IT KEEPS SPREADING…AND A SHORT HIATUS

To those of us following the wildfire-like spreading of the Arizona immigration law, or similar laws inspired by it, it is discouraging to see that now a small town in Nebraska is trying to flush out its illegal immigrants. The funny (not funny ha-ha) is that Freemont, Nebraska doesn’t have an illegal immigration issue. They don’t even have an unemployment problem since their unemployment rate is 5 points below the country’s average.

So what exactly is the reasoning behind that law being applied in Freemont? They aren’t overrun by them so what exactly is the point of bullying out a group of people who are minding their own business? They aren’t stealing any jobs, and they aren’t creating any violence, they are not a nuisance, or dependent upon the state since as illegal cannot claim any help, so what is the beef to put it bluntly?

I haven’t written in a while. I guess the fact that there is nothing nice to say dries out my creative juices. All I hear is the oil spill and the racist immigration law who keeps popping up everywhere, mutating like all diseases into something more and something worse.

I was in bed the other day and I realized that this blog and some of the things in it might be interpreted in a way that could be detrimental to my case. I am married to a wonderful man, have a wonderful family, an amazing dog, a beautiful cat, a great life. I don’t want to risk all that I have accomplished because of some things I said through here.

It seems like a good idea to pause, to wait until I am not just one more of those unwanted individuals that they are trying to get rid of. Once I am here as a resident, once I become visible again then I can speak come back here and do what I love, talk shit and tell you what I think.

Right now I am just one more nameless face. Hopefully by the end of the summer I will be so much more.

I wonder if once I am a resident and later a citizen I will stop caring about those who aren’t because the issue doesn’t touch me anymore. I hope not. I hope I always care enough.

So, farewell for now. I will be back soon!

DIRTY MINDS THINK ALIKE

It never ceases to amaze me just how incredibly inappropriate Hispanic people are, sometimes I forget or simply don’t notice because I am so used to it, but there is nothing like having dinner with a bunch of Colombians, Venezuelans, Chileans and Mexicans for the combination to be too much for all our dirty tendencies.

DH and I were enjoying a delicious night of BBQ and Karaoke, or maybe I should say I was being tortured by the smell of delicious cow murder while he ate (5 months 21 days of vegetarianism and counting!) when the hosts of our dinner started passing along an array of penis shaped paraphernalia. From an eight inch penis-shaped flute (you blow at the head of course) very accurate with balls and all and another one of a mustachioed guy seating on a toilet with his pants around his ankle and with a ecstatic look on his face while his hand wrapped around an engorged penis that was bigger than he was. Don’t ask me why a host would do that. Is one of those Hispanic mysteries nobody has an answer to, right up there with what’s in a morcilla (no longer a mystery and wish I never knew) and why we can’t help it but be loud.

While I made do with rice, and salad and bread and all those around me feasted on the mouthwatering victims of murder I thought about how weird it was for people to bring out those pieces of porny, tacky sexual art. Then I realized I have lost my edge. I have been surrounded by that inappropriate shit all my life and never before made me blink an eye.

I remember having lunch at my aunt’s house in Colombia and across her dinner table she had a painting of a woman who seems to be either touching herself or someone else is touching her, and another of two lovers that seem to have escaped from a porn version of Cirque du Soleil. The thing is the strokes of the brush in the paintings are so delicate and sometimes not quite there and you never know if you are really seeing what you think you are seeing or if it is in fact blatantly sexual art.

The result is that you spent the 45 minutes of dinner at times staring at the painting and other’s trying not to stare while you pretend to be eating and incredibly uncomfortable that your hosts and owners of the painting is your family and the figure sticks hanging in the wall are getting it on and feeling oddly hot and bothered at THE MOST inappropriate time. That same family member also served their morning coffee on boob-shaped cups and you had to drink from the nipple, which I didn’t really considered weird when I was growing up but now that I have been here for 8 years I find rather odd. The prudishness here is contagious!

As I passed along the clay guy with the huge schlong and manic look in his eyes to DH I expected him to be somewhat chagrined at what I viewed as another weird thing we do that he has to get used to and I laughed and said: “I can’t imagine passing this along at dinner with your family” since his family is fairly conservative. I expected him to laugh and enjoy the “art” I didn’t expect for him to ask loudly and in front of all the natural born hecklers I hang out with (who by the way are all over 40, married and with children) for me to blow on the head of the “flute” and make some music. Neither did I expect him to say “You have more practice than me” in front of all of them (my mom included) when I told him “Why don’t You blow?”.

All I can conclude in that he has been thoroughly and completely corrupted and that he will no longer be embarrassed by anything.

Which considering my family and friends it’s a blessing.

AND HERE WE GO

I knew it would eventually make it here to Florida but I was silly enough to hope it would take longer or maybe wouldn’t make it here at all. Intolerance, ignorance and dislike though are like a pestilence and like any fetid disease it spreads faster than wildfire.

I was watching Jeopardy! last night cheering on Vijay to make it for the final Tournament of Champions when during a commercial the face of Republican Rick Scott took over the screen. I didn’t know what the commercial was about because the miracle of the DVR allows us to fast forward through all those pesky commercials but something in his face made me ask DH to stop and rewind. The commercial starts with Mr. Scott showing a clip of a joke made by President Obama and saying “President Obama thinks our immigration problem is funny” and off it goes to manipulate the viewer by saying that it’s simply logical for the police to be allowed to enforced the law.

What Mr. Scott doesn’t waste time saying and explaining to his possible constituents is that there is a reason why Federal Laws are not enforced by state police. If illegal immigrants, regardless of their origin, do not feel safe to approach the police they can become victims of violent crimes without the possibility of ever being protected because of a fear of being deported. What about that illegal immigrant who is a witness of a crime and won’t testify because his fear of being deported keeps him from approaching a cop with information?

That is only ONE of the many reasons why Federal Laws are not to be enforced by state police. I am sure most people don’t think of this detail. Most people would look at Mr. Scoot bald and shiny head and think just like him. See a trustworthy individual who is worried about the safety of its fellow Americans since according to him we immigrants “endanger” you citizens. I don't really grasp how innocent, little me can endanger anyone.

I was a little alarmed before but now I am really starting to worry. I am not completely out of the woods since my process has not been finalized. Do I want to stay in a country that is so set against me? I wish I could say I can consider Canada but I don’t want to leave. I love it here. Unrequited love is painful but I still love it. I am comfortable here. I like this country and I like its people (not liking some of them at the moment though). I don’t want to have to start from scratch once more. I like Canadians but even though some of them don't like me, I really do like my Gringos.

My loyalties are already so divided. I am a woman with no land and no matter where I go I will always be a foreigner. If I go back to my native Colombia I would be considered Venezuelan because of my accent. If I go back to Venezuela they would consider me Colombian because of my nationality. Now I speak English and live in the U.S. but the U.S. doesn’t want me. If I go to Canada what would that make me? A Colombian national who grew up in Venezuela, married in the U.S. and will move to Canada.

Ugh.

I have been reduced to a sound. "Ugh" That’s all I can say about this.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0510/Scott_in_Florida_attacks_Obama_on_immigration_joke.html