On crossing borders, safety and a mother's love

Today’s Long View was going to be titled “Here Comes the Sun ⛅” – the children are on holiday, the days are longer, and it has been mercifully warm and sunny in Scotland.

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And then, yesterday, I got this WhatsApp from my mom:

Just to put this in perspective, my mother (a US and HK citizen, previously also a British subject and British passport holder) is advising me to enter the US – the country of my birth and first citizenship – on a British passport … because she’s worried I’ll be sent to an El Salvadoran prison. Or worse.

My mother knows that I have committed no crime. She knows that I’m an immigration lawyer, qualified to practice in both the US and the UK.

She worries, that would make no difference. 💔

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Initially, I brushed pass this exchange as a bit of folly – silly older person panic, too much MSNBC.

It is also “illegal” for a US citizen to enter or leave the country unless they are bearing a valid US passport. I have always thought this was a particularly stupid rule – and anyone who is a dual citizen and travels between their countries of citizenship will understand why.

Our family histories, hidden in plain sight

Even so, these messages made me think a bit harder about my mother. She was born in Macau, where her parents fled to seek safety during the WWII Japanese military occupation of Hong Kong.

And I thought about her husband, whose Jewish parents fled to the US from Eastern Europe, escaping the early days of the Hungarian Holocaust.

Both were born to families who fled their homes to escape war or persecution. At the time they were born, their parents were struggling to build a new life, in a new place, while their homelands of nationality were occupied under martial law.

It made me wonder what their parents were like. Their parents knew what it was like to live with freedom and privilege and to see that swept away in days, perhaps hours. They must have known profound fear.

I remember my grandmother as a distant, formidable and terrifying figure, and a total queen at the mahjong table🀄 – but was she also grieving, traumatised?

My mother has never really spoken to me about this. And I’m certain that my mother, at least, doesn’t identify as a “refugee”.

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A mother’s wisdom ❤️

And yet. Something about my mother’s lived experience – a memory, an instinct – drove her to give me this advice: keep your options open; travel on your safest passport.

And this made me revisit some other wisdom from the olds 👵🏼

Get a good education. They can take everything from you, but they can’t take your education.
Look after your family. You don’t have to like them, but it is your duty to look after each other.
Look after your health. Without your health, you have nothing.

I’m sure I bridled and fought against each of these lessons over the years. But this morning, with the sun on my face, and both history and future in mind, they seem wise and true.

Almost, urgent.

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Here’s where I’ve ended today: maybe it’s time to teach the kids how to play mahjong. 🀄

Maybe we watch the film Crazy Rich Asians while we’re at it.

Maybe the olds were wiser than I thought they were.

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And while we’re there, leaving you with this other wisdom from the olds:

Every day is a new day, and the sun always shines again ⛅

Thanks for reading The Long View again this week! I would love to hear your reflections, either on the challenge of living across a border from family and loved ones – or on a moment when you realised that your “olds” were wiser and stronger than you thought they could be.

First published on LinkedIn on 11 April 2025:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/crossing-borders-safety-mothers-love-jen-ang-mwawe