Corin in Exile

You Say You Want a Revolution?

2011-10-23T16:42:00.007-07:00

I hear a lot of disappointment these days about Obama.

One immigration-focused community group that I respect greatly from my days in Massachusetts posted this image on its Facebook page with the comment: “I think this is the problem. We've seen nothing but his back for 3 years!”

Obama-bashing has hit record highs among progressives, who no longer simply shake their heads and say “well, I guess he wasn’t the messiah after all.” Now progressives get as red in the face as anyone wearing a tea bag-adorned tri-cornered hat when talking about the president, and among the items enumerated on their damningly unchecked To Do list is immigration reform.

I understand the sentiment, but I disagree with the scapegoat.

We made the choice to leave the US in early 2009 (a mere month after the inauguration) and spent the entire next year until we got on a plane explaining it to our scandalized progressive friends and family – all of whom implored us to “give Obama a chance” to do something on immigration.

I refused.

I said then – and I stand by this assessment now – there was no reason to expect real reform to the immigration system within the next several years, and waiting would put us at the mercy of an unfeeling and unpredictable system of detention and removal.

Our choice to leave had nothing to do with our appraisal of Obama. I did have my suspicions about the midterms (which sadly all came true) and the defensive stance that Obama would have to assume against an insatiable GOP for whom Bill Clinton had been nothing more than a salacious little appetizer. (But honestly, there wasn't anything special about those predictions; I just paid attention in my civics courses.)

What made up my mind was less tangible… It was a whiff of whatever is in the air these days – something foul and unfamiliar that that makes you draw the shades as the hair at the back of your neck starts to prickle.

But the scent isn’t coming from the White House.

What stinks is wafting up from Arizona and now Alabama (which apparently couldn’t wait to hit the mats to prove that it remains the most racist place in America). It hangs heavy not just around those clinging to their 15 minutes of You-Might-Be-The-GOP-Nominee fame, like Herman “It Will Kill You” Cain, but also the legislators who are gratuitously crazy, like Kansas State Rep. Virgil Peck Jr., who suggested that immigrants ought to be shot like feral hogs – in a debate not about immigration but about shooting feral hogs. There are those who “empty the clip” figuratively (like Alabama State Senator Scott Beason) and literally (like vigilante Shawna Forde). It all feeds into a nightmarish perpetual motion machine of bureaucracy set on "ludicrous speed" by the Bush Administration.

And in this whole fetid mess, we don’t even wrinkle our noses anymore at terms like “invasion” and "hordes."

It wasn’t quite so pungent in 2009, but – like the milk starting to turn – I could smell that something wasn’t right and was about to get a lot worse.

I’ve always had a good nose.

So, I am disappointed that immigration in the Obama Administration has been "one step forward and two steps back" – disappointed, but not surprised.

And yet progressives have the attitude of “fix it already! Or else!”

Or what?! You’ll stay home? And we’ll get to see if President Cain was joking about an electric fence and “real bullets” (as if Border Patrol doesn’t already shoot “real bullets”).

(I am, however, joking about “President Cain” – but not the very serious repercussions for immigrants with any one of these nutters as President.)

If you want to know what progressive apathy looks like, think back to the Massachusetts special election between Martha Coakley and Scott Brown – oh, I mean Senator Scott Brown. We lost the lion of the Senate and got a Cosmo centerfold; apparently the message that disillusioned progressives wanted to send was “I also enjoy long walks on the beach and carefully positioned forearms.”

So, what is the alternative?

A third party?

I know that politically Americans can’t think constructively about last year – let alone last decade! But does anyone else remember the election in 2000? I suppose eight years of Bush didn’t totally destroy the country, and maybe we could survive another progressive tantrum because what does the country matter as long as you've got your righteous indignation?

Tell me now that there was "no difference."

“Revolution” also seems to be in the air, but revolutions are fickle and imprudent critters. Aside from petitioning Ollivander to finally make a wand for Obama, what are the demands of “the masses?” Sure, the redistribution of wealth and an end to corporate citizenship and all that rabble-rabble, but those aren’t new injustices – just the same old injustices with broader demographics; we (and I’ll include myself here for the sake of honesty) didn’t care all that much when we were still getting just enough of "ours"…

So I can’t decide if we’re Occupying because we miss the safety of our cubicle jungle – if the injustice of student loans is that we aren’t making the big bucks to pay them off – or if there’s a more profound awakening occurring.

I do hope that the Occupation is sign of the latter.

But ultimately I still am not that into revolutions.

I just want people to treat one another well – to feel a sense of responsibility for one another – and I don't want that to be revolutionary; I want that to be mundane.

So, if we leave our pitchforks at home and let the flowers grow in the ground rather than inserting them into the barrel of a gun, how do we get what we want – “from Obama” (for the folks who insist that the deficiency is his) and from the larger system?

There’s a famous story (which may or may not be true, like all of those “famous stories," but it is still incredibly powerful): after being confronted by the demands of disgruntled activists, Franklin Roosevelt is said to have replied, “I agree with you. I want to do it. Now make me do it.”

I’m not directing this little parable at hardcore immigration activists and especially the individuals and families directly affected by immigration reform; they’ve already been working their butts off in a thankless and dirty fight for far too long. I mean average, run of the mill progressives who watch Lost in Detention and think “I can’t believe I voted for that guy! That’s just outrageous. ”

But before they take a big bite out of Obama for “letting this happen,” they ought to ask themselves “this being a democracy, why am I letting this happen?!”

I can tell you that average, run-of-the-mill conservatives readily bellow, huff, and holler about immigration -- and the crazies do it twice as loudly and in costume! I know because I used to take their calls.

So here’s a question for my fellow progressives: when did you last write an email reminding your Congressperson that he or she is responsible to the residents of his or her district – whether or not they have papers? When did you last inform your State Senator that race baiting and violent rhetoric would not be tolerated? When did you last hold your community organizations accountable for serving the whole community?

And if your officials are all upstanding progressives themselves, when did you last thank them for putting their asses on the line for the cause? (I recently wrote a “thank you” letter – yes, on paper, in an envelope, and with a stamp because I’m a classy dame – to Rep. Luis Gutierrez for his ongoing fight for immigration justice.)

Instead, progressives voted and then backed off. It’s as though progressives have tossed Obama into the shark tank and are now standing around the water’s edge, holding the life preserver, complaining “what’s wrong with this guy? Why the fuck doesn’t he just walk on water?!”

If everyone who stood behind Obama in 2008 deliberately maintained the same enthusiasm, the GOP's strategy of "NO!" wouldn't be politically viable. Their strategy depends quite as much on progressive disappointment, apathy, and infighting because no matter how rabid their radical wing gets, they still won't have the votes to take back the White House unless we stay home, stay quiet, and stay disenchanted.

Enthusiasm is contagious, and had we kept the momentum going, I believe that we would have seen the reforms we were looking for. Had we jumped into the shark tank and started throwing punches like Austalian surfers, we might not have made it into a kiddie pool, but at least we’d have safer waters.

Thank goodness that in a feeding frenzy Republicans can’t make heads from tails from Democrats because, if Obama makes it out politically in one piece, it will be no thanks to progressives; we've diminished his political capital quite as much as the GOP has.

So next time Obama veers to the center in a desperate attempt to please someone (Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?), consider that he would probably go left (and gratefully) if he knew that he had enough support among progressives to weather attacks from the right.

