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DO ALL “CITIES OF DREAMS” DIE?
BY: SOFIA CARVALHAES CHERTO SILVEIRA
That is the question I kept asking myself when seeing Christiane Badgley’s Guangzhou Dream Factory in a cold room at The New School. The documentary starts by interviewing African migrants from various countries: Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Mali, Nigeria. They had only one thing in common: they were all living in China’s mainland in 2013.
The entire first part of the film shows Guangzhou as a city that appears to be what the entire United States once represented for migrants – an ideal of prosperity and future. A place where one would move to in hopes of a better life.
The impression of China as the new conductor of migrant dreams is decimated in the first 25 minutes. Human trafficking, pricy visas, state discrimination, prostitution, deportation, death: all is unveiled as the movie continues. Trump’s presidency may have swept away the United States’ image as a safe place for migrants, but if there is something the documentary shows it is that we shouldn’t place these hopes on China.
In the words of a Chinese student at the New School present at the screening: “China, as everyone know [sic], is now the biggest economy in the world. We are top of the game right now. Before people fantasized about how great America was. Now we think “oh it is just America.” Everything they have we have it too. We have it even in a better version.” China may have reached the United States’ status in terms of access and production of commercial goods, but not in the at least ornamental, guarantee of security, liberty and prosperity. In an authoritarian society, migrants are the ones whose rights are frequently put to the test.
As described by the same student: “So right now I don’t think people fantasize about the United States as they did before. But that is the only thing that was different in my perspective: I came here to look for diversity. You don’t have diversity if you are not open enough.” China is not open yet.
The movie was shot in 2013. Since then, granting of visas has gotten more difficult. For a business trip to China today, it is necessary to present the government a business cover letter, a letter of invitation and a passport that is not from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Nigeria or Syria. In the embassy’s website lies a warning: it doesn’t matter if you have American citizenship. If one is born in any of these countries, it is necessary to schedule a visit to the consulate for a thorough and subjective interview.
Journalists and other mediamakers need an official letter from an employer, and a personal statement, “indicating that you are not traveling on company business and will not be performing any media related work.” Nevertheless, they still do. That is how this and other documentaries are born, and how migrants start their lives on Chinese ground: in society’s sidelines, breaking laws so there can be space to breathe.
African migrants in Guangzhou develop their own markets, their own celebrations, their own support systems. Continental differences are erased when travelers are confronted by the loneliness of the move to a previously undiscovered space. They witness, at the same time they are in China, the subtle changes China provokes in their hometown: “In Gambia we had our own garments. Now, everything we buy is Chinese.”
Much like the United States in the 1950’s, China now walks a path of filling gaps in the global landscape, becoming an inescapable presence like a powerful medium. It sends an intimidating message highlighting the existence of an alternative booming competition to the Western countries that once were the sole conductors of the international system: You are not alone. At the same time, it sends a message filled with perspective to developing countries through the “One belt, One road” initiative: You are not alone.
The movie shows the duality of that second message, playing with the impact of China’s position on both workers and capitalists. On one side, there are the African workers who come to China in search of better wages and stability. On the other, the bosses who move their African factories to China, causing the need for workers to move in the first place. Meanwhile, Chinese goods are being exported to those same countries with little or no taxation. China is consistently present, so present that no one can escape from their presence, independently of which end of the system they occupy.
Guangzhou Dream Factory narrates the lives of African migrants, but also the shifts in global trade and the difficulties surrounding the individuals that make up that system. From the Ugandan woman who created an association to support African migrants in China, especially the sex workers who are victims of trafficking, to the Nigerian man who married a Chinese woman who worked with him in the market. From the Congolese mother who takes her daughter to Chinese school to the Cameroonian businessman who has his container business in Guangzhou and a 10-year permit to operate in these lands.
With no judgment of conduct and only very brief narrations, the filmmakers float through these various perspectives, these various lives, presenting not only China, but the international system as this multi-sited Universe at play in 2013 that has only been intensified in the present.
China is not what the United States once was. It is the greatest force of a new system in a new world that researchers in migration and media studies are still trying to understand. This documentary is a window into the new forces that are at play in a landscape with nationstates increasingly more open to nationalistic tendencies and, at the same time, global trade. It does so in a constant switch between micro and macro narratives, showing the changes in world order and the impacts they have in normal people’s dreams and stories.
A SCRAPBOOK OF SURVIVAL: CAMBODIA, MEDIA, AND THE FUTURE OF REFUGEES
BY: JEN EVANS
Like many of my generation, social media is often my primary source for global news.
