Uprootings and Regroundings

This past week in class we went over Sara Ahmed’s “Introduction: Uprootings/Regroundings: Questions of Home and Migration” and deconstructed it to understand how it fits in with our assigned characters in The Warmth of Other Suns. We talked about the phrases “here” and “there”. We figured out that the “here” that Ahmed is referring to is categorized with the “uproot” term and that “there” is categorized with “reground”. Along with understanding the terminology we started going more in depth and understood the reasons why one would “uproot” themselves and then “reground” themselves in a different place. In specifics to our class we used the characters from The Warmth of Other Suns. For this we also became familiar with the terms “push” and “pull” factors, some of the examples we found that corresponded with our characters were jobs, education, “freedom” and other opportunities that linked in with labor and economic. During the time of The Great Migration it was very popular for people to have this heaven like picture in their head about the North or out West. Although it was a better place for the Blacks to be at the time, many did not think of the struggle that many of them had to go through for finding jobs and also how they still experienced racism even in the north. Ida Mae tells her story of how her and her husband George had to constantly bounce around looking for jobs and everything felt so temporary. One job that she had was a cleaning job and when she found there was nothing to clean the man that was in charge of her that day told her to get in bed with her and that is what the other cleaning lady did with him. Although the man backed off when she refused these were some conditions that they may have not been prepared for when they fled the hellish south, and this was not in their expectations when they had to uproot and then reground in a completely new place. However, even though there were times like this in the north the response from those who had migrated were very positive. The asked the migrants different questions about their migrations, in specifics one questions asked “In what respects is life harder or easier here [Chicago] than in the south?” (349). All of them answered easier except one person who said it was harder because of the increased cost of living which is understandable. In the last question that they asked migrants “Are you advising your friends to come to Chicago?” (350) and one person answered with “Wish all the colored folks would come up here where you ain’t afraid to breathe”(350). I think this answer was very telling of the process of “uprooting” and then “regrounding” because although the process is very difficult and has its ups and downs it proved to be very much worth it in the end for the Blacks at this time.