Throughout human history, groups of people have moved (McAdams, Josselson, & Lieblich, 2001). Because people are deeply emplaced beings, movement can invoke unfamiliarity and the disruption of taken-for-granted social supports, community ties, cultural values, daily practices and meanings that are central to personhood (Hodgetts, Drew et al., 2010; Sonn, 2002). Immigration often ―…involves leaving one domain in which identity has been enacted and supported, and coming to a new domain in which identity must be resituated and often redefined‖ (Deaux, 2000, p. 429). Adjustments to life in a new country can be especially difficult for older immigrants because members of this group often become socially isolated (Wilmoth & Chen, 2003). Nevertheless, people are not passive in the migration process. They adapt and respond to disruptions by working to establish daily routines, and a sense of normality, stability and predictability (Graham & Connell, 2006). Through gardening and art-making, for example, migrants often work to restore their lives by shifting their focus from negative disruption to positive developments in a new setting (McAdams & Bowman, 2001).
Participant accounts of social events in China not only help them to recall their past lives, but also to articulate their present situations, sense of loss, and the need for new connections in their lives. I consider older Chinese migrants‘ efforts to cultivate a new place-based identity in New Zealand. This involves an attempt to make a place for one‘s self, in particular within gardens, and subsequently to venture out and make links with the local community. I will show that gardening is a shared practice recognised by many members of the host community and a contact zone or common ground for crossing cultural boundaries.
The idea of biographical disruption, introduced by Bury (1982) in a discussion of rheumatoid arthritis, has become a pivotal concept in research of health and immigration (Meares, 2007). Bury maintains that illness, in particular chronic illness, can disrupt the structure of everyday life and the forms of knowledge which underpin them. Migration can have similar disruptive effects, but it can also encourage people to rethink their lives and futures (Graham & Connell, 2006). Chan‘s extract typifies the participants‘ accounts of an embedded and socially connected life in China that has changed as a result of migrating to New Zealand. A plot line evident across participants is the loss of social ties, experiences of loneliness, and a desire for reconnection with others:
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I was a member of the Choir in our Retired People’s Activity Centre [in
China]. The relationship among members was just so nice. Before I left for
New Zealand we gathered in my home. We danced, we sang… I really felt my home was over there in China. I should live over there. (Chan took out a
handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her tears away.) … We lived happily
in China. My daughter and my son-in-law had very decent jobs with good salaries. (Chan pointed to a photo hanging on the wall) Look, how happy we were in China. We will never have such happy lives here… I am now sentenced in two-year immigration jail… I am very lonely. Life is very boring. I’ve become blind, mute and deaf. I do not know who I am. I have been here for four months now. I have no social life other than going to English classes for two months. I do not understand when people talk to me. I do not understand when I watch TV.
In New Zealand, the first Returning Resident Visa is issued to the person at the time he or she is issued a residence visa or permit. This visa is valid for two years from the date the first residence permit is granted. An immigrant is not eligible for an Indefinite Returning Resident Visa (enabling multiple trips in and out of New Zealand indefinitely) until he or she has held a residence visa or permit for a time which is a minimum of two years before he or she applies for the Indefinite Returning Resident Visa (Immigration New Zealand, 2005). The period of two-year residency is where Chan‘s metaphor of immigration jail derives from. Apart from the fact of being imprisoned by the immigration policy, disruption of language ability and social network make the participant a ―prisoner of space‖ (Piro, Noss, & Clausse, 2006, p. 626), which is socially and culturally determined and maintained.
Although a majority of my participants were highly educated professionals, immigrating to an English-speaking country resulted in a disruption of daily activities and social networks. Socio-spatial imprisonment puts them at a disadvantage relating to other residents in communities where the range of personal support network has expanded beyond localised neighbourhood (Fitzpatrick & Gory, 2000). Wei stated:
In the first three months [after my arrival in New Zealand], I stayed home by myself most of the time. I felt very bored and lonely. The house was dead
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quiet except the sound of the ticking clock. I had nobody to talk to. I sat in the living room alone, counting the ticking of the clock. I thought to myself, although New Zealand was very beautiful, I was too lonely and too isolated. I lost myself.
