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Seeing the Why
By utnvmab, on 4 June 2019
Blog by: Eduarda Silva
The people at the Migration Museum have made it their mission to share and celebrate the rich migration stories that have shaped the UK. Today we were given the chance to play a small role in this. Our task was to find statistical data about emigration from the UK dating back to the 1600s. Sounds doable enough right? We are well equipped with 2 laptops and a fast internet connection, what could go wrong?
Well, for starters, every time we did a google search about emigration in the UK, Google promptly asked us if we meant immigration! I wish I could say things took a turn from there, but they didn’t. Although we were surprised to find a significant number of relatively detailed records, considering how long ago this was, of the passengers of a number of ships originating all around the UK with destinations all over the world, we could not find any real statistical data on emigration dating that further back. This task has shown us just how important the work the Migration Museum is doing, documenting the rich history of migration that has been overlooked and ignored for so long.
While we were pondering whether to give up or start our 10-year journey of sorting each passenger one by one, we were asked to stay at the reception welcoming guests for a while. I felt a bit intimidated as I did not feel my face was a good enough first impression for the amazing work that is Room to Breathe.
Arrivals – a room to begin. The first room of the Room to Breathe exposition. It represents the bureaucratic obstacles migrants face when moving to a new country. The first room in migrants see in their new country and the first room visitors see.
As the visitors exited the exhibition, I could tell that they felt the same way about the exhibition as I did. There were numerous Thank yous, but most importantly there was a smile, a nostalgic smile, a thankful smile, an empathetic smile and a hopeful smile. One woman even gave us her card, as she eagerly talked about her own project about the experiences of “hyphenated Canadians” and about the possibility of gifting a book to become a part of the exposition.
Seeing the reactions of those people to Room to Breathe took away all the frustration we were experiencing by not being able to complete the task. It was a powerful reminder of the Why we were doing it, and a reminder we were not doing it alone.
