Author: Panikos Panayi
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300252145
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360
Book Description
The first history of London to show how immigrants have built, shaped and made a great success of the capital city London is now a global financial and multicultural hub in which over three hundred languages are spoken. But the history of London has always been a history of immigration. Panikos Panayi explores the rich and vibrant story of London– from its founding two millennia ago by Roman invaders, to Jewish and German immigrants in the Victorian period, to the Windrush generation invited from Caribbean countries in the twentieth century. Panayi shows how migration has been fundamental to London’s economic, social, political and cultural development.“br/> Migrant City sheds light on the various ways in which newcomers have shaped London life, acting as cheap labour, contributing to the success of its financial sector, its curry houses, and its football clubs. London’s economy has long been driven by migrants, from earlier continental financiers and more recent European Union citizens. Without immigration, fueled by globalization, Panayi argues, London would not have become the world city it is today.
Stories from a migrant city
Author: Ben Rogaly
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526131757
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
Taking a biographical approach, the book explores the causes and consequences of moving or staying put in the context of class inequality and racisms, and looks for commonalities between people often seen as irredeemably divided.
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526131757
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
Taking a biographical approach, the book explores the causes and consequences of moving or staying put in the context of class inequality and racisms, and looks for commonalities between people often seen as irredeemably divided.
Migrant City
Author: Panikos Panayi
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300252145
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360
Book Description
The first history of London to show how immigrants have built, shaped and made a great success of the capital city London is now a global financial and multicultural hub in which over three hundred languages are spoken. But the history of London has always been a history of immigration. Panikos Panayi explores the rich and vibrant story of London– from its founding two millennia ago by Roman invaders, to Jewish and German immigrants in the Victorian period, to the Windrush generation invited from Caribbean countries in the twentieth century. Panayi shows how migration has been fundamental to London’s economic, social, political and cultural development.“br/> Migrant City sheds light on the various ways in which newcomers have shaped London life, acting as cheap labour, contributing to the success of its financial sector, its curry houses, and its football clubs. London’s economy has long been driven by migrants, from earlier continental financiers and more recent European Union citizens. Without immigration, fueled by globalization, Panayi argues, London would not have become the world city it is today.
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300252145
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360
Book Description
The first history of London to show how immigrants have built, shaped and made a great success of the capital city London is now a global financial and multicultural hub in which over three hundred languages are spoken. But the history of London has always been a history of immigration. Panikos Panayi explores the rich and vibrant story of London– from its founding two millennia ago by Roman invaders, to Jewish and German immigrants in the Victorian period, to the Windrush generation invited from Caribbean countries in the twentieth century. Panayi shows how migration has been fundamental to London’s economic, social, political and cultural development.“br/> Migrant City sheds light on the various ways in which newcomers have shaped London life, acting as cheap labour, contributing to the success of its financial sector, its curry houses, and its football clubs. London’s economy has long been driven by migrants, from earlier continental financiers and more recent European Union citizens. Without immigration, fueled by globalization, Panayi argues, London would not have become the world city it is today.
