Risky at Best

Occasionally I get asked why I moved from Jamaica to the United States. My response: “My parents moved to the US and brought us with them. We were not given a choice.” I was 14 years old when I got on a plane and moved to Brooklyn, New York from Kingston. I can only speculate on my parents’ “why”. Economics. Politics. Political violence. Opportunity. Perhaps any or all of that motivated my parents in their decision to sell what they could, pack up and move to a country they knew nothing about. As children, both had moved from the rural areas of Jamaica into Kingston where they met and later married. Having survived a major internal move, maybe the risk and uncertainty of a move outside the country was not as daunting.

I was in Fiji this past week as a part of the Pacific Basin Initiative. Our visits with partners included travel to the village of Togoru. The residents of Toguru and other Fijiians are faced with the devastating effects of climate change. They are losing 1-1.5 meters of land from the coastline. The 10 acres of ancestral land they live on have been reduced to 4 acres with 6 acres now under the sea. The freshwater stream that ran through the community is now overtaken with salt water. Some of the community have already left, seeking other places to live as this land continues to be overtaken by the sea. The family cemetery which includes 15 graves is under the sea waters, identifiable only by the top of a grave marker in the distance.

The Fiji government wants to relocate the family inland. They want to stay on the coast, hopeful that something will change. This is their home. Yet, the circumstances of erosion and the disappearing land is pushing them to find another place to live. They are one of many communities identified for relocation, most of them indigenous people. Communities range between 150 to 200 persons. 65 communities have been identified for relocation in Fiji. Fiji’s coastline is being lost to rising sea levels, one of many island nations suffering the effects of climate change and the need to move people.

In the US, the immigration debate escalated – again – this time fueled by Executive Orders signed by the President of the United States. Individuals and families are being rounded up in mass deportation actions, some being sent to countries from which they did not originate. As the deportations persist, there is very little conversation about the push and pull of immigration or why people would risk moving to another country. Instead, the focus is on the other, a xenophobic response in the midst of rising Christian nationalism.

Our world is changing daily. The climate crisis is one of many reasons people are looking for places to live. War, civil unrest, food insecurity, drought, economic distress, land theft by multinational corporations, unemployment and underemployment are push factors for many. People want to live. They want their families to flourish. They hold hope for their children to achieve what they could not. The pull of developed countries is compelling. Europe and North America flourished as a result of forced labor and cheap labor. Yet, these lands are seen as providing the opportunities for work and income to send back to members of the family left behind.

Relocating people is no easy task and yet, the forced and voluntary movement of people is itself at crisis with over 100 million people on the move around the world. No one country can take all those who are displaced. All will have to play a part in housing the global homeless as the maps of the world are being redrawn and people are being pushed out of the places where they used to live. The risk of relocation is high, whatever the circumstances or the need.

I continue to hold hope for the millions of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers looking for homes, risking all they have to leave the certainty of the homes they have known for places unknown, places at times unaccepting and devaluing of who they are. Our immigration and refugee policies will need to be relevant in addressing the causes of displacement and the ways the actions and needs of the global north continue to plague the global south.