The illustrations presented in Shaun Tan’s The Arrival may create confusion, but isn’t this exactly how the immigrants felt as they came to the strange new world for the first time? We invariably hear stories of people who migrated to America in History channel documentaries such as Pane Amaro and from our grandparents, but it’s almost impossible to actually know what it was like. Many of my friends have experience difficulty dorming in college and fending for themselves, but imagine moving to a new country where the language is foreign, the area is unfamiliar, and you have to fight your way from the ground up to survive. I felt like that’s what the images in The Arrival are trying to portray. The recurring image of the man in every other image signifies distress, confusion, and a perpetual state of angst.

We see images of children crying, people waiting in long lines for trains, husbands and wives parting, ships sailing, clouds of pollution emanating from smokestacks, clusters of people on ships – looking weak, tired, fatigued, miserable. I feel like Tan uses pictures to delineate the difficulty of immigration because a picture can say more than a thousand words ever could. We see intermittent images of the “new world,” a world of industry, pollution, and ceaseless competition.

More importantly, we are constantly reminded of the loss of contact between the immigrants and their families back in their respective countries. We see pictures of men writing and mailing letters, placing stamps on the letters, and sending them out. In the documentary, Pane Amaro, Italian immigration is illustrated as abject and morose – yet it was necessary for people to make money and survive. The Arrival is a poignant graphic novel that manages to express more than words ever could. The weird creature on the cover underscores the unfamiliarity thrown in the face of every immigrant and how they had to cope with each new facet of society standing in their path to success.