But I sure can't blame him for thinking he can't count on us.

Not quite audacity...

2011-08-18T12:56:00.004-07:00

Here is some outstanding news for mixed-status families still living in the US! It's no substitute for real reform, and I'm sure we're all waiting to see how exactly this process will be carried out, but knowing that some of my friends are breathing a bit easier tonight still puts a smile on my face.

A Wee Update from the Land of Insane Fieldwork Logistics

2011-08-13T20:35:00.005-07:00

So, updates are still slow in coming. There are two reasons for that:

1) I'm trying to pull together the mind-boggling logistics of my fieldwork. See that map on the right of the page showing "where is Corin?" Look closely... Yes, those piddly little blobs of white are European nations swimming in the vast sea of territory that makes up Brazil. My fieldwork will take me through more than 10% of this enormous country -- an area about 6.5 times larger than England. Or, for those of us from more reasonably sized countries, it's an area about twice as big as California, equal to the Four Corner States (without Arizona, since we'd rather like to ignore them for a while anyway), or just under twice the size of the Yukon. Now that you've got some inkling of how much ground I need to cover in 3 months, imagine doing it all by bus. And voila! I'll count up my total mileage at the end of the trip, but I can tell you right now that I'm looking at about four 10 (or more)-hour bus trips.

2) Leo has asked that I be strategic about my updates. The recent activity of trolls on my blog has made Leo nervous about me announcing my geographic coordinates to The Interwebs. He thinks that if someone can be so utterly barmy as to assume that total strangers crave their uneducated and unsolicited opinions -- as much as 9 times in a row -- they are probably not the world's most stable individuals. I agree with much of Leo's logic, but I told him that trolls can't be bothered to come off of their high horses ("Ew. The masses.") or out of their parents' basement ("Augh! Sunlight!"). He shouldn't worry, I told him, but it seems that Leo is rather fond of me (and I of him), so I won't be updating about where I am so much as where I've been, which means that you'll all be waiting at least another week before I'm on the move again and can therefore post an update.

So, for your reading pleasure in the meantime: a fabulous blog by Cheryl at Us, After America on exile and the unsavory privileges we retain (even as we lose our rights).

Brazil!

2011-08-06T07:44:00.005-07:00

Hello folks! I'm back in Brazil (huzzah!) for Master's fieldwork. No, there are no posts about it yet, but they're in the works! Leo is in Vancouver, holding down the fort and working his little bum off in two jobs. He's doing his best not to be "ciumento" and I'm doing my best not to worry about whether he's eating well or getting enough rest. We're missing each other terribly, but at least this time our geographic separation has a set end date, which will make this a bit easier for the both of us.

In the meantime, enjoy a few links:

1. Here is an excellent explanation of The Bar by the Immigration Policy Center. There are a few issues with this analysis, including its focus on the process in Mexico, which has a reputation for being comparatively quicker and having higher approval rates than other waiver-adjudicating consulates. In other words, the picture painted herein is actually too rosy.

2. Here is a bittersweet and very tender -- yet characteristically biting -- post by Cheryl at Us, After America.

Happy reading!

Another joint blogging activity!

2011-07-29T21:46:00.008-07:00

Now that we've got a real blogging community, it's been fun to blog together! He's a neat little questionnaire that's been making the rounds (started by Lisa at From One Country to Another):

1. How long have you been with your husband?
Leo and I met in the spring of 2008, married in fall of 2009, and will be celebrating our second wedding anniversary this September!

2. Can you remember one funny miscommunication because of language barriers?
We don't miscommunicate; we create a household dialect -- and not because we can't speak each others' languages! We both say silly things, and then -- like a 6-year-old crossing his eyes -- it "gets stuck that way." For example: "nossa muffin! Seus chicken bones 'tá' kruff kruff!" means, more or less, "oh my God, honey! Your elbow just made a cracking noise!"

It would only be miscommunication if we couldn't understand one another.

3. What state and/or city have you relocated to?
Vancouver, BC (<-- not a state: a province!), Canada (<-- also not a state, despite what we're led to believe States-side)

4. Do you and your hubby have any children? How old?
Not yet! We are looking to lay down roots before this tree starts dropping any apples.

5. What is one things thing that your blogger friends don't know about you?
I enjoy drawing superhero comics.

6. What are some of your favorite hobbies or past times?
I'm in grad school; I'm not allowed to have hobbies! I usually lack either time or money -- or both!

When I do sneak a few moments for myself, I enjoy -- as I mentioned above -- drawing and painting. I also love to cook and bake, but it'll be a while before I can buy duck breasts or good cheeses on a whim. Hiking is another favorite hobby, but time is not on my side...

Here are some fruit studies that kept me from going completely insane after the very trying end of the last semester:

7. How did you stumble upon the blogging community?
I started blogging at the start of 2010 -- right before Leo and I left the States. I don't remember how I found The Deportee's Wife, but I think she was my first contact. There were only a few of us "back in the day," and it is very exciting to see how the community has grown in such a short period of time -- even though it's depressing to think that it's probably also due to a rising number of exiles...

8. Have you learned something new about yourself during this whole process that has changed all of our lives?
That's pretty much what this blog is about!

9. Something that you love about [Canada] and something that you can't stand or miss having.
I love the opportunity to be here and just about everything that means. Thanks, Canada! I love the eagle eyrie down the street. I love the incredible mountains that peek out of the clouds once in a while. And I love the chance to learn about a country that I'd previously thought of as just-like-America-only-more-progressive-and-less-crazy; I'm happy to report that it's much more nuanced and interesting than a what I'd imagined to be a sensible, frozen version of Boulder or Berkeley.

I do miss warm weather. I also miss straight-forward disagreements (the "sorry" thing is real, and I'm working on making my "o" as apologetic as possible).

10. Did you know your in-laws before moving and has it been a big adjustment being closer to them?
We are even further from Leo's family than when we were in the States! I did get a chance to visit them in Brazil last year, which was a lot of fun (detailed here, here, here, and here).

11. If you were going back to the States next week where is the first place you would go, of course after seeing your family?
Back to Canada.

The Only Thing We Have to Fear is Fear Itself

2011-07-26T12:12:00.009-07:00

I was not going to post about the recent emails flooding into my inbox from an exceptionally persistent internet troll, but life’s little “ahha!” moments sometimes surface in the most unexpected of places.

Now, I won’t share too much about these emails or this individual (internet trolls, dear readers, make the same mistake as a cat with its head under a throw pillow: assuming that because they cannot see your face, they must also be completely invisible); I’m already embarrassed for him, and his further humiliation isn’t my aim.

He, however, tried repeatedly to shame Leo and me, saying that Leo could not possibly be a productive member of society (I'm left to wonder, though, if having documents here has suddenly made Leo "productive"). He then went so far as to remind me that he hadn’t even called into question my own ability to ever so much as hope to contribute (as if one’s citizenship were résumé-dependent -- or, God forbid, as if one’s worth as a human being could be discerned from an “employment history” snapshot).

Quite apart from the absurdity of pooh-poohing a résumé like mine, I found troubling the lengths to which he went in an attempt to validate his assumptions about the “type of woman” who marries an undocumented immigrant (or, even more troubling still, the “type of woman” into which marrying an undocumented immigrant makes one).*

He demonstrated this tendency repeatedly, but I don’t need to stoop to returning the favor by speculating on the type of man who would email a woman 8 times just to tell her how worthless he finds her while simultaneously demanding validation and admitting to being “fascinated” by her life.

