Revealing the illegal immigrants in Changle, Fujian Province： Traveling to 42 countries around the world in order to reach the United States
After the successful smuggling, firecrackers will be set off at home, and the Fujian opera team will be invited to sing a play in the ancestral hall. Every time firecrackers sound, everyone knows that another person has arrived at his destination. People here still yearn for the new world, but people in new york are looking forward to their return.
On December 13th, Tantou Town, Changle City, was repeatedly banned from smuggling, and many slogans against smuggling were painted on the local streets.
When boarding a smuggling boat bound for the United States, Lin Wenfeng, 23, thought that when he earned enough money, he would soon be able to go home.
It was in 1993, Jinfeng Town, Changle City, Fujian Province.
Another 23 years have passed. The father died and the children were getting married. He never saw them again and never came home again.
This kind of long-distance one-way trip happened in countless families in Changle.
According to the statistics of Zhuang Guotu, a professor at Xiamen University, from 1980 to 2005, more than 200,000 people entered the United States from Changle, a small town, and most of them were illegal immigrants.
These people crossed the mountains and entered the United States to find a higher-paying livelihood. Their biggest worry is that if they don’t get legal residence status, once they leave the United States, they will never come back.
In order to get identity, many people choose to make up false stories and make up various reasons to seek political asylum in the immigration courts in the United States. Of course, most failed.
Think simple when you leave. It was only when they crossed the ocean and wanted to go home that Lin Wenfeng finally understood that life was far more complicated than originally envisaged.
In the long wait, relatives have been separated for a long time, and discrete stories abound.
This shore and the other shore
In September this year, Xu Jiacheng, a 24-year-old documentary director, first set foot in the eight avenues in Brooklyn, new york, in order to film the story of an illegal immigrant. This is a main road about 1.6 kilometers long, surrounded by streets and lanes, where tens of thousands of Fuzhou people live.
She was shocked by the situation of the Eighth Avenue-
Only cash circulates here, without a big bank or ATM. Because most people are illegal immigrants, they can’t handle bank accounts.
The restaurant here has no English menu, and the taste is only used by old Fuzhou people.
People here, speaking their own dialects, have employment agencies for Fuzhou people and specialized lawyers, which is like a small enclave.
Xu Jiacheng saw that there was a small temple filled with incense in the middle of eight fast food restaurants and small commodity shops.
During the Lunar New Year, residents here will also carry the statue of Mazu to the streets. It was the gods who blessed their ancestors hundreds of years ago.
Floating in new york, I have become a stranger in my native land and abroad. This is their way of missing their hometown.
On the other side of the ocean, Changle, Fujian, and the Minjiang River pass through the north and rush into the sea. The harbor was blue, and the salty smell in the air climbed up the stairs.
Along the winding and long riverbank line, you have to pass through Houyu Township, Tantou Town, Jinfeng Town and Meihua Town in Changle City, all of which are hometown of overseas Chinese.
There are three or four-story villas in the village, where Gothic style, Rococo style and Chinese style coexist. Every shutter is closed, empty and locked. Only through the high guardrail, it exudes the wealth from distant continents.
There are no fewer than 100 ancestral temples visible along the road, all of which are brand-new, carved and painted, and lonely.
The old people, women and children are still here, and the young and middle-aged people are gone.
Most of them have been away from home for twenty or thirty years, and some even longer.
Most of them set off immediately after their wives gave birth to their children, all in their early twenties.
The journey across the Pacific Ocean is not only an important step for men to become independent, but also a way to fulfill their family obligations. When they left home, they promised that they would come back soon after earning enough money.
A blurred father
In those years, how many adult men smuggled abroad, almost the same number of children grew up without a father.
When talking about their father, they often spend a long time recalling what he looks like. Fatherly love? A girl shook her head. "I never knew what it was like."
Zheng Chenxi was born in Changle Jin Feng. She is 22 years old. She hasn’t met her father yet.