Migrant City
Author: Les Back
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134709757
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 329
Book Description
Migrant City tells the story of contemporary London from the perspective of thirty adult migrants and two sociologists. Connecting migrants’ private struggles to the public issues at stake in the way mobility is regulated, channelled and managed in a globalised world, this volume explores what migration means in a world that is hyper connected – but where we see increasingly mobile, invasive and technologically sophisticated forms of border regulation and control. Migrant City is an innovative collaborative ethnography based on research with migrants from a wide variety of social backgrounds, spanning in some cases a decade. It utilises recollections, photographs, poems, paintings, journals and drawings to explore a wide range of issues. These range from the impact of immigration control and surveillance on everyday life, to the experience of waiting for the Home Office to process their claims and the limits this places on their lives, to the friendships and relationships with neighbours that help to make London a home. This title will appeal to students, scholars, community workers and general readers interested in migration, race and ethnicity, social exclusion, globalisation, urban sociology, and inventive social research methods.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134709757
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 329
Book Description
Migrant City tells the story of contemporary London from the perspective of thirty adult migrants and two sociologists. Connecting migrants’ private struggles to the public issues at stake in the way mobility is regulated, channelled and managed in a globalised world, this volume explores what migration means in a world that is hyper connected – but where we see increasingly mobile, invasive and technologically sophisticated forms of border regulation and control. Migrant City is an innovative collaborative ethnography based on research with migrants from a wide variety of social backgrounds, spanning in some cases a decade. It utilises recollections, photographs, poems, paintings, journals and drawings to explore a wide range of issues. These range from the impact of immigration control and surveillance on everyday life, to the experience of waiting for the Home Office to process their claims and the limits this places on their lives, to the friendships and relationships with neighbours that help to make London a home. This title will appeal to students, scholars, community workers and general readers interested in migration, race and ethnicity, social exclusion, globalisation, urban sociology, and inventive social research methods.
Telling Migrant Stories
Author: Esteban E. Loustaunau
Publisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 1683403231
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 278
Book Description
In the media, migrants are often portrayed as criminals; they are frequently dehumanized, marginalized, and unable to share their experiences. Telling Migrant Stories explores how contemporary documentary film gives voice to Latin American immigrants whose stories would not otherwise be heard. The essays in the first part of the volume consider the documentary as a medium for Latin American immigrants to share their thoughts and experiences on migration, border crossings, displacement, and identity. Contributors analyze films including Harvest of Empire, Sin país, The Vigil, De nadie, Operation Peter Pan: Flying Back to Cuba, Abuelos, La Churona, and Which Way Home, as well as internet documentaries distributed via platforms such as Vimeo and YouTube. They examine the ways these films highlight the individual agency of immigrants as well as the global systemic conditions that lead to mass migrations from Latin American countries to the United States and Europe. The second part of the volume features transcribed interviews with documentary filmmakers, including Luis Argueta, Jenny Alexander, Tin Dirdamal, Heidi Hassan, and María Cristina Carrillo Espinosa. They discuss the issues surrounding migration, challenges they faced in the filmmaking process, the impact their films have had, and their opinions on documentary film as a force of social change. They emphasize that because the genre is grounded in fact rather than fiction, it has the ability to profoundly impact audiences in a way narrative films cannot. Documentaries prompt viewers to recognize the many worlds migrants depart from, to become immersed in the struggles portrayed, and to consider the stories of immigrants with compassion and solidarity. Contributors: Ramón Guerra | Lizardo Herrera | Jared List | Esteban Loustaunau | Manuel F. Medina | Ada Ortúzar-Young | Thomas Piñeros Shields | Juan G. Ramos | Lauren Shaw | Zaira Zarza A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L'Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez
Publisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 1683403231
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 278
Book Description
In the media, migrants are often portrayed as criminals; they are frequently dehumanized, marginalized, and unable to share their experiences. Telling Migrant Stories explores how contemporary documentary film gives voice to Latin American immigrants whose stories would not otherwise be heard. The essays in the first part of the volume consider the documentary as a medium for Latin American immigrants to share their thoughts and experiences on migration, border crossings, displacement, and identity. Contributors analyze films including Harvest of Empire, Sin país, The Vigil, De nadie, Operation Peter Pan: Flying Back to Cuba, Abuelos, La Churona, and Which Way Home, as well as internet documentaries distributed via platforms such as Vimeo and YouTube. They examine the ways these films highlight the individual agency of immigrants as well as the global systemic conditions that lead to mass migrations from Latin American countries to the United States and Europe. The second part of the volume features transcribed interviews with documentary filmmakers, including Luis Argueta, Jenny Alexander, Tin Dirdamal, Heidi Hassan, and María Cristina Carrillo Espinosa. They discuss the issues surrounding migration, challenges they faced in the filmmaking process, the impact their films have had, and their opinions on documentary film as a force of social change. They emphasize that because the genre is grounded in fact rather than fiction, it has the ability to profoundly impact audiences in a way narrative films cannot. Documentaries prompt viewers to recognize the many worlds migrants depart from, to become immersed in the struggles portrayed, and to consider the stories of immigrants with compassion and solidarity. Contributors: Ramón Guerra | Lizardo Herrera | Jared List | Esteban Loustaunau | Manuel F. Medina | Ada Ortúzar-Young | Thomas Piñeros Shields | Juan G. Ramos | Lauren Shaw | Zaira Zarza A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L'Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez
The Circuit
Author: Francisco Jiménez
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 9780826317971
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 152
Book Description
A collection of stories about the life of a migrant family.
