SKWG

An Extended Family of Immigrants

I am an immigrant. My husband is the son of immigrants. What does that make our children 1st 1/2 generation? My father-in-law is a holocaust survivor from Poland. My mother-in-law was born in Bermuda with her maternal roots in Guyana and paternal roots in Venezuela. I am from Belize. I was brought to this country as a child by a mother suffering from domestic abuse. Our family was once close and successful. We were therefore not economic refugees, but refugees from a society that tolerated de facto spousal abuse where husbands were systematically allowed to beat their wives, sometimes to death, with impunity.

I was forced to watch my very assertive and educated mother be subject to this type of treatment which resulted in extreme stress levels and eventually a serious heart condition. She lives today with this disease. I was likewise forced to watch the systematic abuse of my grandmother and countless aunts (both emotional and physical) at the hands of my grandfather and uncles-in-law. Until my mother who was more educated than the others and who had traveled to countries outside of our own and had bourne witness to the fact that most women in the U.S. for example were not forced to live with this indignity and in fear. She said enough!

She then hatched a plan for her escape and with some of my siblings in tow and a wad of my father's cash she took flight, entering the United States in July 1978 at New Orleans, finally making her way a few weeks later to Minnesota where she had two sisters. My brothers and I followed shortly after our father realized that our mother would never come back and that we were desperate to be with her. I arrived first escorted by a nun from the all girls convent school I attended. My brothers followed a year later accompanied by my father who had come to seek a reconciliation with my mother. She refused, of course. Opting for a life of struggle as a single mother in the U.S. than for one with a husband and father for her children but loaded with fear, abuse and uncertainty.

By that time we had already moved to New York City. All six children and my mother crowded into small spaces until we could do better. We all attended high school and graduated and five of six of us attended college and graduated. Three of the five now hold advanced degrees in law, education and social science.

We have survived the destruction of our family and the constant exposure to domestic violence. All the women in my family are women's rights advocates and my brothers work to prevent and educate on domestic violence.

The United States has proved to be a refuge to me and my immediate family members from the ravages of domestic violence as there is accountability for the most part, and women have recourse and resources to advocate for their cause. If my mother had not fled to the U.S. she may be dead today a the hands of my father. In a way she saved them both.