When she was a child, she loved him very much. At that time, it was an enviable thing that someone in the family sneaked abroad. When she receives a learning machine from America, she will show it off to the children. "My dad gave it to me, which is very precious. It is charged several times a day and feels cool. Mine is different from others, you can touch the screen! "
A family of three didn’t have a chance to take a family photo. She cut out the photos sent back by her father and the photos of her and her mother, stuck them together and made a family portrait. I handed it to her mother happily. "I feel a little clever. Maybe my mother will feel very sad."
When she was older, she realized that she was different from others. Every time the school fills in the family questionnaire, I don’t know what to write in the column of dad’s occupation. Always pestering my mother to ask, when will my father come back? Mother couldn’t answer either.
When I reached puberty, I knew that my father couldn’t come back, and my thoughts turned into hatred.
Every new year, the mother and daughter are at home, and they are cold and clear. Relatives love to ask: when did your father go abroad? How long has it been since you saw me? Answering every year, she gets sympathetic eyes every year, and she grows up in this kind of eyes.
Distribution map of Qiaocun, hometown of overseas Chinese in Changle City. Overseas Chinese hometowns and overseas Chinese villages are densely distributed.
Li Mengting, a sophomore in south university of science and technology of china, was also born in a family where everyone smuggled in.
Her father smuggled into Japan in 2006 and was repatriated by the Japanese government ten years later.
When I was a child, children loved to play a game. Mom and Dad held a child’s hand and lifted it to let the child hang in mid-air. A family of three all giggled.
She is always jealous, but only her mother’s hand can hold her hand.
When she was ten years old, she met her father back home for the first time, "like a strange uncle".
At the dinner table, my father put his arm around her and asked, MOna, would you like coconut milk? She said yes. It was the first conversation between father and daughter.
In the years since then, the relationship between father and daughter has remained at this level. Sometimes, encouraged by his mother, my father comes over and talks to her clumsily: Is this TV play good? What was your last grade? Li Mengting replied, yes, I did well in the exam. The answer is better than nothing, and both sides are unable to send and accept, but it is already a warm moment for her.
Soon after, Li Mengting’s mother died of illness, and her father and daughter became polite and cold relatives.
Now tell everything about her father, and her expression is alienated. Asked, "Do you have any warm memories with your father?" She hesitated for a long time and shook her head. "I’m very sorry, not at all."
She understood her father’s decision to go abroad, but the gap in those ten years made them lose their emotional foundation and they were no longer willing to mend their relationship.
A marriage torn apart by distance
In 1930, a Chinese newspaper in new york reprinted the conversation between a court judge and a Chinese defendant.
How long have you been married? It has been 38 years.
Do you quarrel with your wife? Never.
Where does your wife live? Asked the surprised judge. The 64-year-old defendant’s answer made everyone laugh: My wife has been in China.
This story was published as a joke, but the heavy reality revealed behind it has not changed after nearly a century.
Men leave home for the country, while their young wives plunge into countless responsibilities and obligations of caring for the elderly, raising children, socializing with people and maintaining the clan.
Two years after her husband left, Li Mengting’s mother sat on the bed and cried after putting the children to sleep every night. At that time, she was 23 years old, and she was completely at a loss to take care of her little daughter and two old people.
The pressure also comes from the economic situation. Her husband sneaked in, and her family owed a large sum of money. She had a small notebook, and the first page recorded how much money she owed. When you receive the remittance from your husband every month, pay back the money first, and then remember how much you spent this month, how much you left and how much you deposited in the bank. The debt was not paid off until two years before her husband came back.
But during the day, she looks perfectly normal. When I grew up, my mother and daughter had a heart-to-heart talk. Only then did Li Mengting know how my mother survived the helpless years.
Zheng Chenxi’s mother’s way to solve her worries is to burn incense and worship Buddha. In order to pray for her husband’s well-being and identity, she prayed to God and Buddha everywhere. I heard that the burning charm was very clever, so I asked the charm to burn it. A charm cost 1,000 yuan, which was in the 1990s, and 1,000 yuan was a month’s salary. Later, knowing that there was no hope, she had to give up.
But in any case, these couples survived a fairly harmonious family across the Qian Shan.
Other marriages are separated by loneliness and suspicion.
Lin Jie, the daughter of Lin Wenfeng, almost grew up in the quarrel between her parents.
