The roots:
It celebrates two places, the home and the new home. If you predominantly
identify yourself as an emigrant then you’ve not let go of your homeland.
The term emigrant
implies that you close your eyes and feel the spirit of your native place.
The trunk:
Immigrant, on the other hand, empowers the new home. While some practices are obviously
primarily class-related, the phenomenon of an immigrant as more of a stranger
in the land they entered and are in (“im”) than the one they exited (“em”), and
more likely to be standing in line at a Western Union, sending money home to a
family in need, seems true to me.
Emigration is a
deep well that we’re sinking our rope-line bucket into, replete with treasures
of memory. It
Immigration, an
economic particle, what is subject to legislative policy.
What is the difference between science and art.
The crown: As an emigrant myself, I’m thinking of sitting down with my
father, who has never left home.
What are the
stories he would tell me, the reporter-writer returning home, what would
culminate in being there with him, composing a Sebald-like Ambros
Adelwarth-like story?
What he sees and
feels about his life as he’s lived it, let the story unfold slowly and without
judgment.
Next: Running for Your Life: Paper Mate