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 9780826317971
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 152
Book Description
A collection of stories about the life of a migrant family.
Embracing the Infidel
Author: Behzad Yaghmaian
Publisher: Delacorte Press
ISBN: 044033571X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 420
Book Description
An eye-opening personal account of an epic human drama, Embracing the Infidel takes us on an astounding journey along a modern-day underground railroad that stretches from Istanbul to Paris. In this groundbreaking book, Iranian-American Behzad Yaghmaian has done what no other writer has managed to do–as he enters the world of Muslim migrants and tells their extraordinary stories of hope for a new life in the West. In a tent city in Greece, they huddle together. Men and women from Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iran, and other countries. Most have survived war and brutal imprisonment, political and social persecution. Some have faced each other in battle, and all share a powerful desire for freedom. Behzad Yaghmaian lived among them, listened to their hopes, dreams, and fears–and now he weaves together dozens of their stories of yearning, persecution, and unwavering faith. We meet Uncle Suleiman, an Iraqi veteran of the Iran-Iraq war; once imprisoned by Saddam Hussein, he is now a respected elder of a ramshackle tent city in Athens, offering comfort and community to his fellow travelers…Purya, who fled Iran only to fall into the clutches of human smugglers and survive beatings and torture in Bulgaria…and Shahroukh Khan, an Afghan teenager whose world at home was shattered twice–once by the Taliban and again by American bombs–but whose story turns on a single moment of awakening and love in the courtyard of a Turkish mosque. A chronicle of husbands separated from wives, children from parents, Embracing the Infidel is a portrait of men and women moving toward a promised land they may never reach–and away from a world to which they cannot return. It is an unforgettable tale of heartbreak and prejudice, courage, heroism, and hope.
Publisher: Delacorte Press
ISBN: 044033571X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 420
Book Description
An eye-opening personal account of an epic human drama, Embracing the Infidel takes us on an astounding journey along a modern-day underground railroad that stretches from Istanbul to Paris. In this groundbreaking book, Iranian-American Behzad Yaghmaian has done what no other writer has managed to do–as he enters the world of Muslim migrants and tells their extraordinary stories of hope for a new life in the West. In a tent city in Greece, they huddle together. Men and women from Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iran, and other countries. Most have survived war and brutal imprisonment, political and social persecution. Some have faced each other in battle, and all share a powerful desire for freedom. Behzad Yaghmaian lived among them, listened to their hopes, dreams, and fears–and now he weaves together dozens of their stories of yearning, persecution, and unwavering faith. We meet Uncle Suleiman, an Iraqi veteran of the Iran-Iraq war; once imprisoned by Saddam Hussein, he is now a respected elder of a ramshackle tent city in Athens, offering comfort and community to his fellow travelers…Purya, who fled Iran only to fall into the clutches of human smugglers and survive beatings and torture in Bulgaria…and Shahroukh Khan, an Afghan teenager whose world at home was shattered twice–once by the Taliban and again by American bombs–but whose story turns on a single moment of awakening and love in the courtyard of a Turkish mosque. A chronicle of husbands separated from wives, children from parents, Embracing the Infidel is a portrait of men and women moving toward a promised land they may never reach–and away from a world to which they cannot return. It is an unforgettable tale of heartbreak and prejudice, courage, heroism, and hope.