After Lin Wenfeng went abroad, there were many misunderstandings between husband and wife. For example, if there is some friction between his wife and his mother, her mother will complain to him. He will call his wife and blame her. If she feels wronged, the couple will start quarreling on the phone.
The old man is sick, the family is short of money, and the children are not taken care of … At the beginning, the sweetness and vows between husband and wife were dissolved in the pandering between chicken and dog. Hatred and hurt began to pile up.
Prolonged separation also challenges the loyalty of both sides.
There is a word in Fuzhou dialect called "Kaka", which means lover. Erliucun said that some couples have "clicked" because of their long-term separation in foreign countries, but they are tacitly aware of each other and will still maintain their marriage.
When the left-behind wives have nothing to do, they will go dancing in the town ballroom. A villager talked that he once danced with a left-behind wife and felt her hand shaking. "I haven’t touched men for too many years, so it will happen."
On December 11, a white-haired old man sat on a bench in the activity center for the elderly in Houyu Village, Houyu Township, Changle City. Most of the young and middle-aged people in the village go abroad, and many old people stay behind.
An unattended funeral
Missing and waiting constitute the second half of Li Mengting’s grandmother Zheng Zijin.
This Fuzhou old lady is not tall, slightly fat and has short hair. Circling around a big family, talking all the time.
At the age of 18, she married yutou village, Guhuai Town, Changle City, and gave birth to three boys and three girls. Six families formed by children, at least one person in each family has been smuggled.
In 1994, the eldest son smuggled into the United States, followed by the second son, the youngest son and the second son-in-law smuggled into Japan, and then the youngest daughter smuggled into the United States … one by one.
After that, the children only got together once, that is, the second daughter died of serious illness. Since then, the family has never been reunited.
In Li Mengting’s memory, Zheng Zijin lived by tearing the calendar and counting the days with his fingers. Every month, every child will call back about once. As soon as she picks up the phone, she always nags: Is there enough money? Did you eat well outside? Is the boss good to you?
There was still a long time before the Chinese New Year, and she began to ask everyone if they would come back for the Chinese New Year. That’s the biggest thought in her life.
The children can’t bear to refuse, so they have to give a vague answer: if they are not busy, they will come back. Just before the Chinese New Year, I had to tell her that I couldn’t come back, and I’ll see it next year.
But one or two children can come back every year. To some extent, Zheng Zijin is still happy.
In Xiangao Village, Jinfeng Town, Lin Wenfeng’s father did not wait for a child until his death.
In 2005, he was diagnosed with lung cancer and died a year later.
Lin Wenfeng was in the United States at that time, and his two younger brothers and one younger sister were in Britain. They all sneaked into the past and didn’t get their identity. Once they left the country, they fell short. So, in the year when my father was seriously ill, no one returned to China.
According to Changle custom, after death, the eldest son should carry him to the ancestral temple in the village and put him in the coffin. Finally, Lin’s parents’ daughter-in-law, that is, Lin Wenfeng’s wife, entered the ancestral temple wearing mourning clothes and carrying her father-in-law. In the rural areas of Fujian with strong traditional concepts, this is unthinkable.
This is not an isolated case. Zhuang Guotu, a professor at Xiamen University, met a stowaway when he was investigating in new york.While cooking in a restaurant, he received a phone call telling him that his father had died and asked him to go back to China to attend his funeral. "He was stupid, so he had to say that there was no way to go, and he gritted his teeth and fried from noon until twelve o’clock in the evening. He didn’t burst into tears until the last guest’s dish was fried. "
After the children left, only the elderly living alone were left in the village. In Erliu village, the story of a dumb old man is always mentioned. His children are all abroad or in other places, and no one usually visits them. They died quietly at home two years ago, and it took many days before their bodies were discovered.
"Yes, that’s it, what else can I do …" In Houyu Village, Houyu Township, a row of white-haired old people sat on a bench in the activity center for the elderly and chatted. When asked this question, they nodded and muttered to themselves.
"What else can I do" is all the answers they can give when they are overwhelmed by loneliness.
A city of immigrants embracing the ocean.
On the map of Changle city, along the long coastline, overseas Chinese hometowns and overseas Chinese villages are densely distributed.
