leaving America was not a simple decision, and the actual process and logistics were even more complicated. while the decision wasn’t simple, it was immovable. i had made that choice many times before. back in school one of my classes took a trip to Dallas to visit the Holocaust Museum. The only thing I remember about that trip is meeting a survivor. What happened that day set in my mind quite firmly what path I would take, although unknowingly. The pathway began to lay itself down as she told her story; what she experienced, what she witnessed, what she lost, who she lost. Horrific things I can’t repeat. Another thing I remember were the other kids. Most were somber and listened intently. Some shrank inside themselves. There was boredom and indifference. But there were also a few who processed the horror and turned it into a joke. Laughing, yelling inappropriate things. Their behavior was tolerated by all, although the ones employed to take responsibility for them should have handed down some reprimand and punishment. at least an admonishment. so it is not surprising who those youngsters grew up to be. But I listened closely, and my very visual brain captured moments of her story that would never dim. Like a few others, I laid my head down on the table in front of me and cried quietly. the only other time I saw this kind of raw emotion is when my class read Where the Red Ferm Grows together. Some were so affected they opted out of watching the movie after. Back at the museum, when the woman finished sharing I walked to the front of the room and we held our arms out to embrace. we melted into each other. she had accomplished her goal, to make sure her story lived on in order to create a change in someone else that could perhaps prevent these atrocities from happening again. or to set a stone in our minds that clearly marked a decision made. what would I have done if I had been there? what would I do if I saw society decline in such a way again? actually, I never thought that was possible. it was.
at first leaving was about finding a place I could afford a house and land, with a safe environment where my children wouldn’t have to engage in violent rituals of rehearsing for being gunned down by a mass murderer during math class. simple. plans were made, budget set, research commenced, timeline set. but then, there were signs of something else. the signs were small and creeping along, setting off my pattern recognition radar, giving me a deep sense of unease. I knew something bad was going to happen. it all added up and pointed in a certain direction, of a place I’d seen before in photographs, in movies, in memories of others who’d set them in my mind. there were the signs, rumors, undercover journalists who crossed the pond to do what we were too cowardly to. some of us listened. when I knew for sure the path of my homeland and the path of my convictions were diverging, the departure materialized in the distance, just close enough to know it existed. I stood in the doorway where my children were sat, just minding their business that day. It was two of them old enough to understand. I explained in almost list form what was coming on the horizon. They’d seen some things themselves, so it wasn’t a total surprise. I said atrocities were planned, and there wasn’t any way I could stop them. Fighting was possible, but I wouldn’t sacrifice my children. we’d already stopped protesting a couple years before when a fellow protester was shot just down the street from us, and many threats of violence. I’d dealt with the same powers at play my entire life. I knew what fighting them did to women and children. There would have to be another way, something I would grapple with for years. We just had to leave though.
when the time finally came, the government shut down. airport workers weren’t being paid. flights were being cancelled. plans to shut airports down were in place. things were tricky overseas as well. at one point I changed direction and decided to spend the winter in Mexico and warm months in Canada. trying to figure out what do was so impossible. I fed myself a constant stream of reports of escalating violence, disappearances, loss of rights, dehumanizations, owners barricading their businesses against the thugs coming for their customers and staff, data on climate change, trying my best to stay ahead of it.
I was scared we would get stuck inside if the airports shut down. what if political manipulation would lead to martial law? we’d been through a test run back in the early ’20s when the National Guard were deployed to the protest zones, when curfews were set and men in uniforms delivered food to our doorsteps. my region was being heavily militarized with fighter jets and tanks transported in by droves. deep in the night the sky would rumble for long stretches, and many days the ground shook as the tanks were carried in by rail.
it was time to do what I could to help my community in the ways I could, and won’t comment on further. it was time to make the trek out. my strategy was to buy separate tickets so if the airport was shut down, I’d have time to drive across the border to catch my flight a day or so later. I chose an airport that was further and more difficult to get to, but wasn’t on the list of imminent closures. I booked a hotel in Canada in case we were able to fly in, then catch our next flight to Europe. Learning to book tickets separately would come in handy later, in a much scarier situation. Thankfully our flight to Canada went very smoothly. The irony of my nickname- Jun, and the plight of the character June who was famously caught at the Canadian border did not escape me. I was totally unnerved by it. But my experience of the Canadian border was a liberation. We walked through customs beaten down by the division of our people, and were met with the loveliness we all know Canadians to exude. My anxieties turned into relief. I could have almost kissed the ground. Instead; we stayed a night in the cutest inn decorated for Christmas, ate pizza in bed and soaked in the bath. I still remember the staff and other travelers there. It was a diverse group, and all so nice. We bonded over our eclectic cultures even though we were from vastly different places. That kind of bonding over the shared diversity of the Americas was cut off at the knees in the US. There was so much fear and poison between us, it wasn’t even possible to have a conversation without determining which ‘side’ each other was on.
The colors that once made the US dazzle brightly had turned to black and white. It’s no way to live. Let the ones who made it that way live in it. The everyday person deserves to live in the fullness of who they are, wholly, and peacefully. Well, we finally made it there. Mission accomplished. Now, a new life began. My ancestors were mostly immigrants. They’d crossed by boats to a new continent with much different motivations, with dreams intact. Now I’m immigrating my family back out. But could our dreams survive? Would the loss of everything we left behind break us? I didn’t feel like an immigrant. I felt like a refugee. But without the status, without the benefits. I was looked on as a pampered American. A powerful passport. My blue eyes and ginger coloring continued to give off privilege. My situation did not match this assumption. My homeland was still seen as a haven, a land of opportunity, a place of ultimate freedom and liberty. It was like walking around with a meat cleaver in my chest, bleeding out, actively dying miserably, but totally invisibly to anyone else. no one has ever heard of an American refugee. but we did it. we got out. no one caught me by the ankle. no one ripped my child from my arms. not this time. now we have to figure out how to live, how to keep the fight going, and how to learn to live without constant fear for our safety, how to see other humans with eyes clear of suspicion or motives. How to live without the relentless push of the grind?