But neither this nor his dogged insistence on the merits of long-debunked anti-(“illegal”-)immigration arguments of the “highly logical, disinterested economist”-bent were really worth writing about; rather, it was the last sentence of what (I hope) was his penultimate email.

He wished me the best of luck and then added – after no doubt forcefully mashing “CAPS LOCK” – that I would need it.

These are surely poorly chosen words in light of recent anti-immigration-motivated violence, but I don’t think that they were meant to be a threat.

I think that he was attempting to tell me that, upon refusing to make the Titanic “shrug” of a convert to the gospel of self-interest, I must necessarily be beyond hope -- damned to wallow among the "poor masses" for eternity.

The effect was quite the opposite. I felt a rush of liberation: gleeful, giddy, light, running downhill, "school’s out!", popsicles on a hot afternoon, sunny-and-carefree July day-like liberation.

I realized that the majority of his correspondence boils down to a fear of ceding even an ounce of privilege, regardless of the potential returns.

In that moment, I saw that I indeed have been made into a different woman by marrying an undocumented immigrant (an odd albatross though that is carry through our currently very-documented life):

I have stared down that which this individual fears most and still, at the altar, I said “I do” – even though it meant having to strive just a little bit harder to achieve my dreams. To my boss I said “thank you and goodbye” – even though it meant working toward a better world through a new profession. At the airline counter, I said “checking in for São Paulo” – even though it meant traveling just a little bit further to reach my final destination.

I resent the laws catalyzing those high-stakes choices, but I don’t resent taking up the challenge. Sure, there are moments of worry and difficulty--

But I am not afraid.

I may still have much privilege that I will never be able to shake loose -- that is the real weight upon my shoulders -- but the pounds of privilege that have been clawed away are a burden that I do not miss.

I am free from the fear of losing it.

And I carry with me now the added gift of having been tested over the last few years and having endured. My path is clearer. My footing is surer. My voice is stronger.

Reflecting on the words of my unwitting emancipator, I can only assume that one cleaves to privilege so tightly out of fear for one’s position without it, so – feeling a bit sad for him – I responded that I also wished him the best of luck… and hoped that he would continue not to need it.

* The work of anthropologist Ann Stoler offers relevant insight into the lineage of this phenomenon.

News Round Up!

2011-07-19T10:48:00.005-07:00

First, the totally unstoppable Hope (how's that for a name in this whole immigration mess?) was profiled in a recent article in the Huffington Post that (while still info-"lite") did a great job at, you know, actually mentioning the 10-year bar! For more about the struggle that she and her husband, Naz, are facing, please go to their website.

Next, Amy and Carlos of Destination Paradise are about to make a big move to South Korea. It's very sad that their fight to bring Carlos back to the US has not been successful, but here's wishing them all of the luck and happiness in the world as they navigate a third country option! Their story is an important reminder that undocumented immigrants are very much a part of American society, and therefore that their deportation is often just as much of a deportation of their USC spouse and kids (as the Blogging from Exile blogroll on the right -- which Amy will soon join -- demonstrates all too readily)!

And lastly, I wrote about our good friend "D" a while back (here and here). His story is a heartbreaking reminder of what is at stake for many undocumented immigrants -- with or without an American family! He took "voluntary departure" on the promise, which I am confident is false, that his bar was therefore "waived" -- a cruel tactic that judges and ICE seem to be using to get undocumented immigrants with no hope of actually receiving a hardship waiver to quickly and quietly take "voluntary departure" (these stories are popping up with a frightening frequency within our online communities). D will return to Brazil this Thursday. Please think good thoughts for him and his mom during what will be a very difficult time for them.

Handling Immigration Matters "With Discretion"

2011-07-11T17:04:00.003-07:00

Being an undocumented immigrant in America (or "looking like one") carries scores of dangers to which most folks in the US are blissfully immune.

Among these threats might be simply getting to the US, from arriving at the border to traversing it (be that through deadly deserts, where enforcement decisions have knowingly forced crossings to take place, or via the wicked ruses of human traffickers); I think occasionally about how Leo turned his ankle early in the trek but thanks to dumb luck, the machismo of a boy in his early 20s, and a painkiller from a Panamanian also making the walk, he continued on for several days -- all of the way to Texas -- before it became so maddeningly inflamed that he couldn't stand up any longer.

Once they arrive, undocumented immigrants work the most dangerous jobs (often made more so by employers who treat them as disposable or force them to work as subcontractors to avoid responsibility). Leo's boss was marginally more responsible but no less of an asshole; he refused to pay workers' compensation for the Brazilians in his company but made them buy their own.

They are vulnerable to the environmental hazards rampant in poorer communities and communities of color as well as on the job. And it's a good thing that immigrants tend to arrive in the US in better health than the average American because the medical care they receive (when they can get it) runs the gamut from outright inhumane to appallingly sub-standard and exploitative. (For instance, one of the few occasions that Leo saw any sort of medical professional in the US was when he went to the dentist to get a tooth fixed. After the dentist did half of the job -- filling the tooth but not shaping it to fit in Leo's mouth -- he demanded a few thousand dollars to finish the work. One of Leo's molars now looks more like a little ceramic table than a tooth.) The subsequent decline in immigrant health should be no surprise, especially when coupled with other risk factors responsible for the shameful disparities in the American health system.

Undocumented immigrants also don't enjoy the protection of police against crime and domestic abuse and are regularly the targets opportunists preying on their vulnerability and fear of going to the cops (like a handful of documented Brazilians who offered to "help" Leo right after his arrival).

Hate crimes are also not uncommon and are on the rise. The story of David Ritcheson, a 16-year-old Latino from Texas, should scare the shit straight out of you: in 2006, he was "attacked by racist skinheads at a house party after supposedly trying to kiss a white girl."

Read that again: after supposedly trying to kiss a white girl. That must be among one of the most infamous phrases to echo across the sordid history of race in America.

What followed for David was a lynching; he may have valiantly survived the attack ("the two attackers burn Ritcheson with cigarettes, kick him with steel-toed boots, attempt to carve a swastika into his chest, pour bleach on him and finally violently sodomize him with a patio umbrella pole") and physical recovery ("It takes 30 surgeries before Ritcheson, confined to a wheelchair and wearing a colostomy bag, is able to return to school"), but it was nothing short of a lynching in the end; the attack left other fatal injuries ("Less than three months [after Congressional testimony on the attack], the teenager commits suicide, jumping from a cruise ship into the Gulf of Mexico").

Thank God the violence against undocumented immigrants (and by extension, those who share a language, heritage, skin color, etc...) doesn't usually reach such a vicious and deplorable pitch, but the rhetoric absolutely does.

Besides, one should never underestimate the slow, continuous drip of "was it or wasn't it?" -isms, which poisons rather than inoculates.

Leo and I were familiar with the compounding stresses of being overworked, under appreciated, and "you don't have documents, so what are you going to do about it?" Rather, Leo was familiar with them; I wanted more than anything to lighten the load, knowing full well that every time I tried, I was drawing attention to a "border" running through our marriage that neither of us could cross.

But in the end, we (he) escaped the many much bigger dangers. We were lucky.

And yet for all of the terrible things that can (and absolutely do) happen to undocumented immigrants as they are forced to eke out a living on the margins, the thing that seemed to terrify most people I knew was not crime, labor violations, exposure to toxins in the environment, poor medical care (or a lack of medical care), or any of the many other hazards implicit in the undocumented "lifestyle."

