And here we go again

My immigration woes continue. My lawyer, who for once is getting off his ass to do something, is having a hard time getting the people from the district where my paperwork is to get off their ass and do their job. Apparently governmental offices are full of bureaucratic clerks on a power trip (imagine my shock!) that refuse to bother the bureaucratic immigration officers who are supposed to be reviewing my case and giving me an interview date.

Apparently the branch where my case currently sits is the most problematic in the State of Florida, which doesn’t really surprise me, all those yuppie Polo playing rich people of Palm Beach country is probably trying to keep us spics from getting papers. Who would mow their lawns and keep their horses brushed and pretty all for less than the minimal wage?

Oh the bitterness!

I don’t really think that is the reason, but I do not know what the reason is. My ex-coworker, friend and blog follower called me after reading my last post, to infuse me with a little bit of hope, to lift my spirits and to ask me not to feel discouraged. It took her, after all, six years to get paperwork done. And she is Canadian! I rest my case. I will be waiting for my papers until my grandchildren are fighting about whose turn it is to take care of bitchy grandma.

In a few weeks I will be here for 9 years. April 28^th will be me anniversary of arriving to the country. Nine years here, it seems like it was yesterday when I was miserable and feeling alone, hating my life, this country, the reasons that brought me here, the weather, the language, the fact that I was no longer a spoiled little girl with a cute a car and going to college but a McDonald’s crew member whose bike cost $39.99 at Wal-Mart.

I don’t regret any decision made, maybe I shouldn’t have dated a guy I thought was gay for as long as I did and maybe I should’ve not used my credit card as if it was daddy’s money, and maybe just maybe I should’ve married my husband as soon as I met him just to work this out faster instead of marrying him after I was sure that he was the right man for me. I cannot regret moving here, I cannot regret marrying for love instead of marrying for papers. I cannot regret doing the right things and doing them the right away. What I regret is that bad behavior seems to be rewarded and people who actually follow due process are left waiting for what will never come, closure, solution, papers! I could’ve married ages ago and be legal right now, instead I decided that as archaic as I consider the institution of marriage, I didn’t want to exchange vows based on a lie. I didn’t want to be a divorcee by my early twenties. If I ever made the decision to marry I didn’t want it to be for mercenary reasons. Look at what that got me.

Well…I guess it got me a good husband. That I want to hurt sometimes but that loves me and my family and my evil cat, and my silly dog.

So fuck you! Branch of INS that is five minutes from my house and that refuses to give me the time of day. Take as long as you fucking want to, sit on my case until the end of times if you would like, because I am not going anywhere.

HERE WE GO!

Well everybody here’s a new year before us, what to do with the time that has been given? I am determined to stay true to my resolutions and so far this four days have been meatless, none of God’s creatures have died to feed me (aside from the salmon on my rainbow rolls) but I did spend them in bed reading instead of being more active. Tomorrow after work I should be meeting BT for some very, very, very needed exercise and we will start a regime, regiment? (I am never sure of those two words) and we should be working out three to four times a week.

Continuing with my resolutions I realized this morning that we are at the moment incredibly behind with all the paperwork that should have already been filed in order to get my status as Dear Husband’s wife in order. Dear Husband had to see a loquero (shrink) for our petition and I am hoping that before the end of the month we are finally in our way to having all our stuff together.

It’s incredible the amount of shit the Federal Governments asks for when an immigrant marries a citizen, according to a friend of mine who married her fiancé who is a citizen during the interview the agent was horrible to her and told my friend’s husband he was there to defend his rights as a citizen of the U.S. and that if she was just after his papers he would do him the favor of deporting her. Nothing sends a shiver of fear up and down my back like the D-Word…and of course roaches. I am truly hoping that when our interview time comes I will get someone who is nicer because I don’t think I’ll be able to stay quiet while someone trashes me as if I wasn’t there. We have so far collected, pictures, wedding cards, wedding presents, wedding pictures, proof of travels we have taken together, bank statements, emails, phone records, lease or deeds to both our names, certified letters from families, friends and co-worker attesting to the true nature of our marriage and so on and on.

