ashamed about, that I entered Australia as a refugee from a war-torn country. I, however, find it difficult to form an opinion about the so-called “boat people” given that my family and I all entered the country legally on a comfortable passenger plane, were granted permanent resident status immediately on arrival, were escorted from the airport to a furnished and fully-stocked home in inner-city Brisbane, and received so much governmental support with negotiating a new country and a new language. The illegal immigrants I was asked about, although both refugees, are in a such completely different scenario that I find it personally hard to put myself in their shoes… And yet, so many people who are so much less qualified than even myself find it too easy to comment on “the boat people”.

A colleague once asked ‘why don’t illegal refugees from south-east Asia and other countries do what people from wealthier countries do?’ You know, just buy a plane ticket and come to Australia on tourist visas which they can then overstay and support themselves and escape the authorities however best they can. She suggested this would solve the issue of the Australian government having to process these illegal immigrants’ after-arrival applications to remain in Australia as refugees. Then Australian taxpayer’s money also wouldn’t be “wasted” on arresting and then housing refugees in detention centres, etc. Well, if you’re a citizen of certain countries, it’s actually quite difficult to get a tourist visa to Australia to overstay, and thus getting on a boat for illegal migration is much cheaper and easier despite all its inherent dangers. Well, this colleague suggested, why don’t the boats filled with illegal immigrants just get turned away or their passengers put on planes back to their own countries of origin before their stories/reasons for migration are heard. The reason for that is that would give the Australian government a bad human rights record… Oh yeah, it might actually be a violation of human rights.

So what do I know about refugees? I know that it must be a difficult decision to make to migrate to a country where the only certainty is that it’s not your own country (ideally for the better). When my family lived in El Salvador, people were migrating illegally into the surrounding countries, mostly northbound to the U.S.A. Around the time we left for Australia, the majority of people migrating illegally into the U.S.A. were leaving for the same reasons we were: seeking refuge from the hardships of war, the threats of death, and the intense poverty. Only a very very small minority were leaving “just for the hell of it”, and I believe perhaps no-one migrated illegally with the intention of hurting North-American citizens on their arrival. I also believe these broad categories/reasons remain true of all people who choose to migrate into another country. Why did my family migrate legally when others chose to do it illegally? Because we could. Why did others do it illegally when they could have done what my family did? Fear, lack of knowledge, I don’t know. I just don’t know. And I think that that’s the thing, that it is extremely hard to even imagine what it takes a human being to go through to make the choice where they consider it a lesser danger to hand over non-refundable money to an illegal human trafficker in order to board a shabby boat for a rough sea journey to a place you’ve never been to that speaks a language you don’t understand. How horrible must the other options have been?!

How do I feel about the “boat people”? A great curiosity to know their stories. And a wish that no person in this world had to suffer the hardships that lead most people to seek refuge in another country.

On being a foreigner

I once walked into an exam room and the first question I was asked was how I ended up with an Australian accent and a last name like mine. Common question; I don’t mind it all, it’s a great conversation starter. But when I was asked if I ever wanted to go home, I didn’t know what to answer. My home across the river? Yes… but that wasn’t the question.

Milan Kundera wrote a book called ‘Ignorance’ about a girl born in the Czech Republic who moves to France and lives there for about 20 years. Here’s a quote about her experiences as an émigré:

“Oh, the French, you know – they have no need for experience. With them, judgments precede experience. When we got there, they didn’t need any information from us. They were already thoroughly informed that Stalinism is an evil and emigration is a tragedy. They weren’t interested in what we thought, they were interested in us as living proof of what they thought. So they were generous to us and proud of it. When Communism collapsed all of a sudden, they looked hard at me, an investigator’s look. And after that, something soured. I didn’t behave the way they expected…. They had done a lot for me. They saw me as the embodiment of an émigré’s suffering. Then the time came for me to confirm that suffering by my joyous return to the homeland. And that confirmation didn’t happen. They felt duped. And so did I, because up till then I’d thought they loved me not for my suffering but for myself.”

‘Ignorance’ talks about nostalgia. At different times in my life, in particularly the last few years, I have been asked whether I have ever considered returning home. Home? I am home! Home is where my mum is. I guess I’m a foreigner and nothing can change that, not even time. Does it bother me, the expectation that I should long for a place I actually feel no connection to? Yes, the expectation bothers me. My discord comes from not being about to understand why I should not consider this — Australia — my home? Because others were born here and I wasn’t? Home is where I raise up my tent, the place I long for when I’m away. The place I long for is the one that inhabits the people I love, my family. That home is not in Central America; what is there is a memory, not my present or the future I choose. But people have this expectation that is separate to my desires, and this expectation renders me a traitor – a traitor for betraying an ideal that is not my own!

Sometimes people ask me if I remember much about El Salvador since when I left I was around 9 years old. I remember, of course; children remember by the time they’re nine. I remember the things that are of value to me, the good or bad things that shaped me. Some memories are still like photographs and seem distant; some more vivid and play over and over. But yes, I remember. It wasn’t all bad. War was almost always background for us (my family). Family, Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s books, school, and Mexican soap operas on TV were in the foreground (for me, at least). It wasn’t all rosy, either, as some people choose to believe, landscapes which they imagine are irreproducible. And although the war was real, it was something you get around by living your everyday life. People do that, we weren’t the only ones. We weren’t specially apt or adaptable; we were common people living in a place where a lot of common people also lived. Sometimes when there’s a big crack in the ground, people learn to walk around it and pretty soon it’s accepted as part of the landscape which isn’t questioned and you can’t suffer over it. Romanticism is for the memories of the past, you can’t suffer from it in the moment.