What I saw was a tendency to endure all of these dangers quietly because there was one thing that scared folks even more: deportation.

And that's why cars are the most dangerous places for immigrants in America.

For undocumented immigrants, getting pulled over (and harassed for driving without a license) is simultaneously routine and potentially life-changing (or -threatening). Everyone drives because essentially all of the jobs that undocumented immigrants do – from house cleaning to construction to house painting and gardening – require that they drive from job site to job site. At least in Massachusetts, immigrants can buy insurance (indeed they are required to do so) and register their cars, but they are not legally allowed to drive because they can’t get a US license (which isn’t to say that they don’t have licenses issued by jurisdiction within their countries of origin).

But for undocumented immigrants, a simple traffic stop can be the beginning of a family frayed, the beginning of a long journey thousands of miles away.

When we lived in the US, if Leo was in a car (which he was Monday through Friday, driving hundreds of miles between job sites in any one of the 4 different states where his company had contracts), I would have a feeling in my gut like I'd swallowed a molten pebble.

I still have "flashbacks" if I know he's on the road. This is stupid, of course. We've got documents here in Canada, and he even has a British Columbia license, yet just the thought of him behind the wheel still send volts of anxiety coursing through me. When I'm making dinner and waiting for him to get home, I develop a fascination with the clock over the stove, trying to imagine his commute. Weirder still, it now extends to when I'm sitting in the passenger's seat and he's driving; I count cop cars the whole way, bark at him the moment the speedometer inches over 50 kph, and generally micromanage everything about his totally unremarkable driving habits. I also did whatever I could to keep him out of our car for the first 4 or 5 months after he arrived. It annoys him to no end, but I can't shake the fear.

I've written about this before in relation to 287(g)s here and here, and I've written about how an overzealous cop almost derailed our bid for a life anywhere in North America here, here, here, here, and here. And this is finally a topic that is getting attention in mainstream news sources, largely thanks to the Secure Communities program, which is doing its damnedest to protect America from the scourge of broken blinkers and rusted-out mufflers -- anything to make a stop, arrest, and eventual deportation for "driving while immigrant."

I've seen local PDs end more dreams of a better life than I care to recount. It almost ended ours. But let's get one thing straight:

Secure Communities -- awful and idiotic though it is -- should not shoulder the blame for skyrocketing deportations . It's a program that has failed to hit its intended target and that has left massive collateral damage in its wake, but the real culprit here is a whole system running on bad compromises, salvaged junk policy, and sheer malice.

For instance, before Secure Communities came to Massachusetts, there were (and still are in some spots) the 287(g) MOAs. As far as I'm concerned, using 287(g)s to deport non-criminals is absolutely no different than using Secure Communities to deport non-criminals. The only difference is that Secure Communities provides less opportunity for officer and department discretion. It has been getting a lot more attention simply because of forced compliance.

Politicians can make a stink about Secure Communities, but it's all a lot of bark and bluster without systemic readjustments. In the mean time, with or without the program, "driving while immigrant" is like being a beetle on the floor at a tap-dance recital; if you don't get squished by this heel, you'll be crushed by that toe, and either way, you're are at the mercy of something much bigger and stronger -- and that rarely bothers to look where its stepping.

In the absence of real reform on the horizon-- or even an effort to scrap the bad programs for better ones -- there's been a move toward "discretion."

Now, I'm delighted that there's an attempt underway to put a little give in the system. This is a hell of a lot better, certainly, than "Operation Endgame," which was ICE's 2003 to 2012 operating plan. They explain their "endgame" thus: "as the title implies, DRO provides the endgame to immigration enforcement, and that is the removal of all removable aliens. This is also the essence of our mission statement and the 'golden measure' of success... We must strive for 100% removal rate."

Ok, "Endgame?" I can think of one of two responses: 1) they were disappointed to see that "Final Solution" was already taken (yeah, I made a Hitler reference. Sorry Jon Stewart. I'm not saying ICE is the SS -- even though I don't think that dehumanization comes on a sliding scale; what I am saying is rather that ICE is moving into dangerous territory with frightening nonchalance); and 2) that this dangerous territory is proof positive that "ICE" (as if we needed further proof after their little foray into acronyms) suffers a collective disillusion of operating in an action flick rather than the real world.

(Note: please see the comments section for an important intervention from a reader, -k-, who expressed disappointment with the Nazi parallels drawn in the above paragraph; in response to those concerns, I tried to more satisfactorily explain in the comments section why I made the choice to include that sentence. I do appreciate being held accountable -- civilly -- for what I write, so thank you, -k-!)

So compared to directives such as that, I suppose that the Morton memo and other recent moves toward case-by-case evaluation of deportation is a somewhat positive development, but it's far from a cause for celebration:

"Discretion" has never offered much solace. More often than not, I've seen discretion operate more like impunity; I know folks whose American Dreams were ended by encounters with enterprising officers whose cell phones had ICE on speed dial. So forgive me if I don't feel all that much better about prosecutors (maybe) also being given a bit more "professional" leeway (not to actually grant status, mind you, but to decide not to pursue a deportation). They're not saying that "Fulano" can stay; they're saying that if they feel like it, they'll busy themselves with other "priorities" for now.

The system up until now might have been a one-way ticket to a one-way ticket in a large majority of cases, but at least that ticket wasn't written by a prosecutor's indigestion, childhood drama involving a kid named Diego, or general dislike of Mondays. I'm not saying that these folks aren't professionals, but I am saying that they're human even on their good days.

Moreover, if we could find perfect saints or sinners on this funny little chunk of rock and water, I would bet that about 6 of 6,000,000,000 would qualify. The rest of us reside somewhere in the middle, having committed a hodgepodge of countless heroic, hateful, and utterly unremarkable acts over the course of our lives. Who should be Saint Peter and have the "discretion" to decide how those moments shake out in immigration proceedings? Among the "low-priority" deportations, who will be selected to lose everything and who will be selected to wait on pins and needles -- safe for now?

Yes, ICE has promised "details to follow" so that prosecutors will be able to maintain a measure of legitimacy, but mark my words: discretion will not result in fairness, even as it creates a lifeline where none previously existed. That's because "low-priority" will never mean "immune from deportation." At last count, more than half of the 400,000 estimated deportations in 2010 were from this "low-priority" segment (as were a whopping 79% of Secure Communities deportations). Failing to protect DREAMers and take (baby) steps toward immigration reform would be fatal to support for Obama among the Latino voters who elected him, but he also doesn't have the political capital to halt all "low-priority deportations," dropping the total to pre-9/11 levels.

So someone will lose and will lose everything, and since legal representation isn't a right for immigration cases, I would guess that it will be the already most marginalized who get deported -- whether or not they have a strong case. The ones most unable to fight for relief will be the ones that most need it.

The ones who might get a (temporary?) reprieve will be the DREAMers and potentially those of us in mixed-status households -- the ones most able to fight the system through petitions, assistance from elected officials, legal help, media attention, and the like. Now, I am in awe of the movement that the DREAMers have built; these are truly exceptional young folks whose American identity should be backed by documentation. I'm also quite partial to those of us who live(d) in mixed-status limbo. But even I don't want to say who among us does and does not "deserve" a little more breathing room.