Bangkok Bound
Author: Ellen Boccuzzi
Publisher: Silkworm Books
ISBN: 162840566X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 175
Book Description
With the acceleration of global migration, literature by migrant writers has emerged as a powerful medium for describing the ways in which global forces are experienced at the personal level. Migrant literature offers a compelling counter‐narrative to abstract visions of globalization, grounding large‐scale processes in real‐life stories of individuals. In Thailand, migrant writers have documented the social and cultural impacts of fifty years of rural‐urban migration through hundreds of stories, poems, and novels. Bangkok Bound is the first book to examine this body of literature and the messages that Thai migrant writers convey about their experiences. These stories powerfully describe the ways in which migrants who leave their homes bound for Bangkok are quickly bound to Bangkok through the transformative force of modern city life. And they show the ways in which those who remain behind in the village are transformed, too, as they struggle to maintain a rural way of life in a rapidly urbanizing world. Bangkok Bound will be of interest to anyone working on migration or urbanization, as well as to scholars of Thailand and Thai literature. Specialists in migration will find it a welcome addition to the growing field of migration studies through examination of narrative fiction. What others are saying “This is an engaging and authoritative study of literary representations of migration from the provinces to Bangkok based on wide reading of short stories written over the last four decades and interviews with major writers and critics. It will be of interest not only to students of literature, but also to anyone interested in social change in Thailand in the late twentieth century and the way that it has been perceived and recorded by local writers.” —David Smyth, SOAS, University of London Highlights - Useful for an introductory course on Thai or Southeast Asian studies; offers a springboard for conversations on development, rural‐urban inequality, migration, and the impacts of rapid urbanization in Asia - First book to examine the theme of migration in Thai literature, a significant contemporary genre - Contributes to the growing field of migration studies through examination of narrative fiction - Provides a window into how migration and urbanization are experienced at the personal level of interest to migration scholars as well as scholars of Thailand, Thai cultural studies, and Thai literature
Publisher: Silkworm Books
ISBN: 162840566X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 175
Book Description
With the acceleration of global migration, literature by migrant writers has emerged as a powerful medium for describing the ways in which global forces are experienced at the personal level. Migrant literature offers a compelling counter‐narrative to abstract visions of globalization, grounding large‐scale processes in real‐life stories of individuals. In Thailand, migrant writers have documented the social and cultural impacts of fifty years of rural‐urban migration through hundreds of stories, poems, and novels. Bangkok Bound is the first book to examine this body of literature and the messages that Thai migrant writers convey about their experiences. These stories powerfully describe the ways in which migrants who leave their homes bound for Bangkok are quickly bound to Bangkok through the transformative force of modern city life. And they show the ways in which those who remain behind in the village are transformed, too, as they struggle to maintain a rural way of life in a rapidly urbanizing world. Bangkok Bound will be of interest to anyone working on migration or urbanization, as well as to scholars of Thailand and Thai literature. Specialists in migration will find it a welcome addition to the growing field of migration studies through examination of narrative fiction. What others are saying “This is an engaging and authoritative study of literary representations of migration from the provinces to Bangkok based on wide reading of short stories written over the last four decades and interviews with major writers and critics. It will be of interest not only to students of literature, but also to anyone interested in social change in Thailand in the late twentieth century and the way that it has been perceived and recorded by local writers.” —David Smyth, SOAS, University of London Highlights - Useful for an introductory course on Thai or Southeast Asian studies; offers a springboard for conversations on development, rural‐urban inequality, migration, and the impacts of rapid urbanization in Asia - First book to examine the theme of migration in Thai literature, a significant contemporary genre - Contributes to the growing field of migration studies through examination of narrative fiction - Provides a window into how migration and urbanization are experienced at the personal level of interest to migration scholars as well as scholars of Thailand, Thai cultural studies, and Thai literature
Cultural Change in Post-Migrant Societies
Author: Wiebke Sievers
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031399005
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
This open access book links the artistic and cultural turn in migration studies to the larger struggle for narrative and cultural change in European migration societies. It proposes theoretical and methodological approaches that highlight how ideas of change expressed in artistic and cultural practices spread and lead to wider cultural change. The book also looks at the slow processes of change in large cultural institutions that emerged at a time when culture was nationalised. It explains how individual and group activities can have an impact beyond their immediate surroundings. Finally, the book discusses how migration researchers have cooperated with arts and cultural producers and used artistic means to increase the effect of their research in the wider public. As such, the book provides a great resource for graduate students and researchers in the social sciences and the humanities who have an interest in migration studies and want to move beyond interpreting the world towards changing it.
