The move to California caused my grandparents to long for close relationships within their own family. According to history, Africans were abducted from their homelands and taken overseas to be used as slaves. Most were never to see their families again. Some Africans families were split between Africa and America, while the other families were split up through the auctioning off of slaves to different plantation owners in different states. Being of African descent, my grandparents did not want their children to feel as though they were being deprived of love from a family unit the way the slaves were. They felt as though it would make them depressed and feel as though they were involuntarily taken away from the people who loved them. Many families have family reunions in their hometowns. Since my grandparents were never capable of going back, they began to realize the importance of familial bonds. They felt as though family was the most important attribute in one’s life and it was imperative to keep it close. Olaudah Equiano was an eleven-year old slave boy who was kidnapped from Nigeria. Some years later in his autobiography, he wrote that “there are few events in my life that have not happened to many.”
My grandparents’ move was very similar to Equaino’s forced migration. The video above explains how Africans were forced from their homelands and their families. My grandmother's story is the closest to slavery. Her father was forced from the home that he created in Texas and had to start a new life for his family in a brand new place. The narrator in the video states that "at the core of slave society was the family." My great-grandfather understood this concept to the fullest. He made sure that his family stayed together and valued their bonds because he did not want his children to feel the way slaves did in the past. My grandparents' reasons for going out to California are rare to most people, but that is the main similarity that brought them together. Something as common as a traumatic past can easily contribute to the strengthening of bonds in the future.
My grandparents’ move was very similar to Equaino’s forced migration. The video above explains how Africans were forced from their homelands and their families. My grandmother's story is the closest to slavery. Her father was forced from the home that he created in Texas and had to start a new life for his family in a brand new place. The narrator in the video states that "at the core of slave society was the family." My great-grandfather understood this concept to the fullest. He made sure that his family stayed together and valued their bonds because he did not want his children to feel the way slaves did in the past. My grandparents' reasons for going out to California are rare to most people, but that is the main similarity that brought them together. Something as common as a traumatic past can easily contribute to the strengthening of bonds in the future.