We shouldn't fight injustice with unfairness. The discretion that might allow one person to reach their dreams can be applied just as easily to make someone else's life into a complete nightmare.

Do I think that DREAMers should be given documents? Absolutely. But I also believe that documents should go to the kid who dropped out of high school at 16 because he/she knew that his/her American dream as an undocumented youth would cap out pretty quickly. Do I want my friends and fellow bloggers in mixed-status relationships to be able to live free from fear in the country where most of them met, married, and started a family? Without a doubt. (That one would extend to us as well.) But I also want it for my undocumented friends who still play important roles in their American communities without an American-born spouse.

More discretion at the expense of comprehensive reforms makes a piecemeal system even more so -- and adds to the perceived mystique of the process -- instead of constructing a functional system with opportunities to adjust status for those already there; mechanisms allowing for immigration from diverse economic backgrounds for those who would like to go; a legal process that is clear, accessible, and equitable throughout; and discretion in only the most difficult of cases (it should not be among the primary methods of deciding who can stay "for now" -- and with an actually working system, it wouldn't be).

And it turns out that immigrants would rather not risk life and limb to get to the US and work there if they don't have to; when opportunities are found "closer to home," they're willing to "go back" or stay put. So it seems like if Americans are really serious about "keeping immigrants out," increasing educational and economic opportunities in Latin America (or just taking a break from actively undermining Latin American economies and governance) is a pretty effective method.

(But for an aging US population unable to pay its own entitlements and very much in need of immigrant tax dollars, it might be the end of an America to which anyone would want to immigrate.)

The World's Best "Sandwich"

2011-07-05T15:59:00.012-07:00

As I wrote a few days back, the New York Daily News published an article called "American-Born Wives Married to U.S. Deported or Banned Spouses Band Together via Online Networks." It profiles three amazing women who I’ve been lucky enough to get to know over the last year and a half: the smart and steely Giselle at The Deportee’s Wife, the fiery and feisty Cheryl at Us, After America, and the unsinkable Emily at The Real Housewife of Cuidad Juárez. I have a lot of respect for these women. They are brave for both following their hearts and speaking out.

Of course, there as those who feel like it’s their place to judge these women and taunt and scold them with the most base and vile accusations (and, by extension, the rest of us in similar situations). I won’t detail all of the comments here; you’re welcome to read my post about it.

One comment that stood out in both its vicious, dehumanizing intent but also its absurd execution was that “a woman will fall in love with a ham sandwich.” (Never mind that men and same-sex couples are also forced into exile by US immigration policies.)

Contrary to such misogynistic assumptions and racist undertones, the truth is that love has a habit of crossing borders, genders, colors, languages, classes, ages, religions, and pretty much any other arbitrary, “all important” line that humans have used to divide “us” from “them.” Love tends to pop up where it is least expected (and often most inconvenient). It has a way of distilling life down to its barest elements and forcing us to recognize our priorities. It tends to compel us to go extraordinary lengths – both inside ourselves and out in the world. After all, isn’t that why love stories have captured humanity’s collective imagination for thousands of years?

But just as sure as love is a force of nature, so too will a handful of spiteful people inexplicably cling to both divisions and accompanying stereotypes in an effort to quash it.

The idea that women are somehow so desperate that a “come hither” glance from a cold cut is enough to send us tumbling out of our knickers and into marriage in exile is perfectly absurd. And in our online forums and blogs, the very idea has been seized upon as evidence that if there’s anything crazy about this whole immigration mess, it’s not those of us who are determined to keep our families together.

In the spirit of celebrating our partners – our so-called “ham sandwiches” – and shaking off the cruel intentions of such a characterization, many women in exile or similarly difficult immigration situations have begun posting “25 Reasons Why I Love My [Some Variation on Ham Sandwich]” on their blogs and the online forums where we network. Emily – a self-proclaimed “pork fanatic” with an indefatigable sense of humor – started the trend on The Real Housewife of Cuidad Juárez. Krystal from A Year in the Life of Krystal followed up with her list, after which I suggested that – as a joint blogging activity – we all post our own. Amy from Destination Paradise, S. B. Martin at Greenga Girl, Rhonda at Medina’s Moments, Amy at Thoughts, Ponderings, and Musings, Beth at Diary of an Immigrant's Wife, and Living South of Sanity have also posted thus far. Un-Adventures in Bolivia and Proud to Be His Wife at Te Amo Mucho Mi Torta de Hamon even started blogs to mark the occasion!

The award for best sandwich-related nickname has to go to Lisa (and Javi) of From One Country to Another: he'd like to be her "footlong sub," thank you very much.

And one good man living in exile posted his list of reasons why he loves his wife in our online group (even though he couldn’t bring himself to join in with the “sandwich” silliness).

Reading all of these lists, it’s pretty easy to see that these spouses are anything but “lunch meat.” They’re one-of-a-kind partners (and, in some cases, parents) who’ve made enormous sacrifices in very difficult circumstances. They deserve to be celebrated! As many of these posts point out, as hard as it can be to go through the immigration ringer, it would be a lot harder to live without these incredible people in our lives.

I’ve already touched on the issue in an old post, which includes a short list of things that make Leo truly exceptional, but he certainly deserves another 25 reasons, don’t you think?

So here are 25 (of the many) Reasons I Love “My Sanduiche de Mortadela” (one of Leo’s favorites):

1. First and foremost at the moment: Leo has seen “Corin in Grad School” and hasn’t gone running for the hills. For those of you who haven’t been following my blog for very long, I was lucky enough to be accepted into a rather prestigious Geography department. I feel downright lucky to be here, and I work incredibly hard to earn my place among my truly brilliant peers and professors. This means that Leo gets literally only minutes of my undivided attention per day. I am able to make him a home-cooked meal and spend about 15 minutes with him before I’m back on my computer or in my books. I am often awake and working well after he’s gone to bed and still sleeping off a study hangover when he gets up in the morning. I am usually grumpy, exhausted, and rather unreasonable. I can tell that it’s hard for him, but rarely does he complain. On the contrary, he doles out massage and sweet reassurance and often acquiesces to my crazy demands (like watching TV with headphones – although he draws the line at things like “breathing more quietly”) while I try to nail down a difficult piece of work. He is firmly supportive of my professional aims – even knowing that this insane schedule will continue through the rest of grad school and into my career.

2. He has an unwavering sense of self. His morals are airtight, but he hardly ever feels the need to pass judgment on others.

3. He gets weak-kneed and bubbly when it comes to kids and cute animals. He’ll wait all day to tell me, for instance, about something adorable that the landlady’s cat did or about the three little siblings on the bus with their mom who get off every day in the same way: like little ducklings in a row, one-by-one, each saying “Thank you! Goodbye!” to the bus driver. The only thing cuter than these stories is watching a burly guy like Leo melt as he recounts them.

4. In a similar vein, he is extremely nurturing and intuitively understands the needs of kids and critters alike.

5. He is beyond smart. He doesn’t have much patience for the sort of book learning I do, but he can hold a conversation with pretty much anybody on pretty much any topic because he usually knows a little something about it; he soaks up information like a sponge.

6. He takes almost nothing for granted.

7. He is very playful but never mean-spirited.

8. He is balanced. My whole life I have struggled for equilibrium in my closest relationships; I’m either totally absorbed in my own thoughts or I’m flapping at the jaw; either way, there’s not much space for a two-way interaction. In both cases, I tend to have pretty severe tunnel vision, so just because I know this about myself doesn’t mean I notice when I’m doing it. Friends and family regularly get exasperated with me, but Leo has a very special way of drawing me out when I’m too introverted and toning me down when I’m too intense. He’s my anchor.

