This week we will be finishing the second half of the book “The Leavers” by Lisa Ko. The book goes into the lives of Deming Guo who’s mom is deported and leaves Deming to face adoption. While the book addresses many different topics throughout the first half it only mentions the aspect of Deming’s mother Polly being help in a immigration camp before being deported with no rights to contact anyone or be able to do anything. The second half of the book goes in depth on Polly’s experience throughout the immigration camp and the effects that still had a hold on her. I want to focus my context presentation on those immigration camps and how those experiences affect the individuals scarring them for life.
Ko addresses the topic of immigration camp by telling the experience of Polly being there for months before actually being deported. In time magazines it is stated reports that people are kept in crowded spaces with no access to clean water nor food. Also saying that reports of many sick people being contained together and no efforts of separating those that are sick from those that are healthy. Forcing these immigrants to live in inhumane conditions with no one trying to change anything. Also stated in The Atlantic the article also addresses the issue of overcrowding in which there is no space to move, forcing children or adults to sleep either on the ground or standing up. The Atlantic’s article goes into the article finding how these camps are similar to concentration camps back in World War I. While forcing these immigrants to live in these conditions the article attacks towards the administrations that allow these places to treat human lives in this matter. Ko shows how all of these conditions affected Polly noticing that she cannot sleep with a glimmer of light showing, the only way to actually be able to sleep is the constant use of sleeping pills, and all the different experiences that led her to have ptsd.
One of the main characters in the book is subjected towards inhumane conditions and ends up scarred for the rest of her life. The international detention coalition describes that form of imprisonment as an act of torture. While the people being detained could be fast tracked and deported quickly some are left there for the larger part of months. These types of detention facilities are meant to be used only when needed as a final resort not as the main source for immigrations. Nobody focuses on the amount of human rights that are violated in camps like these leading to the people living these lives to suffer for the greater part of their lives. Learning from these backgrounds allows us to better connect with the character of Polly by actually being able to notice the experiences she faced in the immigration camp and the experiences she has to face afterwards.
Citations:
+ Joung, Madeleine. What Is Happening at Migrant Detention Centers? What to Know. 12 July 2019, time.com/5623148/migrant-
detention-centers-conditions/.
+ Serwer, Adam. “A Crime by Any Name.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 6 Nov. 2019,
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/border-facilities/593239/.
+ “What Is Immigration Detention? And Other Frequently Asked Questions.” International Detention Coalition,
idcoalition.org/about/what-is-detention/.
Hi Christian,
Great work; I think you selected a fascinating topic for your CRP this week. I think that you bring up a very interesting point to compare Polly’s experience to the poor conditions that many immigrants experience. It is sad to note, too, that those are not just a thing of the past, and that as I am writing this, there are thousands of immigrants in ICE camps in the Southern United States. I agree with you that there should be some form of temporary group housing for immigrants, but it seems as if whenever the US (or other countries) attempts to implement that, it goes awry and causes incomprehensible pain and suffering. I really enjoyed reading your presentation for this week!
I thought you made an excellent point Addy! To add to this, the parents of 545 children are currently missing from the ICE camps as the proper information and data was not maintained. It seems as if immigrants are considered the “other” in the United States and there are so many families that have been forcibly separated. Great analysis Christian!!