My Immigrant Story

in brief

Of course, this memory is triggered by the current turmoil surrounding this country’s immigration policies; but it was also brought to mind because of my bedtime reading (from which I will quote at the end of my discourse).

So. Mummy and Susie and I arrived in February 1958 having sailed on the Cunard vessel Corinthia (I think that was the one—we had previously gone to Canada and back via Cunard so I may have my ships mixed up). Anyway, Daddy met us at the dock and drove us to the lovely house he had rented on Maple Avenue in Red Bank, New Jersey. I was thrilled to settle down for once in our lives, having attended many different schools since starting my education at four years old in the Isle of Man. While Daddy had been in the RAF during the war, he was not a military man who was moved by the service—he was just a restless ambitious soul, I guess. Mummy finally put her foot down in Red Bank so that my sister and I were able to attend and graduate from what was then just Red Bank High School within walking distance. But I digress. The first memory I have of Maple Avenue was going out to play and meeting a boy who, upon hearing my “accent”, commented on how grateful I must be to now live in America. That has stuck with me all these years because, quite frankly, I had been really enjoying my life elsewhere too. [N.B. the English countryside is so beautiful in my opinion because we kept all the power lines underground.]

And now to The Last Dance, one of Ed McBain’s 87th precinct stories. The author, by the way, was born Salvatore Lombino, and used a number of different names to complete his prolific output of fabulous literature. I leave it to you to research his story if you like. But now I am going to quote verbatim the passage in the book I was reading last night. It concerns a fictional young woman who has arrived in the setting that we all know is fashioned on New York City, although the author creates a fictional set of names for the various parts of the actual place. This book is not the last of the series, but it is the 50th in this set and I have the hard copy edition from Simon & Schuster, copyright 2000. The quote is from page 185 and concerns a fictional young woman arriving in 1928 and a song being sung about this event:

Flynn sang of a young girl’s yearnings and awakenings in a wondrous island bordered by confluent rivers and spanned by magical bridges. He sang of golden towers rising into the clouds, interlaced with immaculate streets, humming belowground with subways not yet sullied by time or wear. He sang of promises and hope for a population of immigrants that had brought with them customs to treasure and to nourish. As he sang, his voice became a choir of voices, the voices of a hundred tribes with as many different backgrounds, joining together in this shining new land, to become at last a single strong united tribe.

RESIST ALWAYS

TTFN