9. He’s not afraid of new territory – be it geographical, social, culinary, etc… And he doesn’t content himself with a conservative nibble; he wades right in!

10. He can get along with anybody, and the best part is that he’s perfectly genuine in every interaction. To know him is to love him.

11. He’s never met a broken machine/computer/you-name-it that he can’t fix. As far as I’m concerned, Leo is a technical and mechanical genius.

12. He is actively engaged in teaching me about “calor humano” – the warmth that Brazilians are proud to exude. Even though I’m something of a remedial student, I have become a much more openly affectionate, appreciative person for his efforts!

13. He has an incredible work ethic.

14. He is a joyful person to his core.

15. He’s a lover, not a fighter! Despite being built like a bouncer, Leo is a gentle giant.

16. He can’t keep his hands off of my cooking – whether dinner is ready or not! I regularly have to chase him out of the kitchen! I love to cook. For me, it’s an act of nurturing and affection. Leo says you can taste when food is “feito com amor” and gladly cleans his plate!

17. Rather than feeling threatened or intimidated by me (as past boyfriends have been), Leo told me once that meeting a girl like me was like winning the lottery; he has proceeded to show me every day thereafter that he meant it.

18. There is a person in Leo’s life who struggles with crippling substance abuse; Leo is unfailingly loving toward this person even as he recognizes the seriousness of the disease. Seeing Leo’s level-headed, caring, steady, respectful, and tender interactions with this person is the most touching thing I have ever witnessed in my life.

19. He shares my penchant for absurd and somewhat stupid “pet names.”

20. He always sees the two sides of any situation. Sometimes this drives me nuts (shouldn’t he see my side – and only my side?), but I know that it actually takes a lot of empathy, which I value deeply.

21. He’s terribly handsome! His mouth could very well be sculpted and his eyes are a dark sienna with iridescent, gold-and-green flecks – except that no one can see them properly because he’s usually smiling!

22. He treats me like I’m the most beautiful woman in the world! (Please no one take him to the optometrist!)

23. His job is making ice cream, and he seems to think I should try each and every flavor.

24. We share a love for corny kung fu flicks.

25. Leo followed me into exile. Wait, what? Yup, you read that right. Even though he couldn’t get papers in the US, he was not “forced” abroad by deportation. He left with me based on my plans and my advice. He left behind scads of friends in the Boston area (we could literally never leave the house without bumping into someone he knew), 6 years of constructing a life, and a job that paid well and allowed him to take care of his parents back in Brazil. He packed up and left because it was good for my plans (a Fulbright in Brazil and then grad school in Canada), and he unquestioningly went where I wanted to go. He spent 6 months in Belo Horizonte (which he didn’t much like) during my Fulbright, followed by an agonizing several months of waiting for his Canadian visa (by himself in Rio, where he knew almost no one), followed by a move to Vancouver, Canada (where he knew absolutely no one). Here, he works two jobs for about 1/2 of what he earned in the States. He never complains about missing his friends or feeling lonely. The closest he comes to the community he had in Boston is a Catholic Church full of scowling, Portuguese 80-year-olds. He puts up with a cranky wife who is perpetually disheveled and usually throwing a fit about some article or theory that interests all of about 100 people in the whole world. And yet the other day he said to me “this is more than I ever could have hoped for.”

The 4th of July

2011-07-04T11:50:00.010-07:00

I'm not a poet, but this is what I have to say about the 4th:

It's full of nostalgia --
nostalgia for the smell of fresh-cut grass
and smoke from the grill and Folsom Field fireworks;
for counting the seconds it takes a blaze of light
to become a boom of sound;
for the way sweat in Colorado is never liquid
but appears as salty, fragrant crystals
baked onto your skin;
for the happy shouts and splashes of kiddos cooling off
in the chlorine-blue waters of Spruce Pool;
for trying against all odds
not
to
run
around the edges of the pool;
for the smell of hot ponderosa pines and dry, pink sandstone;
for the synthetic scent of camping gear,
the pillowy, silky skin on hiking blisters,
and the shock of relief when cooling tired feet in a mountain stream;
for the feel of rich dirt
on both worm and fingers
and the anticipation of running those fingers
down
the
slick
scales
of a
fresh-
caught
trout;
for the gritty seasoning campfires impart on marshmallows;
for the still-green June foothills slowly roasting to a ruddy August gold;
for the taste of cold juice
and BBQ meats;
for trying to avoid the celery in potato salad;
for the feeling of prickly hot pavement and soothingly cool grass under bare feet
-- and the sting of a soccer ball against them;
for the ten-minute grey-blue thunderstorms that threaten to disperse revelers;
for the sun,
the rainbows,
and the fresh wind in their wake.

I miss that America. I don't know if that was America. Maybe it was the 90s. Whatever it was, it felt enormous, happy, and hopeful. I liked it a lot.

On the 4th, I want to give the country the benefit of the doubt and say "I know what you are right now, but I also know what you can be." Why not appreciate that potential? Since I'm too busy eulogizing the past at the moment to think about the future, I'll direct you to a truly beautiful post by Amy G. at Destination Paradise.

On this 4th, please celebrate what America should be.

The Invisible Woman (warning: graphic)

2011-07-03T16:24:00.008-07:00

I've been delighted to see the words "bar" and "ban" showing up with increasing frequency in immigration-related articles. Call me naïve, but I believe that the more reasonable folks out there who know about the injustices of the system, the more allies we'll have in the fight to change the system. I have to think that also beginning to highlight how American spouses and kids are effectively deported along with their partners and parents could change more than a few minds -- especially since the myth persists that marriage solves everything. This link above goes to a sympathetic but info-"lite" article about American exiles, but it's still heartening to be able to link anything at all. Perhaps someday one of the big papers will do a series or spread about exile, but in the meantime it's nice to be slightly less invisible.

But sometimes being visible isn't the same as being seen... beheld, appreciated, contemplated... Sometime it means becoming a spectacle -- and not for doing anything "spectacular" -- as this article's comments section reminded me forcefully. Right out of the gate, the comments were just dripping with racism and misogyny. It shouldn't be surprising; the prejudice of white men tends to take a terrifyingly quick and violent turn toward perverse combinations of race-and-sex (even among people who are supposed to be on your side -- see #6 and 7). In this case:

We are desperate women, dating "anything," "dating down," "dating losers"... so much so that we'd "fall in love with a ham sandwich."

We are "garbage," "disgusting," and "on the fringes of society. Much like the women who marry prisoners... Multiple abortions, multiple divorces, multiple children by multiple men."

We are "narcissistic" (for throwing away our dreams and moving abroad? Or did that commenter just need an undesirable "female" attribute to smear on us?).

Our husbands are poor: "can I ask you women the size of your husbands bank accounts? Could it be 4 figures at best, or perhaps zero!" (I guess "for richer or for poorer" is just "a thing people say?")

Our parents should apparently be terribly ashamed of us. (It seems I made the mistake of assuming that it was my marriage, since my parents are both already in their own... silly me!)

We have "no self respect." (Thanks, White Men, for telling women how to respect themselves... where would we be without you?!)