Quiet harbor, above the small fishing boat, seagulls hovering in the air, curled fog hanging around.
For thousands of years, fishing has been regarded as the most basic and common way to settle down.
As early as the early years of the Ming Dynasty, Zheng He went to the Western Seas, where he recruited people to sacrifice to Poseidon and guard kai yang.
The west wind is spreading eastward, and this area has become one of the oldest economic regions in China, which has created a group of people who are not limited to traditional thinking. Their hearts are filled with the desire to leave their homes to find opportunities to get rich, and they have started to make a living in Southeast Asia and North America.
Looking back along the genealogy, almost every family has a long and short history of immigration.
The real "smuggling" began sporadically in the 1970s.
A Changle snakehead who has worked for many years recalls that the first people who went to the United States sent back US dollars and built buildings. Stimulated other people struggling on the poverty line.
The 1980s and 1990s were the heyday of smuggling. The cost also rose from $18,000 to $25,000, and then to 400,000 RMB.
On a street next to Changle Public Security Bureau, there are several immigration consulting agencies and law firms.
The destination of smuggling is generally new york. The largest city in the United States is the promised land of Changle stowaways, which symbolizes wealth, freedom and opportunities for self-realization.
An American scholar has done research. In order to reach the United States, Fujian immigrants have traveled all over the world in 42 countries.
The original way was by boat. This is the longest and hardest way of smuggling, and some people even died on the way to the United States-in June 1993, an old ship "golden venture" full of 286 Fuzhou stowaways ran aground off the coast of new york, and ten stowaways drowned.
Liu Mingda of Erliu Village remembers that in the 1990s, every family in the village had people smuggling. Are quietly, also don’t say goodbye. A few days later, everyone found that another person was missing.
He’s also been smuggled in three times.
The first time I went north, I entered Russia with a real passport, then entered Ukraine with a fake passport, crossed the mountains on the border between Ukraine and the Czech Republic and entered the Czech Republic. They changed to Korean passports. Because the passport was not stamped, he was stopped by the Czech police and spent half a year in the immigration prison.
The second time, they planned to travel from Nanning to Vietnam, from Vietnam to Thailand and Mexico, and finally to the United States. In Haiphong City, Vietnam, there was a contradiction between the snakeheads, and they were kept in private houses for three months, and finally they jumped off the building and fled home in a hurry.
He still won’t give up. Finally, direct flights from Hong Kong to San Francisco. The plane landed this time. As a rule, people will tear up fake passports after boarding the plane. As long as the plane lands, it is considered a successful entry.
Unfortunately, it was September 2001, when the "September 11th Incident" just happened, and the whole country was nervous, so he was sent back again.
If you can’t come back, you can’t go out.
After gaining a firm foothold, the first thing the illegal immigrants have to do is to find a lawyer and go to the immigration court to file a lawsuit.
American law stipulates that foreigners who enter the United States in any way have the right to apply for political asylum. If successful, you will be granted permanent residence status.
The reasons given by the illegal immigrants change with the development of the domestic situation. Such as family planning, demolition, etc.
In Tantou town, there are people who specialize in making false evidence: find a few people to make some scenes, take some photos and send them to the immigration court in the United States.
Another way to get identity is to fake marriage with someone who already has a "green card".
In primary school, Li Mengting once witnessed an absurd "wedding". Her aunt divorced her husband and then married her uncle (that is, Li Mengting’s aunt).
In order to prove love, you need to prepare a lot of evidence. For example, a love letter, such as a statement of how the two sides met, knew each other and decided to get married.
They wore suits and wedding dresses and held a wedding in the hotel. Relatives are also dressed brightly. During the dinner, everyone drinks and chats, looking as usual and taking photos. Li Mengting pointed to his aunt and asked, "Should I call him uncle or aunt?" Everyone said she was stupid.
"I don’t understand, how can they drink well?" Later, she figured it out, because they are used to it, they are not the first fake wedding, and it is not the first time people have attended a fake wedding.
But no matter how many ways there are, only a few people finally get their identities.
According to the data of the US Department of Justice, from 2001 to 2005, the United States received more than 36,000 applications for political asylum from Chinese, only 5,259 of which were directly approved.
