A really nice read.
But, although the story itself is interesting, I am really not seeing why the fact that Theodor Trampler decided to go home instead of staying in New York ( or any other place for that matter)
As someone who comes from a nation which still has a large diaspora, ( as well as an ex-refugee and a few other things ) , I have met , and still meet on daily bases, quite a few people who go somewhere and then decide that although they might be poorer, they will still be happier going back to where they came from.
Besides that, on a personal level, I am one of the characters who ( due to various sets of circumstances) could have chosen to live in NEw YOrk, Paris , Brussels and a few other places, yet — despite the fact that I truly love NY ( three round trips making a total of some 19 to 20 months spent living there) — I always, always, chose to come back home. Although I knew very well that I could, literary, make in a year- what I will earn here in a lifetime… And I am not talking about the usual “stay under the radar and work underground” kind of a situation. I could have chosen to do it very legally and easily, green card, the citizenship after about 5–7 years… And afterwards a lifetime of functioning in a way which I really, really dislike.
There is this illusion ( which, I guess due to the current fashions is being propagated again, especially in the west) that people who move into one society actually want to stay there , bring their families, move off completely…. True some do. Others, not so much….
For one thing not every person on the planet believes that economic gains are the only reason for living, and that you need to be rich to be happy. And I suppose Trampler knew that very well when he decided it would be better off for him to go back than uproot his entire family…. Patrina ENgelke should be familiar with, for example, the Kosovar, Serbian or Macedonian diaspora in Germany… ( yes, yes… I know the image of Balkan Diaspora in some circles, but criminals, drug=-dealers and prostitutes are a very small minority among those who are simply hones, hard-working people) There are tens of thousands of people who have been living and working in Germany for decades now. Some have taken their families there and their children and grandchildren hardly know where their ancestors came from. Others, and these are a majority, never really moved there. Their families continue their lives at home while ( in most cases) the head of the family moves off to Germany where he spends , sometimes a few years, at others entire decades, working and sending whatever they make back home… their idea is not to leave their homes, or go and live in another society… they only want to improve the conditions of their families back home, afford better schools for their children, build a house …. somehow attempt to build a normal life. But none of them ( us) wants to move out completely…. And ( and this is the big one some of the westerners do not understand) Why would we????
I have seen more unhappy people, per capita, in NEw yOrk and London than in some of slummiest suburbs on Istanbul… It takes a certain type of egocentricity to start believing that someone society and way of life is sooo good that everyone wants to move there and live like that… IF anything, very few of the migrants from anywhere choose to migrate for any other reason than pure economy… and, given any possible choice, most of them would prefer not moving at all…
Yet the fact that an immigrant at some point decided to do what millions of other people have been doing forever, meaning , decide that there are much more important things in life than simply becoming rich, is surprising???? The only surprising thing about the story is that westerns haven't figured out some things yet… but, in order to do that, they actually have to sit down and talk to the migrants…. and that, I suppose, is not really OK- it is much better to simply assume what they want.
Trust me guys…. most of the migrants ( refugees, auslanders) you see every day , do not dream of becoming rich Americans ( or westerners in general) … but of a day when they will not have to leave their homes, their entire lives behind and move off to a place where most likely, even 5 generations down the road their great -grand children will be looked down upon. They do not want riches, giant buildings and wide boulevards, but a future in which their children are not hungry….