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031399005
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
This open access book links the artistic and cultural turn in migration studies to the larger struggle for narrative and cultural change in European migration societies. It proposes theoretical and methodological approaches that highlight how ideas of change expressed in artistic and cultural practices spread and lead to wider cultural change. The book also looks at the slow processes of change in large cultural institutions that emerged at a time when culture was nationalised. It explains how individual and group activities can have an impact beyond their immediate surroundings. Finally, the book discusses how migration researchers have cooperated with arts and cultural producers and used artistic means to increase the effect of their research in the wider public. As such, the book provides a great resource for graduate students and researchers in the social sciences and the humanities who have an interest in migration studies and want to move beyond interpreting the world towards changing it.
MIGRANT LIFE : STORIES OF REVERIST
Author: Omar Faruque Shipon
Publisher: Suman Krishna Dey
ISBN: 9849402199
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 127
Book Description
Before I came to this foreign soil, I took all my love and affection out of the heart and put all of these into archive of my dreams. (‘Relative in a Foreign Land’) Taken together, this generous collection of stories offers English readers an unprecedented glimpse into the lives of Bangladeshi migrant workers oscillating Singapore and the mother country, home seen through the lens of a twenty-first century Bangladeshi Muslim male lens. That lens deftly and shifts between Singapore and Bangladesh, past and present as co-workers, hitherto little known, recount their often heartbreakingly sad stories. One gets the impression that the narrator for the main part is the same in each story, a soft-hearted administrative worker in the marine sector, his dark skin on more than one occasion leading to him being mistaken for a Singaporean of Tamil descent, not recognised by his own Bangladeshi countrymen. The narrator is ultimately the catalyst or repository for the stories of the varied quotidian workers he encounters. While not topographically explicit, the stories catch for us up close something of the poetry of conversations between migrant workers, often revealing complicated: stories of a worker missing his father’s funeral far away, a mother’s sorrow even when her migrant son for whatever reason tries to lie on speakerphone, unfairnesses, such as being sent home without warning after one infraction. Singapore is the backdrop, the city and focus of many delusory dreams of fortune, loss and homesickness. The stories are elliptically, poetically recounted. A profound tragic beauty flowers out of the migrant quotidian as the speaker encounters a variety of multicultural voices, the sad, thorny lives contended with that lie behind the hard work done by migrants. Stories like ‘Love of Farhan’ take us to and leave us in discombobulating, unexpected places, raising more questions than answers. As with these story endings, there is no easy solution to the dauntingly complicated problems revealed. Striking in these stories is the deft economy, and perhaps what is not said. At times I was reminded of Mikhail Lermontov. I was often struck by quotable arrestingly memorable lines, [religion] “really has an awesome power to make a stranger a relative and a relative a stranger.” “he smiled like a robot. It was nothing like a smile.” “Everyone was bought with money; everyone gave in to money and wealth”. “Woman’s love makes us happy, but family’s love gives us satisfaction.” “I was sweating like a cold water bottle” “the smile was dominated by the helpless tone of his face”. In a kind of epiphany Bangladeshi migrant workers arriving in Singapore recognise how Bangladeshi brides must feel homesick, wives feel insecure. Through these stories, we in Singapore might begin to constructively appreciate not only the sacrifices of the men who come to work here but also their wives and family left without husbands and fathers for long periods at home. So there is a message in these stories, but also an evocative beauty in which we encounter a world of Jacobin cuckoos, beparis adams, betel nuts (whether Bengali or Burmese) and traditional leaf cigarettes. Here are also bittersweet poignant moments of migrant life, such as