For a larger number of people who have neither got the status nor made a lot of money, it is impossible to go home.
Hometown is a contradictory existence for them.
Only in their hometown can their hard work overseas be fully affirmed. Returning home in clothes is the common goal of illegal immigrants.
A villager in Erliu village said that he went out for more than 20 years and didn’t get his identity. During the Lunar New Year, all his friends returned to China. He hid in the house alone and cried bitterly.
Lin Jie once asked Lin Wenfeng: We don’t want to go abroad. It doesn’t matter if you get a green card. Why don’t you go home?
Lin Wenfeng replied that for more than 20 years, he has long been used to life in the United States and can’t adapt to it when he returns to China. As a man, he didn’t make any money. In fact, he lost face. He might as well not go home instead of being looked down upon.
There are also China’s family members who want to go to the United States for reunion. However, the reality is that due to the local smuggling history of Changle for many years and the illegal detention of some people after entering the country, the pass rate of Changle people applying for visas to the United States is extremely low.
The wind of smuggling has not stopped.
Although I have seen so many discrete stories, the wind of smuggling in Changle has not stopped.
On a street next to the Municipal Public Security Bureau, there are several immigration consulting agencies and law firms.
On December 9th, in a store called "Sister Lihua Chinese Consultation", the waiter told Peeling Onions (WeChat ID: boyangcongpeople) that they can still take political asylum, and they are responsible for sending customers to the United States. After arriving in the United States, they will give customers the contact information of a lawyer, "He will take you to court and help you with the lawsuit. If the reason is sufficient, I can give you an identity 100%. "
Larger and more secret smuggling networks cannot be inquired through open channels. The phone of the snakehead only flows among acquaintances in the village.
The local snakehead in Changle, who has been in business for more than ten years, said that the local snakehead system is strict, with a middle snakehead on it and a big snakehead on it. The domestic economic situation is not good this year. Every month, they send several groups of people to the United States.
The snakehead said that according to the current market situation, they will charge 450,000 yuan for each illegal immigrant after successful smuggling, and no charge for unsuccessful smuggling.
In the past two years, they have taken more routes, from China to Mexico, and then sneaked into the United States from the border between Mexico and the United States. However, the United States is well aware of this and the inspection is stricter, so it does not rule out that it will change the entry route.
After the successful smuggling, it is the custom in the village to set off firecrackers at home and invite the Fujian Opera team to sing a play in the ancestral hall.
Whenever firecrackers sounded, everyone knew that another person had arrived. The destination.
People here still yearn for the "New World", but people in new york are looking forward to their return.
Recently, in a video with his father, Zheng Chenxi obviously felt that he was old, his forehead was a little bald, and he was slightly fat. He smiled and showed his double chin.
When she grew up, she once went back to her hometown and turned to her father’s letter from abroad. The words are very elegant and beautiful. It was mentioned in the letter that it took him a year and a half to sneak into the United States, and it was thrilling all the way. He also asked if his daughter could walk. There is affection between the sentences, and the promise must give the mother and daughter a good life.
At that moment, she finally forgave her father and reached a settlement with herself who had felt inferior for many years.
Her aunt got citizenship, and her father applied for a green card in the name of family reunion. He has been waiting in line for nine years and is still waiting for approval.
But Zheng Chenxi is more willing to imagine what will happen after he gets his identity. My father will return to China immediately, and when he comes back, the family will go sightseeing immediately. I haven’t been able to give each other company before, so I can make up as much as I can.
Lin Jie, 24, will still chew and imagine what it would be like if his father returned to China one day and his father and daughter met at the airport. She doesn’t know if she can call her father or how to call her exit.
She is going to get married next year. She is a Christian, and her dream wedding will be in the church, with the golden bell rocking and flowers laying on the floor. When the wedding March is played, she wears a white gauze and walks to the other end of the carpet, holding her father’s hand. In front of the altar, my father gave her hand to her husband, and they made a vow to spend their lives together.
But this time, as in the past 23 years, Lin Wenfeng is afraid to be absent again.
(Wen Wenfeng, Liu Mingda, Lin Jie and Zheng Chenxi are all pseudonyms)