Diaspora’s Struggle to Belong Home and Away

I met Madiop, a Massachusetts resident who moved from Senegal in 2007, at a cafe and bar in downtown Amherst. Married to an American with whom he fell in love and wed in 2005 in Senegal, they moved to the United States two years later. For their wedding, he bought four handcrafted chairs, a gift worthy of their new home and matrimony. When they moved, the chairs moved with them, costing more than they had paid for their airfare and arriving three months later. To me, a great representation and memento from home. When I asked Madiop what he expected when he decided to move compared to his current reality, he told me:

A lot of things you see on TV are not right. People are poor. You live in Africa, and on TV, they show things that are nice . They don’t show you real life, like the ghetto or places where people are homeless and things like that. I see a lot of people thinking this is better, but they come here disappointed. Most of them have good jobs at home; they’re lawyers, or they’re doctors, and they come here, working at restaurants, things like that. But there’s a mindset that here is a better life.