What does this say about us? What does this say about our partners? The truth should be: nothing. I want to think that it says so much more about the white men who write these things. It should say "I'm jealous." "I feel threatened." "Being a white male is my only 'desirable' attribute; without it, I'm just a mass of fear and mortal flesh."

But I don't think that's what those phrases say. It would take too much self-awareness. No, they say "I am the the pinnacle and the standard. I am owed everything, and if you challenge that, I will take what's 'mine.'" At "best," it's thinly veiled fascinations with or flippant references to "Latin lovers" or "jungle fever;" at worst, it's the forceful exercise of psychic rape.

I can feel myself feebly gagging on the dozens of little white pricks being imagined down my throat. These men pry their way into my most intimate moments with only their minds; not even bedroom doors may be closed to them. I'm not invisible anymore; I feel their eyes all over my body. But, they're not attracted to me; they're attracted to themselves.

What they find so erotic is their own power; what disgusts them is not being worshiped. They don't distinguish between the power of love and the power of fear.

Law-Abiding Citizens

2011-06-06T14:30:00.002-07:00

There’s an article in the Sunday LA Times about the lovely Guzman family, who – as I wrote recently – were reunited in a well-deserved but nevertheless miraculous court hearing a few weeks back.

The article was good – better than the average immigration-related reporting certainly – but it was by no means excellent. The attempted realism of the piece was at times emotionally tone-deaf, like the hard-bitten one-liners that substituted battle scars or war stories for the PTSD and horror stories suffered by those of us confronting the immigration system in one way or another. No guts-or-glory here. Certain passages had a bare crudeness, as if under florescent lighting, so that grace-under-fire looked more like clumsiness. A few times, when the article tried to adopt a playful tone, it went just a little sharp. And given the baggage of many American readers, I found the headline “The New Latino South: Could He Be a Good American” to invite unnecessary judgment without being thought-provoking.

But the Guzmans shone brightly through, especially little Logan – a testament to his loving parents!

As to be expected, the article sported a raucous comments section. Now, as a rule, I never do anything more than skim the comments sections of immigration-related articles because reading (or, God forbid, responding to) the hateful thoughts contained therein is about as much fun as taking a cheese grater to your own face. I can’t forget that bigots and demagogues exist (after all, I live in exile), but I try to maintain a healthy distance from individual examples on the internet, which magnifies incivility a thousand-fold. Ignorance of ignorance may not be “bliss,” but it can play a pretty large role in stubbornly maintaining my willful affection for humanity.

But having gotten to know Emily a bit better through the online spaces in which we spouses-of-“undesireables” congregate, I didn’t want to let her comments section be colonized by hate, so I went for it…

The first thing I noticed was that we spouses – exiles, soon-to-be-exiles, waiver-awaiters, closet cases, etc… – do have a territory of our own.

I was not the only one to take to the comments in defense of the Guzmans; a small army of spouses who I’ve come to know through the web (thanks in large part to Emily’s organizing efforts) also wanted to show their support and did so – with gusto!

For once, I think our declarations overwhelmed the few (though stubborn) “illegal-is-illegal-is-illegal-is…” broken records. Mind you, there’s still a lot of hate in that comments section, but it’s tame compared to most immigration-related articles. Usually, commenters become so wrathfully psychotic with rage that these articles have their comments sections closed lest mild-mannered readers get nailed through the computer screen by the troll spittle flying from commenters foaming lips. For the first time that I’ve seen, uneducated and xenophobic but mulishly self-affirming protestations came across as just that. No, our little nation of spouses was not staggeringly compelling or articulate; we were just numerous, persistent, and informed – three traits to never underestimate.

We’re a funny group – a motley mix spanning several generations, classes, races, and at least three continents – but we’ve fashioned our own common ground out of cyberspace and populated it with the compassion and information that is so hard to come by on this issue within the physical borders of the United States. It’s not a utopia, but it is a patria for those of us unable to find one on terra firma.

Oddly enough, the comments section also helped me get a better handle on some of my lingering prejudices about a lot of the folks facing immigration problems… it’s an unflattering realization in many, many ways, but I want to share it – to exorcise it:

I’ve struggled mightily with the criminal histories of the undocumented spouses in a small-but-noticeable number of cases – even when I know better after personal interaction; I still derived a sick sense of superiority from our own squeaky-clean record.

Now, you might remember that Leo had an arrest for driving without a license, but I’m not talking about breaking rules that have been made impossible to follow for the express purpose of harassing a population (like all of the Arizona-like “existing while immigrant” laws being passed across the South or like the “internal passports”-turn the licensing debate has taken). I also don’t mean the act of crossing the border.

I mean criminal acts.

Despite the scores of undocumented folks I know in the States without the slightest inkling of a criminal record who still can’t get documents and end up being deported even with an American partner or kids, I feel like almost all of the newspaper stories I’ve read are about some tough undocumented kid who had some trouble with the law (sometimes a little more than “trouble”) before meeting an American girl, having a kid, and turning his life around to become an upstanding gent before his whole world was turned upside-down once again by ICE.

Chances are the reporting is more varied; I’m just admittedly sensitive to all of that “criminaliens” crap, so – with a wince – I notice it. And I never really knew what to say to those pointed comments jabbing directly at a criminal past.

I have an ambiguous relationship with “the law,” given that it can be used to oppress just as easily as protect; the whole tortured history of race and citizenship in America is written in laws – from the Chinese Exclusion Act to the Indian Removal Act to the Jim Crow South. I find the distinction between just and unjust laws, which Dr. King explained in his Letter From a Birmingham Jail, to be extremely compelling: “an unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.”

So it’s pretty easy for me to decide that crossing the US/Mexico border isn’t a Big Fucking Deal given that immigration laws are currently inhumane and reprehensible. Until they’re reformed in such a way as to facilitate the legal movement of people rather than force the clandestine smuggling of people, I will firmly believe that folks from the Minute Men to Sheriff Arpaio to Border Patrol are engaged in far more “unlawful” behavior than the weary, aspiring immigrants they persecute.

But at heart, I really am a square. Despite being politically rather radical, I’ve got a pretty conservative core; I like rules. A lot. So even though laws can be wrong, I sure like it when they’re right. I almost delight in following them – to the point that I was known in high school for refusing to jaywalk. I wish I were kidding.

So when immigration news stories demonstrate an uncanny attraction to former “offenders,” I start to have ethical indigestion. On the one hand, I don’t think that deportation is a good way to deal with crime; after all, it’s only facilitated international gang activity. I also don’t think that there are many crimes for which taking someone’s future is an appropriate punishment (what motivation would one have to turn their life around then?). And frankly, there are no crimes for which one’s children should be punished. None.

But – on the other hand – I feel an uncomfortable affinity for those who think guns, drugs, gangs, etc… are actually pretty Big Fucking Deals. I do, too.

Well… at least with a new caveat.

Reading some of the comments on the article, I realized that the commenters were making judgments to which they would never be subjected themselves – that I have been making judgments to which I have never been subjected and have no chance of ever being subjected!

They are congratulating themselves on not making choices with which they were never presented.

