HATE AS FLATTERY

Dear reader,

The time is here, the time I had been waiting for. No, I haven’t gotten my papers, or my interview. Nope, I haven’t heard anything from INS yet, another moment in my life has arrived that I have been waiting for. My first angry, hateful comment was posted yesterday. Woot! Woo hoo!

I ain’t gonna lie; I find it extremely flattering that my writing angered someone enough to spew the little bit of hate he did on my comment section. I have been writing this blog on and off for so long I thought all I was going to get was positive comments from the three strangers that are not family members that read my blog. I was a bit disappointed, I must admit, because I’m supposed to be writing about a controversial topic after all. I mean there is nothing like gun control, abortion, homosexuality, taxes and immigration to get people riled up in this country. So when I started the blog, I thought I was for sure going to get some hateful emails, insulting racist comments, etc. To my surprise all I got was support, from those I know and from those I don’t know. One time even a pastor made a positive comment about my writing and all I could do was blush thinking of all the times I had cursed in that post or said the Lord’s name in vain. I also had someone ask me for permission to use my words and lyrics since he was music major.

But, as they say in show business, good publicity, bad publicity is all publicity; the moment finally came when someone said something hateful. I, of course appreciate so much more those readers who have said they feel like I am telling their story, the reader who said I made him/her cry, the reader who wished me luck and those who praise my writing. But there is something so damn satisfactory about knowing that somewhere, someone’s blood is boiling because something I said. The written word is so powerful and I couldn’t help but grin like a fool when I read the comment I got today.

“Fuck all spic wetback bean eating fuckers yours truly Michael”

Dear, sweet Michael who is not familiar with a pesky thing like punctuation.

So, in honor of my first hate comment I have this to say to Michael, wherever he is:

Michael, I respect your use of the word fuck, I myself use it profusely as a verb, slang and adjective. I have never understood what the word spic is and I have yet to find it offensive. Probably because I didn’t hear it until a couple of years ago, but that word holds no power over me. Nice try though.

Wetback is another word that I am not completely sure if it applies to me or not. Is it just applied to Mexicans who cross the Rio Grande? Are their backs wet because of the wet river or because of sweat after the dusty trail crossing? Maybe is applied to all immigrants regardless of their nationality and way of arrival to this country? (Mental note to research this further). In either case it doesn’t apply to me because I came via American Airlines Caracas-Miami and even if I had been brave enough to cross the Rio Grande I am sure I wouldn’t be wet all the way to my back because I think it the river is now mostly dry, and if it’s wet from the heat then that doesn’t apply to me either because even with the most strenuous cardio I do not sweat, I glisten. It’s very pretty, all rosy cheeked and shinny.

Bean eaters…again, how is that offensive? Beans are delicious! Black, red, pinto, all kinds, and they are an amazing source of protein for a vegetarian like me. I am a bean eater… I love beans…damn, now I’m thinking I should have a shirt made that said “Bean eater fucker” except the writer in me couldn’t live with that poorly structured sentence emblazoned on a shirt.

Fucker…yeah I am a fucker, I love fucking, fucker, fuck, fuck, fuck…so I guess that makes me a fucker….You are right, Michael. I am a fucker.

Now that I deconstructed the “insult” I am feeling kinda depressed, what kind of haters am I attracting? Maybe I am a two bit blogger since I had to wait so long for my first hate post and it was so lame.

Come on Michael, you can do better than that. I dare you.

I showed Dear Husband the comment when we were out today, shopping for food before dinner, I couldn’t stop laughing and smiling. Maybe I have inappropriate reactions to meanness, maybe I shouldn’t be as happy that someone out there feels this way, but it is so silly, so aimless, so ignorant and half assed a comment that really all I could do was smile, smile because somewhere, someone read my post and stewed enough about what a said that he had to say something, and positive or negative, even if he hates me and everything I represent, the fact is he commented, he “lead with the chin” as Sadie from All The King’s Men did. He showed his weakness and in doing so he made my day and gave me the power.

Thank you, Michael and happy holidays to you.

HIS LIFE AS AN UNDOCUMMENTED IMMINIGRANT

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life-as-an-undocumented-immigrant.html

It has been a while since I wrote. I haven’t had much more to add, my immigration woes remain the same.

I read this article however and had to re-post, just in case there is someone out there, someone of my handful of followers who hasn’t read it yet.

I was so humbled by the story I practically have no words. I was so lucky to come here and be surrounded with friends and family. But I know how it feels to live in secret; I know how it feels to carry that burden, that shame, as if you had done something wrong. That’s what we all feel, a type of shame, an apologetic fear. This overwhelming sense of having made the wrong turn somewhere and somehow there was a solution that we missed and this is all our fault.