hearing the first cry of your first-born son back in a Bangladesh hospital over a handphone (45), or the joy at finding at last a rare Bangladeshi provision shop only to find shortly after the kind owner is ill, has passed away. Is it wise to be ‘pennywise’ for years in Singapore, as one story suggests, or send all your money home for family? “We expatriates are like cows with milk” as one worker reflects – but what happens when the milk runs out? Workers are often pressured into coming by family, community – even back home are those sacrifices properly appreciated, remembered? The book’s moral seems to be for us to show empathise, demonstrate sympathy for all in this world in a world of pain. Figures of ridicule turn out to be objects of sympathy. It seems almost everyone is nursing a to be told sad story. “Every man has a river inside” Migrant workers it seems are surviving on happy memories of home, and family. in ’Sabri’ a dead young Singaporean co-worker lives through the fond memories and prayers of his co-workers from many parts of the world. In ‘Room Leader’ dormitory life is evoked, a key, telling part of migrant experience. This story is also a call to perhaps to listen to the wisdom of the young me in this rapidly evolving world. Workers cry over a discarded cigarette, a ruined fish dish, but really, they are crying over something else. Only good humour, understanding and empathy bring some consolation for real. Again, and again, narrators, co-workers fail to fathom the depth of others’ trials. But maybe we could all try a little better. By reading these stories you enter tragic-comic lives you perhaps never realised before, and yet perhaps uncannily similar in some ways to your own.
Publisher: Suman Krishna Dey
ISBN: 9849402199
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 127
Book Description
Before I came to this foreign soil, I took all my love and affection out of the heart and put all of these into archive of my dreams. (‘Relative in a Foreign Land’) Taken together, this generous collection of stories offers English readers an unprecedented glimpse into the lives of Bangladeshi migrant workers oscillating Singapore and the mother country, home seen through the lens of a twenty-first century Bangladeshi Muslim male lens. That lens deftly and shifts between Singapore and Bangladesh, past and present as co-workers, hitherto little known, recount their often heartbreakingly sad stories. One gets the impression that the narrator for the main part is the same in each story, a soft-hearted administrative worker in the marine sector, his dark skin on more than one occasion leading to him being mistaken for a Singaporean of Tamil descent, not recognised by his own Bangladeshi countrymen. The narrator is ultimately the catalyst or repository for the stories of the varied quotidian workers he encounters. While not topographically explicit, the stories catch for us up close something of the poetry of conversations between migrant workers, often revealing complicated: stories of a worker missing his father’s funeral far away, a mother’s sorrow even when her migrant son for whatever reason tries to lie on speakerphone, unfairnesses, such as being sent home without warning after one infraction. Singapore is the backdrop, the city and focus of many delusory dreams of fortune, loss and homesickness. The stories are elliptically, poetically recounted. A profound tragic beauty flowers out of the migrant quotidian as the speaker encounters a variety of multicultural voices, the sad, thorny lives contended with that lie behind the hard work done by migrants. Stories like ‘Love of Farhan’ take us to and leave us in discombobulating, unexpected places, raising more questions than answers. As with these story endings, there is no easy solution to the dauntingly complicated problems revealed. Striking in these stories is the deft economy, and perhaps what is not said. At times I was reminded of Mikhail Lermontov. I was often struck by quotable arrestingly memorable lines, [religion] “really has an awesome power to make a stranger a relative and a relative a stranger.” “he smiled like a robot. It was nothing like a smile.” “Everyone was bought with money; everyone gave in to money and wealth”. “Woman’s love makes us happy, but family’s love gives us satisfaction.” “I was sweating like a cold water bottle” “the smile was dominated by the helpless tone of his face”. In a kind of epiphany Bangladeshi migrant workers arriving in Singapore recognise how Bangladeshi brides must feel