Emigrants, immigrants and making a fuss. SJ Dodgson. MJoTA 2013. v7n2 p0705.
When I was 6 in New Zealand my mother was upset that her only daughter was stuck in class that I enjoyed, with children of my own age, but which my mother thought was beneath me. She told me that I was to make a fuss until I was kicked upstairs.
I was a well-behaved British girl, in my 3rd school in my 3rd country, and intuitively understood that my survival as an immigrant depended on my not making a fuss, not making trouble, and I was neither willing nor able to channel the ancient Irish rage of my mother.
My idea of obeying my mother by making a fuss was to go up to the teacher after class, thank her for a great day, and tell her I really wanted to be in Standard 1. Which I happily moved into with my friends the following year. Including Gloria, who was Maori and the most popular girl in the class: she played the ukelele. We were 6! How cool was that.
It is time to listen to my mother and make a fuss that is effective. It is time to channel the Irish rage that got my mother into medical school in Ireland and sent her chasing after her husband to New Zealand after he happily flew away from us in England to take a job as the pathologist in a hospital on a hill overlooking the city of Gisborne. My mother paid 5 pounds to the British government who shipped her, my brothers and myself to New Zealand because the British government decided too many people lived in Britain, and too few British people lived in New Zealand.
Astonishing my mother ever talked to my father again. Within 2 years, she gave birth to my youngest brother. And within 3 years, we were all together on a ship to Australia. To be immigrants again.