Mr. J.A. Vargas was so brave I am in awe. And I think it speaks of how trapped he felt by his lies, how oppressing that feeling of not belonging can be that he risked everything he had ever worked for in order to escape that cage he trapped himself into.

“I contribute” He says. I wonder how many times I have said the same thing on my blog. Does it matter anymore if we contribute or not? Do our faces matter? Do our dreams? Our skills, our abilities? I don’t think they do matter.

I felt so close to him, this complete stranger who has spent his entire life leading a double life. His pains, his fears, his dreams, his sense of loss is so familiar it makes me want to cry for him and for myself. Mostly for him, for even though he had his Lolo and Lola and the amazing network of people he spoke of, he was ultimately alone in his deceptions.

We are all in the same situation, brought here at as toddlers, or teenagers and suddenly there is nothing here but uncertainty, there is no secure future, all we left behind was for nothing because the future holds nothing but more rejection.

And then what? How do we change it? Where do we go? Back to a country where we don’t feel we belong? After years of being here and building a life, making friends, falling in love, living…what do we do with it? Do we pretend the past decade, or in his case the past 18 years didn’t happen? Do we pick up our life as if was nothing to go back to a place that we no longer recognize and no longer recognizes us? We are all alone and landless, homeless, without a place to claim or that will claim us.

I wonder what the future holds for him, for me, for all of us.

What a loss for this country if he were to leave it.

D DAY

We went to our lawyer again. I was never expecting any good news since I have never received good news from the man who has been my lawyer for eight years and yet I still get tired of the bad news heaped on me every time I see him. I almost want to sit on his office and put my hands to my ears and go “lalalalalalalalala” and avoid listening to what he has to say. But I can’t so I sit there and get ear raped with his words every time I go.

To summarize what he said, there is nothing to do but wait. He wasn’t joking when he said that the office of the WPB branch, where my case now rests, was a difficult one. He gave us three choices: (1) wait and see when they will feel like giving me an interview; (2) sue them for taking longer than the law allows them reviewing my case and giving me an interview or (3) re-file my I-130 with the Miami office which is apparently faster and more efficient.

He also said that if we sued we would win the case and get an interview and then I would lose any hope of remaining here because out of spite they would deny the request. My other choice of filing the paperwork again at the other office is not a choice really since it would entail us coughing up another $5,000 and losing the $5,000 we already spent on having the case in West Palm Beach.

In other words we really have no other choice but to wait. To see and hope that when and if they grant us an interview I won’t be detained like the woman I saw yesterday at my lawyer’s office who got her interview date just to trick her into showing up and then detaining, her just for giggles and to have her walk around with an ankle bracelet to monitor her movements as if she was some sort of dangerous pedophile that needs to be kept on a tight leash. Of course we immigrants are the real danger of this country. Let the pedophiles and sexual predators roam free and “register” and have us illegal immigrants tagged like animals. Makes total sense.

I really wonder what the point of that device is in this case. We are talking about a woman who has, like me, been open about where she lives, has no criminal records and is waiting for her marriage to be verified as real, but while they don’t give her an answer about her case she has to walk around like some shamed whore in a Hawthorne novel with that glaring device at her foot labeling her a criminal.

In the middle of my sympathetic indignation all I could think about was that if it happened to me I wouldn’t be able to wear shorts or skirts, dresses or skinny jeans. I also thought about being sent to Krome and wearing an orange jumpsuit. I was, however, reassured when my lawyer told me they actually made them wear blue.

As I sat there, seething with impotence and wanting to wail, tear my hair, tear my lawyer’s hair, apologize to my husband, I saw him (my lawyer) maybe for the first time really looking at me, and when I said “there is always Canada” he tilted his head to the side and with what seemed to be compassion he told me “You made the decision to stay, you can’t quit now, it’ll happen”. Part of me was slightly reassured about his words of encouragement and then I realized he is just hoping I hire him to get my citizenship if my shit ever goes through.

I really have no hope any longer. I have but only one champion and that is Dear Husband and he is, as I am, powerless against the system. We have to be humble and patient, we are asking for a favor, is what our lawyer said and every fiber in my being rebelled against the idea of being humble and being patient. Why should I be humble? I am smart and I am (according to the letter applying for my change of status) an asset to my community so why in the fucking world would I be humble? Why should I have to beg? There is nothing I want enough to beg for.

While we drove back home, low in spirits and angry I looked at the cars driving by and felt so damn powerless it was as if I was being physically held down. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t talk, I could do nothing but stare at the passing cars trying to tell myself that maybe the passengers of those cars had it worse than me.

So we are deciding what to do by April 28, 2012. That day, D DAY is my ten year anniversary of coming to the U.S. That day we are leaving this country to search for the future that the land of opportunity refuses to give me. We are at the moment looking for a country that will take us.