homesick, wives feel insecure. Through these stories, we in Singapore might begin to constructively appreciate not only the sacrifices of the men who come to work here but also their wives and family left without husbands and fathers for long periods at home. So there is a message in these stories, but also an evocative beauty in which we encounter a world of Jacobin cuckoos, beparis adams, betel nuts (whether Bengali or Burmese) and traditional leaf cigarettes. Here are also bittersweet poignant moments of migrant life, such as hearing the first cry of your first-born son back in a Bangladesh hospital over a handphone (45), or the joy at finding at last a rare Bangladeshi provision shop only to find shortly after the kind owner is ill, has passed away. Is it wise to be ‘pennywise’ for years in Singapore, as one story suggests, or send all your money home for family? “We expatriates are like cows with milk” as one worker reflects – but what happens when the milk runs out? Workers are often pressured into coming by family, community – even back home are those sacrifices properly appreciated, remembered? The book’s moral seems to be for us to show empathise, demonstrate sympathy for all in this world in a world of pain. Figures of ridicule turn out to be objects of sympathy. It seems almost everyone is nursing a to be told sad story. “Every man has a river inside” Migrant workers it seems are surviving on happy memories of home, and family. in ’Sabri’ a dead young Singaporean co-worker lives through the fond memories and prayers of his co-workers from many parts of the world. In ‘Room Leader’ dormitory life is evoked, a key, telling part of migrant experience. This story is also a call to perhaps to listen to the wisdom of the young me in this rapidly evolving world. Workers cry over a discarded cigarette, a ruined fish dish, but really, they are crying over something else. Only good humour, understanding and empathy bring some consolation for real. Again, and again, narrators, co-workers fail to fathom the depth of others’ trials. But maybe we could all try a little better. By reading these stories you enter tragic-comic lives you perhaps never realised before, and yet perhaps uncannily similar in some ways to your own.
The Caravan
Author: Delhi Press Magazines
Publisher: Delhi Press Magazines
ISBN:
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 100
Book Description
The country's first and only publication devoted to narrative journalism, The Caravan occupies a singular position among Indian magazines. It is a new kind of magazine for a new kind of reader, one who demands both style and substance. Since its relaunch in January 2010, the magazine has earned a reputation as one of the country's most sophisticated publications-a showcase for the region's finest writers and a distinctive blend of rigorous reporting, incisive criticism and commentary, stunning photo essays, and gripping new fiction and poetry. Its commitment to great storytelling has earned it the respect of readers from around the world. "India's best English language magazine", The Guardian, London "For those with an interest in India, it has become an absolute must-read", The New Republic, Washington The Caravan fills a niche in the Indian media that has remained vacant for far too long, catering to the intellectually curious and aesthetically refined reader, who seeks a magazine of exceptional quality.
Publisher: Delhi Press Magazines
ISBN:
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 100
Book Description
The country's first and only publication devoted to narrative journalism, The Caravan occupies a singular position among Indian magazines. It is a new kind of magazine for a new kind of reader, one who demands both style and substance. Since its relaunch in January 2010, the magazine has earned a reputation as one of the country's most sophisticated publications-a showcase for the region's finest writers and a distinctive blend of rigorous reporting, incisive criticism and commentary, stunning photo essays, and gripping new fiction and poetry. Its commitment to great storytelling has earned it the respect of readers from around the world. "India's best English language magazine", The Guardian, London "For those with an interest in India, it has become an absolute must-read", The New Republic, Washington The Caravan fills a niche in the Indian media that has remained vacant for far too long, catering to the intellectually curious and aesthetically refined reader, who seeks a magazine of exceptional quality.