Monday 19 March 2012

Blog Post #3: Christmas Island Tragedy (Emily)


Christmas Island Tragedy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09DBPieeMHw



The devastating boat crash that occurred around Christmas time of 2010 is a perfect example of illegal boarder crossing. This story represents many aspects of human life, as this group of people were said to be from Iraq and Iran - notoriously war ridden countries. This shows the determination of seeking a better life and having to escape your own country to due many different things such as war and poverty. This story can represent Celia’s story, because like Celia, these people travelling on the boat were risking their lives for better living conditions. Not only were these people seeking better living conditions for themselves, but their families as well, as the majority of the people that were killed were children and infants.

During the process of crossing over to Christmas Island, the refugees were set up by a people smuggler to take a boat from Indonesia down to Christmas Island, where the asylum seekers ran into extreme conditions, with giant waves and massive rocks. This is the equivalent of Celia’s coyote, and her taking a big risk. When Celia was left by the coyote, her biggest fear was to get caught by the farm patrol before crossing, and having the entire plan ruined. For the refugees, getting caught in rough conditions in their un-seaworthy vessel was their fear, and the thing that would ruin their entire plan.
In the Chapter “Celia’s Story”, Celia gives a glimpse of her previous life in Aztlan. "As a girl, I went to work in a maquiladora- a factory-on the border. All day I sat on an assembly line and put tiny squares into tiny holes with a pair of tweezers. I thought I'd go blind!" (Farmer 141). Celia describes her struggles and how she found her life to be difficult, thus she created the plan to travel across the boarder to the Unites States. It can be inferred that she wished to have started a new life with better conditions, just as the refugees of the Christmas Island tragedy wished to be accepted into Australia to begin a new life with refugee status.

1 comment:

  1. I really liked your connections to the book in your post as they made the post make more sense. I also like the story about Christmas Island which was a sad but interesting story. Great job overall!

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