Translating Pain - Madelaine Hron

Hron's critique in her article Perversely through Pain - Immigrants and Immigrants Suffering begins from the assumption that both in fictional and authentic narratives of migration, the theme of immigrant suffering is more often that not left out or minimized. From my little knowledge of migration literature, which is limited to the readings we did during the course and few articles I found on the internet, I have to agree with Hron that "in our age of multiculturalism and globalization, we prefer to extol the difference, hybridity, mobility of the nomadic, cosmopolitan hero, rather than fixate on the sufferings of the unhappy immigrant". 

Bhabha, Derrida, Said, Kaya (only to mention few), all talk about various aspects of the phenomenon of immigration, from third spaces and hybridity to hospitality via crossing boundaries and mingling cultures, from foreignness to statistics about the perception of self vis-à-vis Other, but I do not recall much insight of the "human", emotional side of leaving one's country and having to adjust and function in a new one... that is to say the pain/suffering/loneliness/frustration felt by the "hosted". Hron points out that most literature of immigration does not differentiate between kinds of foreigners - thus blatantly ignoring that a foreigner can be (a)an immigrant, (b)a refugee, (c)an exile and because of this difference different feelings are involved.  

On a sociological perspective there is a distinction between immigrants and refugees on the basis of voluntary and unvoluntary migration (Hron). The perspective that sees refugees as people forced to leave their homes and immigrants as people who had chosen to do so in seek of whatever better future they had in mind, attributes to the firsts a certain "right" to suffer while downplays and obscure the the position of the latter. Assuming that pain is a prerogative of refugees means ignoring that most hardships a refugee goes through when in the host country - a new language/culture/unfriendly people  -  are probably the same an immigrant experiences too.

But in any case, her stance is that no matter the generalization, the popular opinion underrates the immigrants' suffering in the first place.  Why so? The author suggests two reasons: first, apparently - and we should blame a whole literature about migration for the misleading message which brings- we do expect immigrants' lives to be poignant with suffering.  "Going through pain" looks like a fair price to pay for a new-comer to adapt and be accepted in a new country, it is part of the process. After all, even students who want to be accepted in certain University brotherhoods have to embark upon a whole series of unpleasing tests to demonstrate they deserve to "get in", one might think. 

Secondly, it is thought that whatever the suffering of the "immigrant" at home, it should disappear as soon as they set foot on the new soil, as if together with a residence permit they obtained some sorts of magic painkillers protecting them from the "hardships of the  adjustment" (p.4) and started a new comfortable life full of joy. 

I believe this assumption ignores the fact that the distress felt by the stranger is not only due to his/her own difficulty to deal with a new place, phase, faces and the longing for those left behind; I think partly it is brought by the projection of the locals on him/her, a projection which reminds him/her every day of his/her otherness: in other words, it is not only his/her own otherness to make the immigrant feel miserable, but also the many ways in which a society can "otherize" a stranger. I think this is what people call "reflexive mirroring". 

Of another opinion is Julia Kristeva ( harshly criticized by Hron), for whom alienation brings happiness, more precisely "extranged happiness". She sees foreignness as a liberatory state of being, a "privileged position" from which, thanks to the interaction with the Other, an individual can develop the sense of his/her own diversity and uniqueness. This is what is called the deconstruction of home and belonging.

Adorno goes further in claiming that "the highest form of morality is not to feel at home in one's own home", perhaps implying (I am not sure) that when "at home", we are in a place where our identity is never challenged thus we cannot ever know for sure who we are, and this is no good.

Assuming this is what he really means, then home is the place of the ones-of-the-like, where there is no flow; it is static and never-changing. It's the place where we can comfortably make predictions, expect which things to happen, create a routine. Does he mean we are like robots at home? Like thousands of photocopies of the same lame identity? Actually, If self-awareness is generated through the interaction with otherness, I see why he feels discomfort towards a place in which one doesn't have the chance of questioning his/her one's own identity, in which one cannot become aware of him/herself entirely. In this sense, I partly agree with Kristeva's notion of "extranged happiness", which I rather would call more generally "extranged self-awareness".

I believe one chooses to leave home for several reasons. I might have left mine specifically in an attempt to find parts of myself which could only come forward thanks to the interaction with Otherness. I might.

There is much talk going on about the dangers of living in an environment of the people-of-the-like, like that our perception of ourself end up being based on other people's projections and ideas of us...or at least contaminated by these projections.

So I once more wonder: is the perception of ourselves accurate? Or is it contaminated and strengthened day by day by the opinions other people project on us? Are we manufactured selves?  How can we know? Perhaps what we think we are is, in fact,  what we want to be.  Perhaps what we want to be is a product of the common opinion of what is "worth being". And is "what we want to be/worth being" what "we would like to be" were we born somewhere else? Is identity a virgin component of us or is it contaminated the moment you inhale your first breathe? 

Then I had one more thought: Suppose you, as a child, leave home and move to another country/society different from the one of your nationality. Still your identity would not be "virgin". Sure it won't be contaminated by the standards of your own community, but it would be by those of the new community. Or take Third Culture Kids, their identity is not shaped by a single country, they are loose in the world, but still the ever-changing atmosphere, the airports, the sense of elusiveness shapes their identities somehow. 

So is it really possible for one to build an identity for oneself? I came to think that identity is a product of the environment around you and it has some components of your "intimate" nature too, but I am not sure in what proportions.

Maybe, for one who has spent much of his/her life in one single place, an interesting option to challenge oneself would be to get lost and start anew somewhere else, as a nobody, nameless, pastless, faultless. Embracing and cheerishing his/her own foreigness.

And of course, aware of the pain one might go through, s/he should read Kristeva, maybe the journey would be more conscious, thus more appreciated :-)

This is the last post I am writing for the course Cultures of Migration. Maybe I will write some more. Now we are all connected, so whenever someone posts we all receive notifications, and I like to think that one day, when I will post, some of you will receive an alert and read my blog again :-) 

Thank you very much for the time together and the discussions we had, they were a real opportunity to grow up and I am glad I was there with all of you.

Keep in touch!

Laura

P.S. Interested in the anxieties of the stranger, an in particular on the figure of the Almanci and his/her in-betweenness?  Find Ruth Mandel's Cosmopolitan Anxieties. 

It's quite something :)