Yes, I remember El Salvador, certain places and certain people. Why do people doubt that I would remember? Because they (both “romantics” from my country and people born here who insist my home is elsewhere) don’t understand how I could remember El Salvador and yet not long for it again. Memory is not the same as nostalgia. Patriotism doesn’t and shouldn’t rule memory.

Maybe it’s time I write my own version of my story:
I was born in El Salvador, lived there until I was nine. There was a civil war; I was a kid, I didn’t know the reasons for it and I didn’t have a view either way. My uncle was killed by a land mine and my best friend was killed by a bomb; our family was one of the least affected by the war. We immigrated to Australia with all my family. All of it: mum, grandmother, brothers, sister, cousins and aunts. I didn’t know my father very well, I still don’t. If he is still alive, it is highly probable he is still living in El Salvador. My whole family and my whole life, most of my friends, and my ambitions live in Australia. I am Salvadorian; I live in Australia. I am at home.

On Travelling

There’s a scene in the movie “Motorcycle Diaries” where the characters of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara and his friend are travelling through the Atacama desert in Chile on their way to Peru. They meet a couple of peasants in the middle of the desert and they sit down to share stories and a hot drink over a camp fire. The peasants tell them of how they’ve been forced to leave their homeland because of political unrest and bad working conditions. Then it’s Ernesto and his friend’s turn to share their story. Ernesto tells them how they are travelling “just to travel”. A silence takes over the camp. Ernesto and his friend sit there almost in shame, and the peasants in complete disbelief that people can and do this. Finally the female peasant breaks the silence and in acceptance tells them, “Bless you... Blessed be your travels”.

The reason this scene was so significant to me was that when I was younger I never understood why people enjoyed "travelling" just for travelling. Like the peasants in the movie, I was raised in a very different place, where people only travelled when they had to, usually for work or escaping a physically dangerous situation, so unless your job was an explorer, then it didn't make sense to travel.

I couldn’t understand why people would choose to travel unless they had to. Later I came to almost despise it because a lot of the people I knew then described themselves as “travellers” when they meant to say “tourists”, or when they would try to make me believe that because they had travelled they were somehow more “cultured”, more “experienced”, better than average. Travelling to me in these cases always seemed a luxury, something someone did by choice and not for survival. It seemed redundant and I found it offensive that these travellers acted as if their journeys had been some part of a humanitarian mission. Seeing a pretty place or partying with other tourists or eating local food did not seem particularly special to me.

And then came another time of my life I found it very hard to stay in one place—the anxiety was unbearable—so I started “travelling” too. It took me ages to realise that running away doesn't make your problems disappear, because your problems have a tendency to follow you around.

As I grew up I eventually came to have more tolerance of this travelling business and I came to see some places myself which made me feel blessed because nature can be so breathtakingly beautiful. Yet still, travelling to me is still only escapism. But everything that isn't survival-related is escapism—and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Travel

One day she left to travel. I’ve always believed that those who like to travel are running away from something. For a while it seemed as if everyone was travelling. Maybe everyone was running.
One day I travelled and a lot of things happened, others changed, and the rest remained the same.
She left, but she said it wasn’t because of me. I believed her because, well, why wouldn’t I? One day she called me and asked whether I missed her. I wish I hadn’t said anything, but I said I did. (Sometimes it’s less complicated to say nothing at all.) She said she hoped I wouldn’t forget her, nor the things we had lived. After that, we said nothing at all.
When I realised that there is nothing behind travelling other than self-indulgence, I wanted to humiliate her, myself too, and to just tell everyone “the truth”. We wanted to deny it, but how could we?
She ran away from the truth and left. Me, I keep thinking that those who like to travel are running away from something.

One day I left to travel. It was early on since we’d met, but I missed her as if she had been a part of me for centuries and lives before that. She called me to wish me well. I told her that I missed her and that I loved her deeply. She didn’t know what to tell me so she told me that she had missed me too, and wished me well (again). I don’t know what happened to us since then.
One day, without saying a thing, she travelled to the same place where I had been without her. She never told me about that trip and I can only ask myself, “could it be that she forgot about me in the same place I had gone to forget about her?” The secrets that the mountains must hold.

One day, walking alone through life (or the park), I thought I heard something that sounded like my name. I wanted to cry but I kept quite. Sometimes I can get so lost in the silence that I even forget the name God himself has given me.
Lost in the silence one day, I thought I heard my name. It wasn’t anything. My consciousness was shouting at me to wake up. The vice of nostalgia was crying to tell me to let myself go. The stars tried then to tell me something, but who sees celestial things during daylight? (The faithful ones who never wander?) I got myself lost because I listened to those three things that were screaming things that I heard as my name but in reality were probably saying something closer to “No!”.

One day she tried to embarrass me for speaking of God. Who was I? Who am I? God knows who I am, the rest doesn’t matter.

—2005 (I initially wrote this story in Spanish, but I’ve recently started to think about it again because I’m on holidays – and not travelling.)