The View from the Top Deck

Retirement was supposed to bring peace.

After twenty-five years as a deputy sheriff, including one year as a sergeant, I thought stepping away from the badge would quiet my mind. Instead, it did the opposite.

A few weeks after retiring, I boarded a seven-day Western Caribbean cruise, hoping to celebrate a new chapter of life. But on the third night, sleep would not come. My mind kept returning to the scenes I had carried for decades: bodies lost to age, illness, homicide, and suicide; women who had suffered violence from the people who claimed to love them; children harmed by those entrusted to protect them.

Those memories do not disappear when the uniform comes off.

Overwhelmed, I left my cabin and went to the ship’s top deck. The Caribbean breeze was warm, and the sound of the waves against the hull was calming. Standing in the darkness, I looked out at the vast ocean and thought about how small the ship seemed against it.

Then another thought came to me.

How desperate must someone be to climb into a small boat with no motor, little food, and only hope, and try to reach Miami?

My first reaction was simple: I would never do that.

But then I stopped myself.

Who am I to judge?

I have never lived their reality. For many people, staying home means poverty, violence, corruption, or no future at all. Leaving is not always a choice made lightly. Sometimes it is an act of desperation, driven by love for family and the hope of survival.

That night, I thought about my father.

Years before he passed away, he told me how, as a young man in Haiti, he struggled to provide for his growing family. Opportunities were scarce, but through a connection he found work with Carnival Cruise Line, the same line whose ship I now stood on as a guest.

He began in the kitchen, washing dishes and doing whatever work was needed. On his days off, he bused tables and bartended to earn extra money for the family waiting back home. He worked hard, often to exhaustion.

Then, after a fourteen-hour shift, he fell asleep on the job. A coworker reported him, and when the ship reached Miami, he was fired, escorted off the vessel, and sent back to Haiti.

Back home, he went to work in the family restaurant, Chez Yvonne, but the money was not enough to support his wife and sixteen children. Still, he kept going.

Then came a second chance. A nephew my father had helped get a job with Carnival spoke up for him and told management he was a good, dependable worker. A month later, my father received a letter and an airline ticket to rejoin the ship in Los Angeles.

That opportunity changed everything.

He spent three more years working aboard the ship before making the difficult decision to leave cruise life behind and settle in Miami in the early 1980s. For a time, he lived as an undocumented immigrant.

Today, some would reduce a man like that to a label. They would call him illegal, undeserving, or worse.

But I knew who he was.

He was a man trying to work. A man trying to survive. A man trying to give his children a better life than the one he had. Because of his sacrifice, that dream became real.

Today, my siblings and I are proud Americans. Most of us are naturalized citizens. We have built careers, raised families, and contributed to our communities. I spent twenty-five years serving this country in law enforcement, and my brothers and sisters have built successful lives of their own.

Our American dream was not handed to us.

It was earned through sacrifice, hard work, perseverance, and faith.

My years in law enforcement showed me humanity at its worst. I saw cruelty, violence, and suffering up close. But they also taught me something important: you cannot judge an entire group of people by the actions of a few.

Immigrants are no different.

Yes, every nation has the right to secure its borders and enforce its laws. Public safety matters. But behind every immigration debate is a human story. Many people leave home not because they want to, but because they feel they have no other choice. They flee violence, corruption, failed governments, and impossible conditions.

Most are not looking for shortcuts.

They are looking for hope.

As I stood on that cruise ship’s top deck, looking out over the same waters my father had crossed decades earlier, I understood something more clearly than ever.

The ocean does not care where you were born. It does not care what language you speak or what passport you carry. It reminds us how small we are, and how connected our stories can be.

The next time you see an immigrant, remember that you may be seeing only one chapter of a much larger story.

Before judgment, choose curiosity.

Before condemnation, choose compassion.

Because sometimes, the person in front of you is simply a father or mother trying to give their children a chance at a better life.

Mine was.

By Guerrier Aluc, MCJ

Culture509