I told DH that I was sorry that he probably should’ve married some white girl who would’ve popped some children already and made his parents grandparents again. He said “Stop it. I know what I was getting into...Besides white girls have no ass”

I laughed. In the middle of my anguish, in the middle of all that frustrating rage I laughed. Because I have THE greatest husband on the face of the earth who can make me laugh when I feel like utter undeserving shit.

And I don’t give a flying mother fucking fuck whether the INS recognizes it or not.

BABY FEVER

My ovaries are silent. For some reason I feel the need to apologize to my mom, my uncle, my aunt, my grandma and all those family members who constantly ask for me to get pregnant and ask why am I postponing the inevitable, as if pregnancy and motherhood was a fate I cannot escape from.

My sister in law is back in her hometown for a short visit to her brother who just had a baby with his wife. She and her husband took their two adorable babies to meet their new cousin and my father in law (the proud grandpa) took a picture of the children all together. Selfishly the first thought that popped into my mind when I saw them all lined up was the fact that there wasn’t one of DH’s there among the line of babies. Like there was a glaring genetic gap.

My in laws are, thankfully, not the pressuring kind. My family however makes up for that tenfold.

I know they didn’t put the picture on Facebook thinking of the grandchild they didn’t have from their first born who happens to be my DH, they were just enjoying the grandchildren they DO have. But I couldn’t help but wonder if part of them wished there was another there that was half their beloved oldest child and half the Hispanic chick their son married.

I feel a tad guilty that my mom has no child to bounce on her knee and she so desperately wants one… my sister is useless on the mommy front (you know you are) and even though she is six years older than me and married for far longer than I have, she still has no plans of gracing my mom with a squealing, pooping, puking, screaming bundle of joy.

I guess I feel responsible because even though is both DH and my decision on if and when we have children I am still the one that gets asked. I would be the one doing all the work of growing the thing so of course they ask me when I am going to allow his sperm to fertilize my eggs. I catch my mom looking at my belly as if willing it to grow, creepy. And if she texts me one more picture of a caramel skinned baby with green eyes with the caption “this could be yours” I shall perish.

What if I never feel like having children? The thought scares me a little bit more than actually wanting them in the future. There is nothing about children that appeals to me. I adore the babies in my family my niece and nephew who I met already and the brand spanking new nephew who I haven’t had the pleasure to hold. Other children however leave me cold. I hate walking by that area in the mall filled with plastic fruits and huge fake cupcakes that the little terrors climb on an off of while screaming their little heads off. I hate going to restaurants and hearing a baby scream. I know is natural, I know rationally they aren’t doing anything wrong but all I want to do is vanish them all (except for those I am related to) to some area of the world where they can stay until they turn 21. Teenagers in my book aren’t any better.

When did I become so intolerant? I have no clue. And everyone tells me “you’ll feel different about your own” but isn’t it a good idea to at least like the little creatures in general before popping one out? I look at random children and babies and feel nothing. Show me kittens or puppies and I melt in a puddle.

I have told DH several times that I would be the perfect mother if I got pregnant and had a litter of kittens. He didn’t look too happy about that.

I feel nothing but terror at the thought of losing myself, of not being me anymore but “mommy” of not being a woman anymore but a mom first and foremost. That loss of my identity and acquisition of a new one makes me shiver with apprehension.

I don’t want to wake up at seven am to feed a baby; I don’t want the forever responsibility of another human being. I want to read whenever I want to read or go shopping when I want to, or work out when I want to, or take a nap when I feel like it. I don’t want to lose that because my whole schedule would then revolve around the needs of another. Feeding it and putting it to sleep, giving it a bath, then feeding it again. And then school, and baby parties, and sleepovers and hockey or soccer, baseball or peewee football. When do parents get to do what THEY want to do?

Do I sound selfish? That’s because I am, I am selfish of my time, my enjoyments and my life.

“Oh but kids bring a whole new set of happiness and enjoyments and love” They say. “You’ll change” they say. “Your priorities will change and you won’t care” they say. But I DO care now, and I don’t want to change my life. I am happy with life as it is (present legal problems notwithstanding). Enjoying my husband and our time together, going and doing whatever we want on our time table, without asking anyone if we should or should not, without having to take anything into consideration but ourselves. That’s a freedom I am not keen on relinquishing.

So in the meantime I will spoil my niece and nephews rotten and enjoy their smarts and their smiles, their delicious baby smell, their precious faces and the questions that only children ask and those quirks that start popping out when their personalities develop. I do love them dearly and I do feel all the melting in a puddle when I see them but so far just being an aunt is satisfying.

My ovaries are silent, there is no clock ticking. And I’m alright with that.