Emigrant Exodus
The United States is a diverse land settled by millions of immigrants and their descendants. These immigrants from across the globe lived in lands as immensely exotic as China, as breathtakingly beautiful as the “Emerald Isle” of Ireland, and as lushly forested as the jungles of Vietnam. Despite the seeming wonders and beauty each land has to offer, vast numbers of people have chosen to leave. Why would so many abandon their homes in favor of foreign soil thousands of miles away? Many immigrants have willingly endured danger and hardship in order to leave impoverished homelands that denied them the basic rights of human survival.
Throughout history, people have been forced to flee their homelands in a desperate attempt to secure food, safe shelter, and health care. Conditions of hunger and illness were often tied to the ravages of war and famine. The suffering of those afflicted created a desperation sufficient enough to drive people from their homes and send them fleeing for respite in more hospitable countries. In the mid-1800s, John Henry and Ailene Gibson watched as a five-year famine swept Ireland away in a torrent of starvation, poverty, and disease. The suffering Irish found little sympathy in their then-British leaders. Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel “realised that the existing poor law system could not meet the impending disaster” (Edwards 212). Thus, where quick and decisive relief from the government should have been expected, England’s response was instead slow, disorganized, and ineffective. Before the famine was through, hundreds of thousands perished. The Gibsons, along with nearly a million other Irish, sought an answer to the crisis along the shores of the land that had followed the ideals of Rousseau nearly a century earlier by, as he said, “return[ing] to a condition of equal independence” (55). America’s early colonists, having faced perils of their own under British rule, shrugged off the yoke English yoke and now represented a land of human rights and of opportunity. Selling what little possessions they had, the Gibsons took to the sea in order to provide their one-year-old twins with their best chance for survival: the United States.
The Irish were not alone in finding themselves without basic tools for human survival. Treacherous times have befallen many lands throughout history, all with the same result: masses of desperate and impoverished people needing a new place to call home. As famine swept through Ireland, China and England were embroiled in the midst of the Opium Wars. Called “perhaps the most sordid, base, and vicious event of European History”, the Chinese were defeated and their lands heavily plundered by the English (Hooker). Left impoverished, throngs of Chinese fled in order to find territories not subject to the scourge of their war. For many, the Jeffersonian ideals promoted by the United States of a land where “all men are created equal”, promised a new start (par. 2). These ideals made America a more popular haven of escape than any other. Thus, during the 1800’s, tens of thousands of desperate Chinese descended upon American shores.
The need to flee dying and devastated homelands has, tragically, continued into modern times. All the technology and education available to modern society has yet to halt the progression of acts of war, nor its effects on those caught in its grip. In 1975, the defeat of Saigon to Northern Vietnam had a devastating impact on its people. Forced out of their homes, thousands of Vietnamese were sent into the jungles to live without shelter or resources. One villager reported: “There was no organization, […] housing, no utilities, no doctor, […] little food” (Tam 87). With a ruling body that forced them into destitution, and no other recourse, America had withdrawn from their war and would not return there, so thousands of Vietnamese fled to them. This wave of immigration, involving daring and often deadly journeys across the ocean in small, rickety boats, sparked a huge public debate that earned the war-weary immigrants the title of “Boat People”.
Fleeing immigrants often found little ease from their suffering during their pilgrimages. Those who were driven from their homes were met with travel conditions that were little better than the homes from which they came. According to R. Dudley Edwards, “it was […] the utmost misery for steerage passengers” (363). Shipboard conditions were unsanitary at best, and inhumane at worst. Connie Young Yu told of her great grandmother’s journey from China: “Seasick for weeks, rolling back and forth […] Chin Shee lost most of her hair” (107). This was among the lesser of the problems faced by those braving the journey. Poor rations and overcrowded conditions contributed to hunger and the spread of disease that seemed little contrast to the pestilence the emigrants had left behind. Tam describes her experience: “Everyone was very sick, […] my mother and my little boy […] were in agony, about to die” (88). Many became destined never to reach America’s shores as starvation and illness overtook them during the trip. The Gibsons learned firsthand just how high a price these voyages could exact: both of their twins tragically succumbed to infant botulism after ingesting improperly canned milk provided on their ship. These unimaginable horrors were braved by hoards of people like Chin Shee, Tam, and the Gibsons out of a fierce determination to secure greater resources and opportunities than were possible in their native lands.
Were immigrants like Tam and the Gibsons successful in obtaining a higher quality of living in the United States? It is arguably so. Jean-Jacques Rousseau recognized that the first rule of liberty is that of “self preservation” (55). America provided an opportunity to build upon this foundation by dusting off the human rights that had been buried in the rubble of the immigrant’s homelands. Tam concedes: “It was like waking up after a bad nightmare. Like coming out of hell into paradise…” (90). In this American “paradise”, Tam and others were able to enjoy the simple right to survival denied them elsewhere. With this established, these individuals were free to enjoy the ideals of “life, libery, and the pursuit of happiness” as promised by Thomas Jefferson (76). In the case of my own family, the Gibson’s American-born son was able to become a firefighter. This represented an opportunity far above the unskilled labor duties normally relegated to the Irish. His descendants have, to this day, never had to experience the life of hardship and abject poverty suffered by their ancestors.
Surviving the journey to the United States was not an idyllic end to the immigrants’ search for survival. Americans, apparently choosing to ignore their own non-resident roots, often greeted newcomers with suspicion, blame, and hatred. Chinese were declared “debauched [with] no decent women among them” (Yu 105). The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1882, effectively closing America’s borders to Chinese immigration for over sixty years. The Irish fared little better; they were met in New York with signs in employment office windows warning “Irish Need Not Apply” (New York 108). Decreed drunken, violent, and uneducated, the Irish faced struggles in obtaining job opportunities and housing alike. This type of Stereotyping and scapegoating made blending into the cultural fabric of the United States a difficult challenge. Thus, Jefferson’s promise seemed on shaky ground. Immigrants were believed by many Americans to be dirty, disease-ridden, and the cause of the country’s problems. With few of the resources and sympathy immigrants might have hoped for, the United States presented a far less idyllic picture than the words of Jefferson had painted.
Whether or not the American melting pot has proven less than gracious hosts in accommodating the vast array of people seeking human rights and better opportunities, people still immigrate by the droves. Despite discrimination, limited opportunities, and shelter that may be decidedly less luxurious than the American dream suggests, immigration constitutes a vast improvement over the impoverished and oppressive conditions from whence many have come. While some of the dreams of Rousseau and Jefferson have fallen short of the mark, worthwhile goals have nevertheless been achieved. In America, lands of bitter oppression are replaced by a land of hope. In America, wild jungles and rampant disease are replaced by concrete jungles and advanced health care. America engenders a governmental entity that, by and large, will not turn a deaf ear to the violation of human rights. Thus, the “pursuit of happiness” promised by Jefferson, and the freedom to pursue such ideals as envisioned by Rousseau, are entrenched deeply enough in the United States to be attainable. In the end, these goals were worth the struggle the immigrants have had to endure. My ancestors, like their American founding fathers before them, thought so.
Works Cited
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