What makes a husband and wife, father and mother, wrap up their two year-old daughter and one year-old son and attempt to cross the St. Lawrence River in the dead of winter in order to get to the United States?
Desperation I’d suggest.
Eight people were recently found dead along the shoreline of the Akwasasne reserve that straddles the Ontario-Quebec-New York border, some of them children. These people represented two families, one from India and the other from Romania. It was only a year or so ago that another young Indian family froze to death as they got disoriented in a winter storm while trying to cross into the U.S. at the Manitoba border. Leading your family into danger and then not leading them back out is absolutely heart-breaking.
The Romanian family were made up of father Florin Iordache, mother Christina Mona Lisa Iordache, their daughter Evelin and son Elyen. All lost in the dark in terrible weather on the turbulent waters of a mighty river, all found dead the next day in different locations.
Their desperate attempt to illegally enter the United States was the culmination of an unsuccessful application for refugee status in Canada. In fact, just two days prior, Iordache had been informed that he and his wife were to be deported (the children were born in Canada and are therefore Canadian citizens. Sorry, were Canadian citizens) back to Romania.
Here’s the thing.
The Iordache family identified as being Romani, or Roma, more commonly known as gypsies, although the latter term is considered pejorative and negatively stereotypical. The Romani, as a people, have experienced persecution on a significant scale throughout history and it continues to this day, in some places worse than others. And in Europe, the greatest degree of persecution appears to take place in Romania where Romani make up some 8% of the population. It was this persecution that the Iordache family was trying to flee, and being sent back to Romania was obviously considered to be something so bad that they felt it was worth the risk to dash across the St. Lawrence to get to the States where the father had family.
There is an attitude among many Canadian immigration officials that it’s an impossibility to be considered a refugee from a nation that is democratic and a member of the European Union and NATO. So any refugee applications from countries like Romania are deemed illegitimate right off the bat. Again, who flees a democracy?
There is no nation in the world that can claim to be free of racist attitudes, and Canada, along with Romania, is no different. The Romani have experienced racism for centuries because they’re different in terms of language, appearance, clothing, customs, food, culture, and of course, those travelling caravans.
This family made a terrible choice, a fatal choice. To them I guess it must have looked like it was worth the risk. To the rest of us it would seem that nothing would be worth such a risk. I’ve not walked in Romani shoes, but I would think they’d have a somewhat different world-view as a result of their history. Over a million were rounded up by the Nazis and murdered, so having an event like that in the rear-view mirror of life would likely have some sort of impact on Romani psychology.
This is a tragedy that didn’t need to happen. Yes, Iordache shoulders his share of blame. In his culture he was the protector of his family and he failed. But a government attitude that certain people from certain countries can’t be regarded as refugees is not a good look either.
The family felt a return to Romania would be a return to systemic racism and persecution, and anyone who has travelled to Eastern Europe would recognize it. Are racism and persecution not things that a person is entitled to “run” from?
Talk to Harriet Tubman, she’ll tell you.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 