Robert Foster's Uprootings and Regroundings

In Uprootings/Regroundings: Questions of Home and Migration, Sara Ahmed offers us a question. She writes, “How are uprootings and regroundings embodied and imagined in relation to immigration laws, border police, socio-economic equalities and prejudice” (Ahmed, 5). Ahmed challenges readers to really consider the many different factors that play a part in migration. While reading about Robert Foster’s experiences with migration in the Warmth of Other Suns, it is almost impossible not to recognize the way that different factors that Ahmed points out played a part in Robert’s migration.

Robert’s class was a huge influence on his ability to migrate. He went to college like his parents before him at a time when this was almost unheard of, so the opportunity for upward mobility was available to him. Robert’s privilege also served as a push factor. He was ambitious and educated. Isabel Wilkerson describes this when describing Robert: “To make matters worse, he had the misfortune of having developed exquisite taste and what little he was exposed to only fed his ambitions” (Wilkerson, 86). When Robert became a doctor, but couldn’t practice medicine properly because of the color of his skin, he was only pushed further. Robert was pulled to the idea of California to escape a large majority of the prejudice, the ability to practice medicine, and to ultimately make a better life.

Prejudice is the major factor that played an intricate part in Robert’s migration. Robert was still subjected to the racism and prejudice that occurred at the time. He was even subjected to prejudice from people who shared his race because of his class and education! Not only did Robert face prejudice before his migration, but he had experiences with racism once he passed, what he thought, was where Jim Crow laws ended in El Paso. After driving for what seemed like forever, he couldn’t find somewhere to rest his head because the motels discriminated against him. Later, he was rejected by a patient because she didn’t want a “nigger” to practice on her. These experiences were hard on Robert and caused him to have doubts about his migration. “Here” for Robert was Louisiana and “There” was California. What happens if “There” isn’t all that you make it to be?

Sara Ahmed also urges readers to think deeply about what “Here” and “There” mean when she writes, “Though we recognize the importance of the task of specifying experiences of migration themselves, we also seek to escape the immediacy of location as a discrete entity and to blur the distinction between here and there” (Ahmed, 4). Robert’s dreamer mentality caused him to build up his expectations for life away from “here.” Wilkerson writes, “His own words rose up and laughed at him. How in the world can you stay here in this Jim Crow situation? Come go to Heaven with me, to California” (Wilkerson, 210). Is California, “there,” even a solution? Robert was taken back to Louisiana, physically and mentally, when he visited home and realized that because of his migration, his well-known and respected name, Foster, was unheard of. After his visit, part of Robert remains “here,” which Wilkerson describes: “Robert returned to L.A. and again tried to put Monroe behind him. He would never fully be able to” (Wilkerson, 443).

Sara Ahmed’s Uprootings/Regroundings helps us to better understand the accounts Sara Wilkerson gives us during the Great Migration. We can see the necessity in recognizing the part intersectionality plays in different experiences with migration. Although I only studied Robert’s story closely, Ahmed’s writings can be applied to all accounts.