Member-only story
The experience of being an illegal migrant in America — part one
The story begins in 1992.
Back then, 25 years old, I was obsessed with America. I had been reared in the bleak and grey environment of Saughton Mains — a housing scheme (project) in Edinburgh, Scotland — in the mid to late 1970s.
My cultural diet growing up there was dominated by a variety of Hollywood movies and TV shows. Star Wars, Jaws, The French Connection were stand outs when it came to those movies, whilst Starsky and Hutch, Kojak, The Rockford Files, Columbo, and then on into the 1980s it had been Dallas, Hill Street Blues, LA Law, and so on, were regular features on the television that my parents rented at the time.
Venice Beach, Los Angeles, was where I first found out that life did not have to be an exercise in misery and low expectations. I remember, vividly, the guy who used to roller skate up and down the boardwalk, playing an electric guitar and singing badly. He was decked out in the colours and dress of a proud Jamaican and looked like a giant Q-tip. He is no doubt dead now.
Then there were the scratch basketball games. I would sit in the bleachers and watch in wonder as the young guys playing, mostly but not exclusively black, express themselves on that court with the desire to find meaning in a world determined to render meaning…
