Both of my grandmothers left the countries they were born and grew up in for a new country. Both of them, for very different reasons, stayed in that new country for the rest of their lives, never looking back, never once returning to their birth countries. Now, I wonder if history will come full circle.
Kathleen is my Irish grandmother. She was born into a rural farming village in the early 1900’s and she was exuberant, sparkling and vibrant. She wanted more, bigger, better. She saw her only opportunity at home as marrying a farmer and having children. That, she decided, was not enough for her. She followed a brother to England and then hopped on a boat with her elder sister, filled with spunk and excitement, to get to what she believed to be the most glamorous and exciting of countries – the United States of America. There, Kathleen was swept off her feet, falling in love with this strange, frenetic place filled with every sort of person imaginable. She earned her beautician’s license and went promptly to work, delighting in her newfound freedom. Later in life, she would eventually marry and have children, however, she never considered returning to Ireland. She never even went back for a visit. She fully embraced her new country in every way and made it her own.
Josephine is my Chinese grandmother. Unlike Kathleen, she was born into an enormously wealthy and privileged family in the cosmopolitan, pre-Communist city of Shanghai. Excelling in academics, Josephine got into Columbia University and, with her new husband, set off to the United States, in luxury accommodations, for what she thought would be a fun, temporary stay. She planned to get her diploma and go back home, like many an American student today who does study abroad. However, the Communist Revolution happened and Josephine’s wealthy, intellectual family was targeted. Her father got a warning out to her not to come back, to do whatever she had to do, for China was no longer safe. Josephine later described this part of her life as the “opposite of a fairy tale.” She and her husband found themselves stranded in a foreign country with no family and their money quickly ran out. They found jobs, citizenship and managed to stay. Like Kathleen, Josephine would never see her parents again. She would never see Shanghai or China again. When asked many years later why she didn’t want to go back, even for a brief visit, she said that China was no longer the country she was born in, no longer the country she grew up in. The Communists had destroyed and distorted it and her birthplace no longer existed in any other than the physical sense.
I was born in New York City, a city I love. A diverse, loud, cosmopolitan city where we are all shouting to be heard, where everyone has a dream and everyone is working to try to make it happen. A city full of belief and hope. A city that draws the best and brightest from all corners of the world to come together and work, create and play. A city, I think, that is a force unto itself that will survive, in some sense, long after its people may be gone.
Unlike Kathleen, although I love to travel, I never felt the need to escape for a new home. I liked the home I had. However, like Josephine, I am now experiencing a distortion of my home from within, an increasing unfamiliarity. With the rise of MAGA and the current federal powers that celebrate cruelty, banality, simple-mindedness, and xenophobia and curtail education, free speech and the press, I see the country I knew slipping away, eroding more and more each day as the corruption spreads like a poison. Yes, some people are resisting. Yes, some people are fighting through the courts in an attempt to save democracy. However, many of us see the writing on the wall and have begun looking for the escape hatch, the Plan B. And here my Irish grandmother has given me a gift: EU citizenship through Ireland. I can escape. I love Ireland but the prospect of losing my birth country fully, not in the physical sense, but in every other way, is heartbreaking. Pandora’s Box still retains Hope and so I hope. I hope maybe we can do what Turkey did; maybe the millions of Americans who voted for a despot, a government that eschews basic decency, will suddenly see the light. However, as one term turns into two, as the global order destabilizes and as the country isolates and creates wars, death and destruction, all for no particularly good reason, hope becomes dimmer and dimmer.
So I thank my Chinese grandmother for the lesson in courage, in case I have to walk in her footsteps. And I thank my Irish grandmother for the rescue she didn’t know then that she was giving me.
Kathleen is my Irish grandmother. She was born into a rural farming village in the early 1900’s and she was exuberant, sparkling and vibrant. She wanted more, bigger, better. She saw her only opportunity at home as marrying a farmer and having children. That, she decided, was not enough for her. She followed a brother to England and then hopped on a boat with her elder sister, filled with spunk and excitement, to get to what she believed to be the most glamorous and exciting of countries – the United States of America. There, Kathleen was swept off her feet, falling in love with this strange, frenetic place filled with every sort of person imaginable. She earned her beautician’s license and went promptly to work, delighting in her newfound freedom. Later in life, she would eventually marry and have children, however, she never considered returning to Ireland. She never even went back for a visit. She fully embraced her new country in every way and made it her own.
Josephine is my Chinese grandmother. Unlike Kathleen, she was born into an enormously wealthy and privileged family in the cosmopolitan, pre-Communist city of Shanghai. Excelling in academics, Josephine got into Columbia University and, with her new husband, set off to the United States, in luxury accommodations, for what she thought would be a fun, temporary stay. She planned to get her diploma and go back home, like many an American student today who does study abroad. However, the Communist Revolution happened and Josephine’s wealthy, intellectual family was targeted. Her father got a warning out to her not to come back, to do whatever she had to do, for China was no longer safe. Josephine later described this part of her life as the “opposite of a fairy tale.” She and her husband found themselves stranded in a foreign country with no family and their money quickly ran out. They found jobs, citizenship and managed to stay. Like Kathleen, Josephine would never see her parents again. She would never see Shanghai or China again. When asked many years later why she didn’t want to go back, even for a brief visit, she said that China was no longer the country she was born in, no longer the country she grew up in. The Communists had destroyed and distorted it and her birthplace no longer existed in any other than the physical sense.
I was born in New York City, a city I love. A diverse, loud, cosmopolitan city where we are all shouting to be heard, where everyone has a dream and everyone is working to try to make it happen. A city full of belief and hope. A city that draws the best and brightest from all corners of the world to come together and work, create and play. A city, I think, that is a force unto itself that will survive, in some sense, long after its people may be gone.
Unlike Kathleen, although I love to travel, I never felt the need to escape for a new home. I liked the home I had. However, like Josephine, I am now experiencing a distortion of my home from within, an increasing unfamiliarity. With the rise of MAGA and the current federal powers that celebrate cruelty, banality, simple-mindedness, and xenophobia and curtail education, free speech and the press, I see the country I knew slipping away, eroding more and more each day as the corruption spreads like a poison. Yes, some people are resisting. Yes, some people are fighting through the courts in an attempt to save democracy. However, many of us see the writing on the wall and have begun looking for the escape hatch, the Plan B. And here my Irish grandmother has given me a gift: EU citizenship through Ireland. I can escape. I love Ireland but the prospect of losing my birth country fully, not in the physical sense, but in every other way, is heartbreaking. Pandora’s Box still retains Hope and so I hope. I hope maybe we can do what Turkey did; maybe the millions of Americans who voted for a despot, a government that eschews basic decency, will suddenly see the light. However, as one term turns into two, as the global order destabilizes and as the country isolates and creates wars, death and destruction, all for no particularly good reason, hope becomes dimmer and dimmer.
So I thank my Chinese grandmother for the lesson in courage, in case I have to walk in her footsteps. And I thank my Irish grandmother for the rescue she didn’t know then that she was giving me.
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