When the plane touched down in St. Paul, Minnesota, one afternoon in late December, it was my fourth visit in six years and the beginning of my third emigration. This time, my wife and children were with me.
Earlier, looking out the window, I saw a white landscape blanketed in pristine snow. The sky was blue, the sun brilliant.
I had visited Minnesota in all three other seasons, but never in winter. Minnesota’s brutally cold winters are a legend. I had been warned never to touch a lamppost with my tongue. Of course, I had no intention of doing any such thing. But jokes aside, I already liked the prospect of a sunny snowy winter – even if a bitterly cold one – to the cloudy, gloomy winters of the part of Germany where we used to live, even if they were milder.
I had been living in Germany for almost two decades already. Not too long ago, I had started my professional career at a multinational corporation with a unique, can-do culture. It felt like having a dream career opportunity in front of me. I have written about this in a previous post A Gem in a Box of Chocolates (Part 1 of 4).
A few days before our departure, Herbert and Sigrid, our friends in the neighboring city of Cologne, had invited us for dinner. They wanted to bid us farewell. One of their friends happened to stop by. When he heard about our upcoming trip, he wished us well on our journey to the “land of unlimited opportunities.”
But he misspoke. Instead of saying das Land der unbegrenzten Möglichkeiten, he said das Land der ungeahnten Möglichkeiten - the land of unimagined opportunities.
He quickly corrected himself. But I still remember the slip, perhaps because he had no idea how prescient his parting wish would prove to be.
That was 35 years ago. The world was largely at peace; Germany rock solid in its industrial-economic foundation, and its society enviably tranquil and economically equitable. And America, as ever, was a land of dreams and contradictions.
“America doesn’t exist. I know this because I have been there” - wrote a German journalist in his memoir. And he felt homesick after returning to Germany. All other superfluous details have vanished from my memory – including the name of the author.
Yes, America, that strange union of promise and illusion.
I am recalling 35-years old memories. I do this not merely to tell my story. But as a preamble to what bubbled up in my mind after recently reading The Emigrants by Vilhelm Moberg. It is an epic immigrant saga about Swedish families who, in the 19th century, came to Minnesota.
I have no connection with Sweden and have never been to that country. And yet, the book and its characters struck a chord with me. Why?
In the first paragraph I talked about the “beginning of my third emigration”; not “my third emigration”. You don’t call a seed a sapling. A seed sprouts and grows into a sapling only when placed in soil where it can germinate. That seed found fertile ground in Minnesota – and that in many ways.
I often say jokingly - and yet seriously - that I didn’t emigrate to the United States. I emigrated to Minnesota.
There was an understandable professional advantage. The headquarters of the large multi-national corporation I worked for is in Minnesota. But that was just one of many reasons.
We liked Minnesota in too many ways to count - the vast, pristine nature just beyond the metropolitan areas, its well-functioning infrastructure, and an easygoing way of life, to name a few. We also came to love the distinct rhythm of the seasons. I personally even liked the frigid winters, which brought out a certain natural vigor and a cold, bold beauty.
And behind all this was a subtle yet pervasive Nordic-German European culture. A culture that seemed perfectly at home in Minnesota and which we found deeply appealing. Is that because by that time I had already lived for almost two decades in Germany?
Perhaps that’s why Moberg’s book struck such a familiar chord. My finding Minnesota so likeable has something to do also with these immigrants from Sweden long ago.
There is, of course, another obvious reason: I, too, am an immigrant.
But before we set out, let’s pause and have a look at the landscape. Migration is a politically charged terrain, and taking that trail might leave us exhausted and contentious.
It is also an area on which bushels of Ph.D. theses can be – and have been – written across disciplines like economics, geopolitics, history, cultural studies, ethnography, sociology, and what not. That’s not where we are going either. We don’t want to lose ourselves in many directions.
Instead, let’s take a less trodden path – a somewhat personal one, if you will - and mull over a few thoughts that surfaced as I read the book. It is a quieter path, less contentious perhaps, and one that may even leave us a bit contemplative.
Most emigrants on board the brig Charlotta in Moberg’s book were leaving Sweden to flee poverty. These were the boat people of the 19th century, crossing the Atlantic in search of a promised land. Call them economic migrants, if you will.
But there were other people too, leaving for other reasons. Some to escape religious persecution, some to cast off social stigma, and others to reunite with family, etc. Is that much different today?
Of course, humans are rarely driven by a single motive. Each emigrant carries a “bundle” of reasons with him. And that bundle is different for each person. No two bundles are arranged the same way.
Hidden in every bundle is a “blind passenger”. It can be the fear of the unknown, as much as deep attachments to home.
Kristina feared the Atlantic crossing itself and the unknown future in an unknown continent. She also felt attachment to the farm she was leaving, as well as the Swedish seasons, familiar customs, etc.
Karl Oskar, as the family head had additional worries: whether he is endangering his family, whether he is abandoning his obligations at home, whether stories of fertile land in America were exaggerated, etc.
Then there is the pain of irreversible choices: home abandoned, kinship network broken, and more.
Paradoxically, the weaker, the elder, and generally the women have a heavier blind passenger to carry than the stronger, the younger, and the men.
Getting back to the reasons that push an emigrant to emigrate, each individual reason lies somewhere between two extremes: the desperate desire to flee something and the intense desire to achieve something.
Therefore, emigrants come to a country both to take and to give. Do some take more than they give? Do others give more than they take? Yes, and yes. But the bottom line of the ledger, especially in the long run, is usually positive. Look no further than this country – the country of emigrants.
Looking back at my own three emigrations, I realize how different each bundle was. The reasons were different, as was the balance between the desire to flee and the desire to accomplish. And then there was the blind passenger. It never disappears entirely, but its weight was very different each time
And then there is the title of the book: The Emigrants. It tells stories of people leaving their country – seen from their own perspective. It is not about what others are saying about them.
Unfortunately, public debates about migration – so it seems to me - are typically from the perspective of those already in. If a book about this were to be written, it might well be called The Migrants.
Both perspectives are valid, and important. But they are the two sides of the same coin. Ignore one side, and you are left with only half the picture.
Let’s stop right here. I see a signpost to a trailhead ahead with a picture of Leon Trotsky on it. He is supposed to have said, “You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you”.
I happen to agree with Trotsky. But we don’t have to go down that trail today. Then not every conversation must become a political one. That shouldn’t stop anyone from mulling over political dimensions for themselves, however.
It is probably non-controversial to say that migration has always been one of the constants of human history. One could even say that human civilization itself is, in large part, the story of population movement..
Let’s remember that it was the descendants of Lucy in Africa who, through migration, populated the rest of the earth.
Going back further, we could see Adam and Eve as the first emigrants. Expelled from paradise, they had to find a new place to live. They were the ur-emigrants. Many of their descendants are still looking for a place where life might begin again.
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