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Fieldwork Eastern Pennsylvania Day 3


Like on Day 2, Marseille loomed large as a site of onward migration on Day 3 of interviews in eastern Pennsylvania. This time Marseille was the setting for a family with seven children from Pergamos to board a ship to the United States. The ship arrived but with only one seat available, and the family decided to send the children’s uncle. They never saw him again. The family waited another 3 weeks for a second ship to arrive, but it never did, and with seven children, provisions were quickly dwindling. The family decided to migrate to Morocco instead and farmed tobacco on land granted to them by the French government. Thus, another facet of migration emerges in this interview, migrants who intend to travel to one destination but are forced to divert to another due to financial strain during migration.