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.

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.

ROMANCE AMONGST BAD NEWS

I wish there were happier news to read than Libya being bombed, the food in Japan being full of radiation, Knut the polar bear’s sudden death or the fact that Charlie Sheen’s show has sold out in all cities.

But alas! Here were are, almost done with March and bad news keep pouring in. DH and I had a wonderful weekend, however, celebrating two years together of legally bumping uglies, I kid, we celebrated two years of our love…sigh. We have been together for four years and it feels like it was just yesterday when he told me I had cankles and we exchanged phone numbers. Romance was in the air that night.

We had a fun day of sun at the beach where we baked like lobsters and the water was perfect for the visiting Canadians (a balmy 65) and the sharks kept us out of the water for most of the day (not kidding). I am, thankfully back to being an attractive toasty color and not the yellow pastiness I have been sporting for the better part of a year. We also went to a comedy show where we laughed until we cried and came out, amazingly, with a sense of having learned something.

If any of you, my few faithful readers, has the opportunity of seeing Christopher Titus standup comedy, seize that chance and have a blast. If you aren’t easily offended that is. The man is a genius and so full of energy one is left reeling and hurting in the abdominal area. I felt like I did 100 abs after we came out of the show and for that alone I like Mr. Titus.

Sunday, we went to see the Marlins kick some spring-training ass belonging to the Mets and then back home to pass out from sun poisoning and happy we had each other to rub cold aloe on our leathery backs. Basis for an awesome marriage right there!

Two days have passed since the sixty days cut off for us to receive the letter giving us a date for our interview. I found it kind of fateful that the cut-off date was the date of our anniversary. Dreams of Hawaii drift faster and faster away, but what is there to do but wait? I never believed I was going to be able to go, but I am sure when they all board the plane that will take them to paradise I will be home, beating my head against the wall and being a bitch to all around me. I actually feel more badly for DH who will feel too guilty to go without me (by that I mean I will kill him if he leaves and goes without me).

This shit (I am tired of calling it a “situation” or “my circumstances”) has turned me into someone who I am not really proud of, an angry (angrier) person, a bitter woman with no hopes left about her future and what it will bring. I have come to resent all the people I know that get to travel. I have never been an envious person.

Envy is in fact, the only cardinal sin (greed, vanity, lust, wrath, sloth, gluttony and envy for those non Christian friends) that I have no understanding of. I understand feeling and committing all the other ones, but envy has always been in my opinion the worst of those sins to commit. It seems so petty and dangerous, so ugly a feeling. The fact that I am rolling in envy, swimming in it, every time I see some friend’s picture on Facebook in Italy, or France, or London, makes me ashamed of myself. Hell I am okay with being a greedy, glutton, vain, prideful, lustful, lazy bitch, but I will not be an envious one!

So, DH is going to abuse our lawyer a little bit today and find out why he isn’t doing his job, why we are still waiting, why we haven’t been interviewed, why I am seating here with nothing to show, legally speaking, after two years of marriage.

I can’t wait for this shit to be over, so dear husband and I can take a deep breath and plan for the future, move from Florida, buy a house with a yard, get another dog, travel the world, etc.

In the meantime I will remind myself that I am alive and well, healthy, hot and in love so there is nothing for me to really complain about. I am not Knut, I am not in Libya, or in Japan or related in any way to Charlie Sheen. That is truly something to be thankful for.