Living in a new country where the language is not one‘s first language impinges on an immigrant‘s life. The speaker has to fashion the new language into a pedagogical tool, and must achieve mastery in a displaced context (Gunew, 2003). The symbolic order of Chinese language is completely lost in English. The loss of language leaves Wei with an empty space. Wei is lonely and isolated, and experiences a vacated self in her claim that she lost herself. Hoffman (1999) eloquently expresses this loss of self in her work The New Nomads. ―For a while, like so many immigrants, I was in effect without language, and from the bleakness of that condition, I understood how much of our inner existence, our sense of self, depends on having a living speech within us‖ (p.48). For migrants, the loss of an internal language can result in their feeling alienated from themselves.
Several participants used metaphors such as ―feeling imprisoned by language barriers‖, ―social blindness, muteness and deafness‖ to describe the biographical disruption associated with moving to a country dominated by a language different to one‘s own. The phenomenon of ―prisoner of space‖ indicates that language problems have severely limited the participants‘ ability to communicate with non-Chinese neighbours, and restricted their participation in social activities (Gunew, 2003). They experience feelings of being fundamentally out of place, alone and socially isolated. In order to regain connectivity with their environment, many participants had enrolled in English language classes and, as I will show, created personal spaces in the garden.
Apart from language barriers, the loss of social status is another issue that my participants frequently raised in the interviews. Compared to their being professionals in China, the participants‘ socioeconomic status as beneficiaries in New Zealand suggests a psychological phenomenon of status-discrepancy.
Sana (2005) asserts that immigrants typically face a decline in socioeconomic status upon arrival in a new country. This decline takes place at various levels. At least initially, as Sana suggests, even those with university degrees are likely to take jobs that do not match their levels of skill. In addition, their
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earnings are lower than they would be if they were proficient in English. Moreover, immigrants lose their citizenship status and sense of membership in the larger society. Research has revealed that older migrants are more likely to experience such status-discrepancies (Auslander, Soskolne, & Ben-Shahar, 2005) that may impact on their health and wellbeing (Roccas, Horenczyk, & Schwartz, 2000). Sheng‘s account paints a picture of status-discrepancy:
A majority [of older Chinese immigrants] were high-level intellectuals. They are hidden dragons and crouching tigers in New Zealand. I was a chief surgeon in China but now I am a beneficiary in New Zealand. She (Sheng‘s
wife) was a senior teacher. But in New Zealand we are the poor. We are
nobody here.
In Sheng‘s extract, the primary issue is one of shifting from a professional status to that of a beneficiary. Sheng perceives that he had lost and would probably never obtain the same social status he possessed in China. He felt disappointed and frustrated, claiming that ―we are nobody here.‖ Sheng‘s status-discrepancy is derived from social interactions. The metaphor of ―hidden dragon and crouching tigers‖—a chief surgeon becoming a beneficiary—grows out of the ways in which he interacted with others as a chief surgeon in China and a beneficiary in New Zealand. Sheng feels disruption between the old self (the professional) and the new self (the beneficiary and ageing immigrant). In this sense, migration has caused a disjuncture in Sheng‘s biography.
Sheng appears to have had a difficult transition to becoming a retired person. He may have found this transition difficult in China as well. However, the transition is more challenging for him as a migrant in New Zealand. If he had stayed in China, Sheng would have been recognised and acknowledged by the people in his social networks. He would more frequently have been treated and felt like a citizen with high socioeconomic status. Such high socioeconomic status is likely to make the transition for Sheng more difficult than it is for the other Chinese migrants in this study. The participants who had more modest jobs or roles prior to retirement may experience less stress and self discrepancy in their efforts to adapt to a loss of employment status and a retired life.
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In the next section, I demonstrate how bringing the past to the fore informs the present and provides insights into migration experiences. In a sense, just standing in the garden talking to the researcher enables the participants to articulate key transition and migration experiences (cf., Morton, 2007). Participants can wave their hands, point to Chinese melons and convey their concerns. I would say that vegetable beds can function as memory beds, particularly when they contain seeds from China. Vegetable beds index another place and time into the present and materialize memories (cf., Morton, 2007). Thus, the roots of a garden spread out through time and space providing grafts between the past, present and future.