Uprooted: The Immigrant Experience

Last updated on: March 25, 2016 at 5:15 pm by Father Pablo Migone

Uprooted: The Immigrant Experience 2016-03-25T17:15:58-05:00 Father Pablo Migone

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I am convinced that if possible, every person prefers to remain in the country where he or she was born. There are only a few things more disruptive in a person’s life than being uprooted from everything that is familiar and attempting to replant those roots elsewhere.

I will never forget the day in 1991 when my mother told my sister and me that we would leave our homeland, Peru. Bombs blasted daily in Lima, kidnappings, blackouts, murders and rampant inflation had become commonplace, yet these were not enough for my family to leave the country where we were born. The day came when the threat became personal and my father had two choices: remain in the country and be murdered by terrorists, or leave quickly and quietly. He chose the second.

We left with one suitcase each and arrived to Augusta, Georgia. For several days we stayed with a relative until my parents found an apartment. It was painful to be uprooted. It was (and continues to be) disheartening that my own country was unable to protect me from harm.

This moment marked my life because it made me an immigrant for the rest of my life. Though never officially a refugee since my parents worked with a lawyer to go down a different avenue in the immigration system, I relate to the millions of refugees today who flee their countries disheartened that they are unable to remain in the place they call home.

Immigrants find themselves in unfamiliar pastures, most of the time due to circumstances beyond their control. Lack of opportunity, hunger, unemployment, war, persecution, oppression, intimidation, and so many other situations convince thousands of men and women every day that it is necessary to leave behind the culture that roots them as human beings, to leave behind the language they learned from their parents, and the family and societal structures they find familiar and comforting.

Being an immigrant is living an uprooted, displaced existence. It is living with a blurry identity of who you are and where you belong. The immigrant belongs to both worlds, yet at the same time belongs to neither.

For myself, growing up in Augusta, at school I was “the Peruvian kid” who spoke English a little funny and whenever I visited Peru I was the “gringo cousin” who, as time went by, spoke Spanish a little funny. This is the experience of belonging to neither and belonging to both.

The words of an elderly Mexican parishioner a few years ago have plastered themselves into my memory: “Father, I know they don’t want me here in the United States, but if I return to Mexico my husband will be killed. When, Father, will I find a place where they want me?” Unfortunately, this too is the experience of belonging to neither and belonging to both.

When a plant is uprooted, soon the plant withers and dies. If an immigrant remains with the sense of being uprooted, he or she will also wither and die. Where does an immigrant find the best soil for his roots to grow?

In Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ the Good Shepherd who not only finds and roots the immigrant who wanders like a lost sheep, but finds and roots every single human being.

My own struggle to understand my identity as a teenager and young adult was resolved when I found my identity in Jesus Christ. My country of birth is certainly Peru, that’s what my birth certificate states. I was born there and without a doubt my roots are there. This country, the United States, has helped me to develop as a person, to grow, to study, to work and to be here today as a priest. On top of this, I am an Italian citizen with a European Union passport. I may have two passports and a greencard, yet no country roots me as person. It is Jesus Christ and his Church that root me as a person; as a child of God. Only there are my roots firm and my identity clear.

I take the words of Saint Paul quite literally when he writes, “we are citizens of heaven.” The immigrant, rising from feeling uprooted, lost and displaced, finds his identity in Christ.

Currently Jordan is struggling to provide basic services to one million refugees of which about 90% are Syrian. Both Turkey and Lebanon have welcomed almost two million refugees each, the vast majority of them Syrian. We have all watched on television the struggle of many crossing through Eastern Europe attempting to reach greener pastures. Some unfortunately died on the way.

During his visit to the United States, Pope Francis implored Congress to help refugees rather than to view them as a problem. He said, “Our world is facing a refugee crisis of a magnitude not seen since the Second World War. This presents us with great challenges and many hard decisions. … We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation. To respond in a way which is always humane, just and fraternal. We need to avoid a common temptation nowadays: to discard whatever proves troublesome. Let us remember the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

The Catholic Church will continue to work with refugees, immigrants, and displaced persons, as she responds to the challenge of the Gospel. She recognizes that many are fleeing brutal violence, especially those coming from Syria. The federal government must continue to practice thorough and detailed screening of these refugees as well as every immigrant who enters the United States. We cannot close the doors out of fear.

In our Church we provide rich soil and green pastures for immigrants to replant their roots. Regardless of religion, Catholic Charities has and continues to assist men and women in distress in the name of Jesus Christ. “For I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.” As the Church, we simply do what we have been asked to do, and I am personally grateful for it.

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