In a few short weeks I will complete my Master’s in Liberal Studies, with an emphasis in Race, Gender, and Culture, at Arizona State University. Some of my Tucson family and friends are probably rolling their eyes because as a Tucsonan it is breaking a cardinal rule to earn a degree from the school up north. I remain a Wildcat at heart, but I am honored to be a Sun Devil too. The program has been enriching and challenging. As an accounting geek, it’s been such a joy to step out of my comfort zone and address topics and issues that I am rarely exposed to at work. Admittedly, when I took the course Writing on Social Issues, I was skeptical about the benefits, but I learned that writing gives me an opportunity to passionately express my opinion. I submitted the following piece titled “Kidnapped versus Immigrated” in response to my professor inquiry, “Why did your family immigrate to the United States.”
Kidnapped Versus Immigrated
Unlike many Americans who have the luxury of unraveling decades of family history by reading notes tucked away in family bibles, or researching facts documented in the United States National Archives, or observing information preserved in the rolls of immigrants at Ellis Island, New York, and finally by combing through data meticulously archived by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I am not able to trace my family history past the late nineteenth century because my ancestors were violently captured, herded into the belly of ships chained to strangers, and transported to the United States as chattel for several centuries.
Chattel slavery is the ownership of human beings who are classified as property that is bought, sold, bartered, and passed down as inheritance from one generation to another. My ancestors, who were primarily chattel, did not make the decision to come to this country to pursue religious freedom, they were not seeking the “dream” that entices most immigrants today. Instead they were treated inhumanely as they helped to build the infrastructure of this country, ensuring its economic prosperity. That being said, my grandparents and great-grandparents and beyond were treated as though they were animals to be used in the pursuit of economic gain, under-employed as caregivers for the children of wealthy citizens, and as invisible domestic workers who earned pennies a day satisfying the needs of their legal “slave-owners”. Their names were assigned based on the plantation owners name, which in the case of my maternal grandfather (William Baskerville) we can only speculate is Baskerville, since he was born just miles away from the former Baskerville plantation in Virginia. In spite of entreaties to my parents for more information on my ancestors, I am sad to admit they have little to share other than birth places. Census records will not show historical records past my great-grandparents, because prior to their generation, my ancestors were slaves who were recorded as the property of their slave owners.
I only know of one family member who immigrated to this country, rumored to have entered through Ellis Island, from Ireland. Unfortunately, because it was illegal for my white great-great grandmother to be married to her husband, an African-American, I have no real record of how she decided to enter this country nor do I have information on her lineage. The now deceased progeny of their marriage, my only hope for information, took the story of my great-great grandmother to the grave with them. This year I registered by DNA with 23 and Me so I could acquire general knowledge of my ancestral roots. Until this year, I did not know my genetic composition (73% West African, 20% European, 5% Native American, and 2% Other) or in which African country my ancestors were born. Despite knowing my descendants were from West Africa, I still cannot tell you to which tribe I belong.
As I write this narrative, anger and sadness are the primary emotions I feel. My right to “story” was stolen by hateful, prejudiced, capitalist, who valued wealth more than fellow human beings. As I read The Distance Between Us, a story by Reyna Grande of her family’s journey (immigration) to the United States, all I could think about is how families are destroyed by the pursuit of wealth even in modern history and in response to fear of “brown” people. It is nice however that Reyna Grande was able to capture and memorialize her story for generations to come. They have recorded history that cannot be taken from them.
To imagine my life if chattel slavery did not occur would be to imagine what Africa would have been like had an entire civilization not been destroyed by those who pillaged its citizenry to build the United States. I would like to imagine that Kingdoms would have thrived, rich natural resources would have been leveraged to sustain generations in great wealth. I would be a leader in a great African nation. Since my ancestors have not lived on the continent of Africa for hundreds of years and I have never visited, honestly, I can only imagine the wondrous contributions my ancestors would have endowed upon this earth. When I observed the fictional country of Wakanda, in Marvel’s “Black Panther” (2018) my heart was lifted with joy. It is what I imagined my ancestors would have contributed barring the atrocities of chattel slavery. So, dear professor, I do not know my immigration story, but I am certainly creating history, so my children and their children can hold their heads high when they look back on our family’s contribution to this great nation.