So here we are seven months after meeting with our lawyer and $5,000 poorer still just in the beginning stages of our process. I was hoping to be able to travel out of the country by 2010 to celebrate our Honey Moon in Ireland but it seems we are going to have to honey moon in the U.S. so our plan so far is to fly to Seattle and drive down the PCH and stop everywhere our little hearts want.

I am determined to get this stuff done. “Determined” is what I am going to be all this year. Determined is going to be my fucking middle name.

I have been in this country seven years and have spent all these years doing one thing or another, interview after interview, trying to solve my issue with my paperwork, I have been covered by process and in the way I have gotten my SS# (which felt incredible) and my work permit (which allowed me to stop cleaning kitchens and toilets) but it hasn’t been a complete solutions, they all have been simply patching up the big problem is putting a band aid on a bullet hole.

I have in the 7 years in this country gotten my fingerprints taken at least five times (us Aliens have ever changing fingerprints apparently), gotten interviewed, accused, being looked over, asked to say “yes” instead of “yeah” in front of a judge, asked why I don’t have an accent when I speak in English, asked if I am a democrat or a republican, asked if I loved my country, asked why I am here, why do I want to stay and if I love this country.

I am ready to end this everlasting phase in my life where I am drifting around like a castaway neither here nor gone, just floating around in a sea of bureaucracy and paperwork. I will have you know United States of America that you could do a lot worse than having me added to the name of those many lucky immigrants that become part of this country. Damn it I am smart and hard working, haven’t broken any laws (haven’t even jay walked in my life!) I pay my taxes, I donate to charity, I don’t litter and more importantly I am healthy and speak the language. I would be a freaking awesome addition not a burden.

No matter, I am as I said before, nothing but determined. And you guys haven’t seen me when I am determined! It won’t be easy to get rid of me! I am staying here. This is my home now and I ain’t leaving without a fight.

HOW LIFE SCRUBBED SNOBBERY OUT OF ME

We became the ultimate Hispanic cliché and started cleaning houses. When the opportunity knocked I thought nothing of it. I was already planning and wistfully thinking of the hair products I would buy for the brillo pad currently residing atop my head. I giggled when thinking of makeup I would not get from Publix or CVS, I could smell the strawberries and champagne lotion I would get from Victoria’s Secret.

I didn’t stop to consider or think about how I was going to get the money, my mom could’ve said we were going to start a baby-smuggling ring and if it was going to get me closer to my expensive moisturizer I was game. Cleaning was merely means to an end. Off we went to clean for our first client. Our first task was a triplex property that was at the moment vacant and dirty from the tenants that didn’t bother to clean before they left. I attacked the kitchen after my mom’s face broke in rashes when she touched it after she found a drawer-full of dried red chili peppers the Mexican family had left behind. So I cleaned the fridge, thankful to have something else to do aside from reading (which had been my only solace since I found myself without a social life), and singing out loud while I scrubbed the working song from Snow White.

We dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig

in a mine the whole day through,

We dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig

It's what we like to do...

I was amused at myself for actually enjoying the task and went looking for my mom to ask her something. I walked into the bathroom and found her there, kneeling in front of the toilet scrubbing away someone else’s filth. All trace of amusement fled and outrage filled me faster than words can explain. I sputtered there not getting any words out while she scrubbed and scrubbed and asked me what I needed without stopping.

I need you to stop cleaning! I need you to get up and stop doing this! I need you to turn back time to when we were not ruining our hands and nails over someone else’s mess and instead getting them done once a week at the salon. I need you to be outraged right along with me, I need you to stop acting like this is all normal, stop acting like this is okay! I need you to call my dad and demand our money! I want you to stop sweating and hurting your back for some money. “I need to pee” It’s all I said. “Use the other bathroom” she said to me with a “duh” expression in her red and sweaty face. I ran to the other bathroom and sat on the blissfully cold tile (that my mom had already cleaned while I “Heigh-Hoed” to the Snow White song) and wept.

I wept for all the things I used to have and took for granted, for the past that was so close it was almost not past yet but already so far anyway, for the bitter anger that was burning inside of me like poison. I cried for the image of my mom scrubbing on her knees, that first time I saw her, the first of many, that remains imprinted in my memory, for the circumstances that had brought me here, for my father who had suddenly financially abandoned us without a backward glance. I cried for my pretty things left behind and the pretty things I now craved and could no longer buy. I cried annoyed at myself for turning into such a weak person that had cried more since here in America than in the last 18 year back home.

