Perspective is everything when it comes to migrants

What is the difference between a refugee, immigrant, illegal immigrant, economic migrant, unemployed worker hoping to feed their family, illegal alien or someone who has been part of “human trafficking?”

I would suggest it is all in the perspective of who is making the determination. The reality, however, is  they are all probably a lot closer to the same thing than anyone cares to admit.

I started thinking about this the other day upon hearing that somewhere from 750 to perhaps as many as 1,000 people may have been aboard a boat that was heading from Libya to presumably Italy when it capsized. Nearly everyone perished. A few hundred died just a few days before in a similar mishap. The Mediterranean is being filled with corpses of people literally dying to get from strife-torn Africa to Europe, presumably for a better life.

Depending on how you look at it, I may be the progeny of what some people might have called one of those terms above.

My family history is a bit sketchy on this, so I apologize if it’s not perfect. It’s my understanding that my great-grandfather, Phillip Marnovich, was a captain in the Austrian army. He and his family were emigrating to Canada. When this happened, I don’t know. It may have been before or after the Great War, when Canada and Austria-Hungary were at war. Apparently someone figured out he was in the military, and they were not going to let him onto the ship. He had to bribe his way aboard. This leads me to suspect he might still have been serving at the time, and thus could have been a deserter from the army. If he was a deserter, then presumably he could have been shot if caught. They did that quite a bit at the time. I don’t know for sure, but it makes that bribe make a lot of sense, doesn’t it?

Whatever happened, he did get on board, came to Canada, and eventually had 13 children, the youngest of whom was my grandfather, Ed.

My point with this is some people, in today’s age, might have said this was a case of “human trafficking.” Others would say he might have been an economic migrant. Possibly he was a deserter from the Austrian army. During the Great War Canada interned many “enemy aliens” who had originated from Austria-Hungary (including thousands of Ukrainians who had come from lands that were under Austrian rule), so maybe he was an enemy alien. Depending on the time frame, maybe he might have been considered that, too.

I would guess he would have considered himself someone looking for a better place to live.

Would the people who crewed that ship, maybe the ones that took the bribe, be considered “human traffickers?”

Look at this hypothetical scenario: Joe is from Sydney, N.S. He can’t find work and is desperate to feed his family, so he gets on a bus, pays his fare and goes to a place he’s never been before to find work — Fort McMurray. José is from Guadalajara, Mexico. He can’t find work and is desperate to feed his family, so he pays a “coyote” (a.k.a. smuggler or human trafficker) to transport him to and across the U.S. border at the Rio Grande to find work in a place he’s never been before — Los Angeles, Calif.

What’s the difference? One is considered legit, and one is human smuggling, illegal immigration and taking jobs from the locals. Yet fundamentally, they are the exact same exercise.

The Mexican migrant may have had a lot in common with my own great-grandfather, willing to do whatever it takes, possibly at the risk of his own life, to get out of his current predicament and go someplace better. This is also likely not much different from the hundreds who died when that boat capsized.

From smug perches in safe societies, we often look down on these people with pity, and in many cases, loathing. But we should remember this, in Canada, unless you are a First Nation person, you or your ancestors may have come here in less than ideal circumstances, too.