After reading two books about the hardships that immigrants face when they move to America, I would think it wouldn’t horrify me as much anymore. However, that isn’t true. Much like the stories from the Guadalupe book, the Fuzhounese immigrants had an immensely difficult journey to get here, and an even tougher battle to repay everything they had borrowed to pay their way to be here. Being beaten by snakeheads, not having enough food to eat, not knowing if you’re going to be alive tomorrow, the constant fear of being captured, and the uncertainty of the future are all so overwhelming. I’m not a fan of undocumented immigrants, but their stories inspires sympathy among people. I cannot imagine having to work all day and night just to make enough money to survive and pay back what you’ve borrowed or sending away my child for any period of time especially when she’s only a baby. It’s completely heartbreaking to read about these people’s lives and the hardest part is that this is all real.
Another interesting thing about their stories was the difference between them and the Italian and Mexican immigrants. They came with their belief of the Virgin, but these Fuzhounese immigrants “found” God in the midst of the hardships. The church helped them to pay medical bills or allowed them to have a place to sleep at night. Those acts of kindness led them to faith in God that probably did not exist before their journey. It’s very interesting that they couldn’t turn to anyone else, not their family and obviously not strangers, but they placed their trust in God. As far as I know, China isn’t really big on Christianity, so I can’t imagine that they have had much exposure prior to their trip.
One point that stuck out to me was when Guest quotes Chen Qiang saying that living in Chinatown is like living in China. Everyone speaks Mandarin or Cantonese or whatever other dialect is spoken. I’ve always felt that I could never live like that, being in a completely new country, I’d like to take advantage of that and learn about different things. Step out of my comfort zone and just explore. I guess growing up in Hong Kong made me really different because I’ve always been in a city and never really had to work or worry about food. Everything was always taken care of for me. I took no part in the immigration process, and was pretty hesitant about moving while there were people to struggled so much just for the chance of living the “American Dream”.