I cried because good Catholic guilt was choking me, knowing that my mom had come here because of me, because of my future and my aspirations (whatever they were then). I cried because I knew she probably had, since she came, cried in a hidden place for me not to notice. I cried because I had such promise, so much potential, such a brilliant future, such smarts (hey! I am not bragging that’s what people used to tell me) and here I was, stripped of my pride, forced to be humble, and someone else’s maid. I washed my face and came out and attacked the kitchen once again, this time ferociously, all pleasure forgotten.

I know now that before I had enjoyed the cleaning because I was playing the maid. Not realizing I was really one. My mom came out, done with her part and sat down rubbing her lower back while I silently wiped, and scrubbed, rinsed and polished every corner of that ugly kitchen until the Formica gleamed. We closed the door and walked back to the house toting out buckets full of cleaning supplies. My silly superficial and shallow self quivering in shame when people drove by as if they cared that I was someone else before and now I was cleaning houses. I was feeling such shame from walking the street with my bucket, you’d think I had come back from prostituting.
 
 “I am so proud of you” my mom said before we reached the house. She hugged me and I would’ve burst in tears again if I wouldn’t have found funny that she said the words NOW, after I cleaned a kitchen, but did not say the same when I had been accepted into law school. “Thanks” I said suddenly lost for words.

We got inside of the house and the chattering and laughing, the screaming and running around of my uncle, my aunt and cousins pushed away any thought of wallowing, the house too full of life to entertain any petty thoughts. It always came back to that. Family saved me. No matter how bad I felt, how humiliated by my change in circumstances (how very Austen-y), how traumatic my stupid experiences felt, how much I miss the money and the liberties that it offered, no matter how much my heart broke when I saw my mom struggle with the language when it seem too seamless and easy a transition for me, no matter how many times I wanted to beg to go back, having someone with you that revels in your tiny victories, someone that praises the time you spent cooking the chicken, having someone to sit down and watch the soap operas with, that is a balm that cures all maladies.

Those tiny moments with family saved me and my sanity. I could feel myself changing. I wanted to hold on to me, onto the person I knew. The one I was back at home. I felt that if I let her go it would be one more tie irreversibly severed. I liked me, spoiled brat that I was. I wanted to remain me, a little selfish and self-centered, spoiled and used to having everything handed out. I didn’t want to be tough and resilient I wanted to remain soft and pampered. Oh but being soft hurts, and my hands alone showed the signs all blistery, cracked and dry from the aggressive cleaning product I had used to kill the green radioactive-looking thing that had been growing in the fridge of the place we cleaned.

So I sighed when I walked toward the double glass doors. I sighed and muttered and cussed under my breath yet walked towards it anyway. My hair was finally under control after buying some extra-strength anti-frizz. I walked and said goodbye to myself, my old self and tried to feel some comfort in the fact that I was finally doing the right thing. When I was back at home and asking, demanding and expecting my dad to pay for my every whim I felt no qualm, no regret or second thought. But to take money from my mom when I knew where it came from, when I knew her body ached everywhere… I just couldn’t.

So I walked toward the doors that held my new job on the other side. I walked sweaty-hand and shaky to my first job interview. I was 19 years old. I opened the door and was cheerily saluted by a cacophony of voices and beeping. I said hi to the man in the long sleeve shirt and tie that was waiting for me and shook his hand with my sweaty one, and sat down when he pointed to a chair behind me. He smiled an encouraging smile and I responded with a shaky one. “So, let me start by asking you… why us?” He asked pleasantly, either feigning interest in my answer or actually curious. “Ummmm (shit!) I’ve always liked your products better” I answered, not knowing enough English to bullshit my way through that one and trying to sound as sincere as possible. His chest swelled with pride and he laughed a good-ol’-boy chuckle and shaking my hand said: “Well, that is good enough for me! Welcome to McDonald’s!”

Suddenly cleaning toilets doesn't sound so bad.