In this tender video by Audrey Yeo, the narrator tracks the difference between her life and the life of her “brother.” They’ve never met, but she sees signs of him everywhere, the traces left behind by a migrant worker we hardly notice and more rarely think of.
Their lives irreparably diverge after the same declaration of love exchanged between them and their respective partners. But for him, “I love you so much” is followed by, “but I will go.”
In the U.S. alone, it’s estimated there are between 1 million and 3 million workers who leave their families in search of incomes sent home to sustain them. Worldwide, that number is around 232 million.
Largely invisible to the people in the countries, fields, and cities in which they work, migrant workers quietly toil at the countless unheralded jobs that must be done in order to keep our worlds running smoothly. Our thanks, hypothetically, is in their pay, but they don’t get paid much. It’s an extraordinarily hard and disconnected way to live.
