RP3: You've Written a First Draft to a Complex Essay Rewritten

Imagination. Imagined. Real. My relationship to my home in Greece. Greece is where my family comes from. Greece is the land of crystal clear water, turquoise blue skies, and the blazing sun. When I close my eyes and imagine Greece I hear the birds chirping. I hear the beautiful language flowing from the mouths of those who sit beach side at the café drinking their morning coffee. I hear the crashing of the waves on the rocky beach shore. I see motorcycles parked everywhere. I see lights twinkling and I smell seafood wafting out of the local restaurants. My relationship to my home in Greece is amicable. Greece provides a sense of comfort for me. It provides a sense of culture: the dangerous word. For me, my culture in Greece is associated with tradition. There is my Greek Orthodox faith, there is traditional Greek dancing, and there is more: mythology, history, song, costume, language. They all mix together. But I realize this assumption of the meaning of culture is dangerous. Treading on deep waters now. So I go on to Bloomfield Hills. What  is my relationship with my home North of Detroit? Bloomfield Hills is simply my home because my family is there. Wherever my family is, is where my home is. My family is my heart, my strength, and my love. My home in Bloomfield Hills contains old Greek tradition and new tradition. Tradition helps us survive and is modified with us. I have a relationship with my mom, my dad, my two brothers and my sister at home. They draw me back to that boring town. I always feel connected by love though. That love is a red string that connects my heart to theirs. It follows me everywhere I go, whether Imagined or Real.

            Imagination. Imagined. Real. She has taught me to forget guilt; she told me to move beyond it to describe my relationships. She says I have no option. My relationship with this land then? Only that it hosts me. Especially after watching Enrique and Rosa moving from having a home, to a place that was a death trap, to a country that gave them a stepping stone to the north, and finally to the north that simply hosted them. A place that Rosa at her death didn’t even want to call home. Enrique and Rosa moved across borders: geographical, colonized, and ancient borders. They moved. They were displaced. They experienced diaspora. According to Parreñas and Siu, diaspora is an ongoing and contested process of subject formation embedded in a set of cultural and social relations that are sustained simultaneously with the “homeland” (real or imagined), place of residence, and compatriots or coethnics dispersed elsewhere. According to Parreñas and Siu, diaspora is the simultaneous experience of alienation and the maintenance of affiliation to both the country of residence and the homeland. According to Parreñas and Siu, diaspora is the sense of collective consciousness and connectivity with other people displaced from the homeland across the diasporic terrain. Rosa and Enrique immigrated. Just like my Papou (grandpa) did. Just like a lot of current “Americans” did. Do other people feel guilty about colonization too then? Moving from another place and colonizing? I guess to move away from it, you should harbor respect. Respect and acknowledgement. Respect for those that were affected by diaspora, colonization. Respect should describe your relationships. It should describe your relationships with people, with your home real or imagined, and with the land that hosts you. Respect and Acknowledge.