I was speaking to a friend today, who had moved to California, in search of employment after graduating from WSU. After enduring months of fruitless search, working retail and putting up with unsavory living conditions, her OPT ran out. Undaunted, she enrolled in a community college, studying biology to become a nurse-the "happening" career these days. As we spoke, she told me that she didn't think she could take it anymore- the struggle to make a satisfying income , and was contemplating moving to Singapore.What was she searching for? A better life. Our conversation took me down memory lane- I dont know what it was that triggered my memory-immigrant?nurse?woman?struggle?education?standard of living?, but all these words in my mind are associated with one and only one person-my mother.
I remember reading some old letters that my mother sent me from Saudi Arabia, as she prepared me to go to Malaysia. Sitting in the quiet lull of my meditation room, sunlight illuminating the sack of colored paper she wrote on, I shuddered in nostalgia, as a unfolded the dusty papers. She had subscribed to Newsweek magazine and National Geographic, so I and my sisters could realize and learn that there was much more to the world than the little we glimpsed to cable TV in between intermittent electricity,or the chaotic market town of Aba where we lived-the skys, as I remember always dotted with vultures,the streets occasionally,with corpses. She urged me to read them and learn as much as I could about the world. We devoured them. National Geographic took me on journeys so far and amazing,that I would read the same articles over and over again, falling into the pictures , dreaming of strange fauna in the Amazon and idolizing contributing journalists who lived in icy caves high atop the Himalayas meditating with their gurus.
I remember even further back- walking to expatriate Indians homes to study French with their children, who had milk and cookies for tea without offering me any,who bathe in white bread and fresh milk and eventually stopped me from coming over because we lived down the street and they lived up the street,and bread and milk were precious commodities to me.French tutors,Math Tutors, subscriptions to foreign magazines, fighting with my father to pay expensive cable bills so we could watch CNN,International Schools,country hospitals in the UK, military hospitals high up in the mountains of Saudi Arabia,city hospitals in the US-the things my mother did to ensure we had knowledge,our power,our better life.
Most of what I am today is thanks to the efforts of my mother.The common theme through this memory is the immigrant journey. It left its indelible marks on my mother through her parents as my grandfather left his native Sri Lanka to seek a better life and raise eight children in Malaysia as an immigrant.It affected my father as he left his African homeland and journeyed through Europe seeking a better life for himself and his family.It has in turn touched me and shown me life on three continents. Where does it end?When do we stop searching? Can we stop searching, stop looking for the better life?