On Friday, November 16th, I saw a trending topic on Twitter: #KhmerRouge. My curiosity was sufficiently piqued.
Upon clicking the “hashtag,” I learned that the two senior-most surviving members of the Khmer Rouge had been convicted of crimes against humanity; and that, through this verdict, the Cambodian genocide had finally been declared just that: a genocide.
The atrocities of the Khmer Rouge, which occurred between 1975 and 1979, resulted in at least 1,700,000 deaths; the loss of over 20% of Cambodia’s national population. Under the ultra-Maoist regime, all Cambodian residents over the age of six were required to work. Children were separated from their parents and forced into labor camps that were infested with bed bugs and head lice. Victims of all ages were subjected to starvation, torture, and brutal executions.
In addition to nearly two million deaths, the Khmer Rouge is responsible for the forced displacement of over 350,000 refugees, most of whom crossed the jungle by foot or by boat to seek shelter in camps throughout Thailand; and, less commonly, Vietnam.
Amid current controversy and debates regarding forced migration, the Cambodian genocide offers unique insight regarding the lives and outcomes of displaced persons. Sarorng “Rorng” Sorn, who now resides in the Philadelphia area, fled Cambodia with her remaining family members. In discussing her family’s arduous journey to safety, Sorn stated: “Imagine that at the age of 10 you have to run for your life through the jungle, dodging bullets and mines daily and sleeping wherever, eating and drinking anything just to get basic nourishment, sometimes even having to drink water from a pond with dead bodies floating in it.”
Camps inhabited by Cambodian refugees, much like camps inhabited by refugees today, were not without suffering in their own right. Many families waited for five or more years for emigration, living in harsh conditions with limited access to necessities such as water and heat. Sorn, for example, spent eight years in a Thai refugee camp before receiving sponsorship for settlement in the United States.
For many refugees, displacement follows years of unrest, during which they have typically received inadequate access to needed services such as healthcare and education. This reality is tragically illustrated in Sorn’s case, as her two-year-old sister passed away due to lack of medical care in Cambodia. Meanwhile, Sorn herself did not have access to education until reaching a refugee camp–she was 11 years old when she entered first grade.
Although refugee children are minors when beginning the resettlement process, many become adults during the long journey to emigration. Sorn settled in the United States at age 19 and, due to being a legal adult, was afforded only six months of financial support. As a result, Sorn was required to seek employment immediately despite having begun general schooling only eight years prior. Sorn describes self-motivation as her key to overcoming this barrier to success: “At 19, I had to be working right away, but because I had such a desire for education, I decided to attend South Philadelphia High School during the day and work in a chicken factory at night to help support my family.”
A frequent argument made by critics of refugee resettlement is that of “free rides,” which accuses displaced peoples of embellishing hardships in order to receive sufficient aid to live comfortably without employment. Despite publicized stories highlighting successful and hard-working refugees such as Sorn, this argument continues to be voiced in current migration debate by those who seek to restrict or cease refugee resettlement. I believe it is in these instances that we cannot only draw parallels to the circumstances of the Cambodian genocide–but also learn from them.
In our modern times of exhaustive media, we often forget one of media’s most valuable functions: the transmission of knowledge.
Our global community has a storied–and continuing–history of turning away refugees. Documentation regarding our past treatment of migrants, and its outcomes, is within reach through media ranging from library newspaper archives to historical videos uploaded to YouTube. Yet, in exploring this particular interface of media and migration, we see the application lacking.
While the Khmer Rouge is responsible for the Cambodian genocide, they do not bear sole responsibility. In the era of the Cold War, anti-communism rhetoric pervaded Western coverage of the genocide. Meanwhile, Vietnam forcibly returned refugees to be slaughtered in Cambodia as an alleged sign of “good will” between the two communist nations. (See Above.)
Much debate regarding refugees centers on the notion of “us” and “them.” How will they affect our community? Do we have enough resources to accommodate them? Why are we responsible for them? In some eras, this argument has referred to Capitalists and Communists. In others, it has referred to Bosnians and Croatians. And in others, it has referred to Jews seeking shelter from the Nazi regime. But regardless of the era, the stories and records available through our media all tell the same story: When one nation refuses aid to refugees, others do not take responsibility. History indicates that, in most cases, those who are most vulnerable are returned home to become victims of the violence they seek to escape.
Cambodian refugees Rorng Sorn and Sarun Chan interviewed by WWDB860 AM: