Migrant Children/Children of Migrants

I remember when I was on maternity leave some eleven years ago and living in Oakland, California. I would take my new baby and her older sister to the park almost every day, and sit on the edge of the sandbox while my toddler ran around and the baby played with the sand. I always found myself observing the half dozen or so Central American women that also came to the park each day along with the little American children whom they cared for so lovingly.I was keenly aware that these women had left behind their own children so that they could set off to the north in search of a better life because if they were better off, so would be their children. I had no doubt that these committed mothers sent home more than half of their modest wages to provide for their children’s food, clothing and education. It broke my heart that they likely had not seen their own offspring in years, and yet cared for the children of strangers as though they were their own without a hint of resentment.

I also recall a few years ago when I represented a live-in nanny from the Philippines. She’d been with the same affluent family for a decade and cared very deeply for her young charges. She meant so much to the American family by whom she was employed that the couple was absolutely committed to finding a way to keep their nanny in the U.S. in spite of the deportation charges she faced. However, the woman had also left behind her own children. She showed me a box full of letters and photos that her kids had sent her over the many years since she’d come to the United States seeking better opportunities. The progression of photos indicated that the children had grown from toddlerhood to adolescence since she’d left her native country. She had her son’s graduation picture from secondary school, and letters in which he thanked her for making his education possible with her remittances from the U.S. Her younger daughter wrote of her achievements as well, and in the photos she showed off the lovely clothes her mother’s income had made it possible for her to wear. But both children longed desperately to see and hold their mother again, and hoped that day would come soon.

I then think of a wonderful film I saw some years ago about an Ethiopian mother, a Christian woman, living in a refugee camp, who turned over her ten year old son to the care of an Ethiopian Jewish mother whose own son of the same age had just died. The Christian mother gave up her boy knowing that if he were Jewish, he would be resettled in Israel with his adoptive mother, and this would guarantee his well-being. So the mothers exchanged their son’s identities and a Christian boy was buried on the day a Jewish boy left the miserable camp for a new life in Israel. The good-bye between the Christian mother and her son was a heartbreaking scene matched only by the deeply moving moment at the end of the film when the adult son, who became a doctor, returns to the refugee camp and immediately recognizes his elderly mother.

It simply amazes me the sacrifices mothers all over the world make so that their children may live a better life than they, even if this means they must leave a beloved child behind. The mothers in Haiti who, after the recent earthquake, were willing to hand over their children to the American missionaries who promised them good lives is yet another example of this selfless act.

Now, I’ve run across an article in the Los Angeles Times about a Mexican mother who sent her four year old girl to the U.S. with a smuggler in the hope that the family would be reunited. The girl’s mother and father had lived in the U.S., having left behind their kids two years earlier, but understandably, this mother missed her children too much and went back to Mexico to retrieve them. She then paid a smuggler $4500 to take her children north. Unfortunately, the greedy smuggler demanded more money and kept the young daughter as ransom for an additional $7,000. He even abused the child. It is every mother’s worst nightmare, though fortunately in this case, the mother wisely contacted the authorities (obviously risking her own deportation) and the girl was located and reunited with her parents.

There is a movie, Which Way Home, I have not yet seen (though I did hear an interview with its director about the difficult circumstances of interviewing and filming an obviously needy child while maintaining an ethical distance from the subject of one’s film). The film addresses the migration of unaccompanied children across the Mexican border, and it was nominated for an Academy Award. According to a press release, “…each year about 8,000 children are apprehended trying to enter the U.S. without their parents, frequently led by smugglers. The trip is long and physically dangerous. Many children do not survive. Those who do are often exploited by police, smugglers, and other adults, … yet these children risk their lives to come to the U.S. in the hopes of finding new parents, their own parents, or a life on their own. They flee abuse, persecution, severe violence, human trafficking, hunger, homelessness and poverty. Frequently both their governments and families have failed to protect and care for these children in their home countries.”

I can’t help but wonder how many tears I’ll shed watching this one.