I’m not talking about “you don’t know [war, famine, poverty, etc…], but if you did, you would have crossed the border, too!” No, I’m talking about guns, drugs, gangs, etc… and I’ll use myself and my teen years (a time of much “indiscretion,” it seems) as an example:

Anyone who knows Boulder, CO will not be surprised that no one tried to recruit me into a gang while I was growing up there. A handgun may as well have been a unicorn; my chances of seeing one were about even. I never knew anyone who was so addicted to drugs as to hurt someone else, steal, or sell their body. Until a few years ago, I never lost a friend, neighbor, or even acquaintance to violence. I knew people who did harder drugs (mostly upper middle class social drugs), but I never laid eyes on anything other than pot. I never saw or heard violence between partners or violence against children. I was never the victim of crime. The closest I got to sexual assault was a disturbed man trying to grind with me on a crowded bus; it was gross but not scarring. I never had to care for my parents instead of them caring for me. When money was tight, I wasn’t aware – and money was never that tight; I always had food, clothing, shelter, school supplies, toys, etc… I never had to earn money for anyone but me and never had to use it to buy necessities. I had not one but two loving families; each of my parents had at least one post-secondary degree. I had small class sizes with engaged and encouraging teachers in a physically safe schooling environment; no one ever doubted that I would go on to college. I knew some folks who had “records,” but I never knew anyone in jail.

The list goes on…

My point is that I never made any hard choices because I was never presented with any hard choices.

Does that make me a saint?

Well, I guess it doesn’t.

It makes me lucky.

Now there are a handful of rare moments that I came a few inches from trouble:

When still in middle school, I stole a tiny box of glitter eye shadow. No one noticed and nothing happened. I think I thought I’d feel rebellious (a terms otherwise absent from my adolescent vocabulary); I felt dumb and scared. I didn’t do it again.

Early in high school, I was out with a tougher group of my friends (I had an eclectic set of friend groups) who wanted to buy some pot. They didn’t manage to procure any.

Around the same time – for about two weeks – I thought that I was pretty tough, too, and smoked pot on 2 or 3 occasions. I told my mother about it. She said, “hm… how did it make you feel?” In the end, the answer was fuzzy but not all that different, and I hated the fiberglass feeling in my lungs and lips. We talked about drugs that I must never even think of doing, about the supply chain and the role of drugs in violence in Latin America, and about drug enforcement. The allure wore off in short order, and I decided the stuff wasn’t for me. I also stopped drinking except for a small glass of wine at special family occasions. Even in college I didn’t drink socially – except when in Europe, where it was allowed – until I was 21. My reason? The drinking age. I am that square.

The only time I was ever in trouble in school was again in middle school when, as the loudspeaker announcement girl, I read off the “World of 100 People” stats (a beautiful, more recent rendering can be found here) as my “fact of the day.” One of the most tyrannical teachers in the school took offense, gave me detention, and relieved me of my duties. My homeroom teacher reinstated me.

I can hear you snoring.

Yep, that’s the extent of my rap sheet, and I still feel uncomfortable admitting to the first three "offenses!"

Looking back, I’m quite sure that the worst possible punishments I could have suffered for any of these offenses would have been grounding by my parents and – at the absolute worst extreme – maybe some restorative justice or community service (based on the “sentences” of the “delinquents” I knew).

These were pretty pedestrian indiscretions, obviously – but not only because of the scale of my actions; there was also nothing more tied up in them than the curiosity of a privileged, sheltered goody-two-shoes. These weren't hard choices; they were dumb choices, and aside from the “100 People” stunt, these actions had little place in my “normal;” they were just a few moments of me testing limits. I am certain, however, that any number of changes in my circumstances – from the place to my race – would have produced drastically different responses if "caught." The fact that a judge (if it ever got there) would see me as a sheltered kid testing my limits is just another extension of my privilege – never mind that my normal was having the pocket money to actually buy that glitter or that I could make the choice to remove myself from an environment with drugs or alcohol and discuss it with a caring, sober, and well-educated adult like my mom.

At around the same time I was pocketing $1.99-worth of glitter (I feel so awkward even writing that), a rough-and-tumble kid in Mexico City that I would come to know 10 years later was running with a gang and getting in violent brawls; after one of these fights put him in the hospital, he found out that he had a heart condition that would kill him young. Now, he’d almost been killed and almost died in other ways, and he’d lost many friends. But only the promise of inglorious, chest-clutching kind of death scared him into living life; wanting to sever all of his ties to his former life, he crossed to the States with a only few bucks in his pocket and proceeded to work too damn hard to make any legal trouble.

The first time I met this guy (we’ll call him “Manny,” since that was a name one friend called him by mistake and thereafter insisted on using), I noticed a nasty scar on his arm and asked him about it; he told me that he’d been stabbed. Just like that, he said it was a knife wound! And, crazier still, I assumed he meant by someone in the restaurant kitchen where he worked (because I’m extremely stupid in certain areas of my life). No, Manny said, not in the kitchen. On the street then, I thought; wow, can’t be too careful these days with knife-wielding maniacs about! (That one of them was obviously Manny never crossed my mind.) “Wow,” I said, “so he just came at you with a knife and stabbed you in the arm?”

We were obviously not communicating and it turned out to have been a telling interaction.

Even as I got to know him better, I still didn’t get him. I stupidly jabbered to my friends that Manny’s life made me wonder whether Mexican soap operas were actually reality TV shows. The tragedy was so over-the-top that Dickens himself would probably have decided “we gotta tone this down. It’s a little much;” it seemed almost farcical.

We started dating and spent the entire next 7 months totally talking past one another. Obviously this relationship didn’t last. Manny wasn’t a bad guy, but he was a terrible boyfriend, so although I wish him well, I’m really glad I eventually made that distinction. Inside and outside of our relationship, it was painfully clear that he was injured and lost. It was also painfully clear that even though he wanted to do good, he didn’t know how. Up until now I could never quite reconcile Manny’s desire to do good with his penchant for fucking up. And thinking back on our relationship, I wonder what would have happened if he had been “the one” and somehow managed to get himself figured out and be the perfect husband and dad... We would have been one of those immigration stories that make me flinch.

Only now do I see that his “normal” was my “extreme and terrifying deviance.” My normal, meanwhile, was the life he’d come looking for but wouldn’t recognize even if it bit him on the nose because he’d never seen it modeled. Telling Manny to get an internship (which I had done testily on several occasions) was like telling me to get a fair price for a kilo of cocaine; neither of us had the information or support to even know where to begin.

My choices during high school were between things like my trademark superhero lunchbox/purses – Spider-Man or X-Men? Clever little me. Manny had choices like “be in this gang or be a victim of it.” Sure, I can fantasize about what I would do in his circumstances or point to alternative paths that were probably not visible from his vantage point. In the end, though – even though we’re all heroes of hypothetical situations – I have to recognize that I’ve simply never been confronted by those choices.

Now, I’ve painted us both with pretty broad brushes to make a point, and within our backgrounds and even our very persons, there are a lot more nuances and ambiguities. I’m also not saying that Manny was blameless due to circumstances beyond his control nor am I saying that he was just “destined” to have an inverted Midas touch; that would be replacing one blind over-simplification with another.

But what I am saying is that, when hearing the stories of the women in our little online nation or reading articles about families in our position, I should have always been more careful about levying even silent judgments. I made the mistake on many occasions of confusing character with a dearth of opportunities and a wealth of difficulties.

I’m forced now to realize that if Manny had ever become the man he so desperately wanted to be – as the partners of many of my sisters-in-immigration have – it would have been a much greater accomplishment than my unbroken winning streak; the cards have always been stacked in my favor, after all.

I would have to recognize and respect a strength that I frankly don’t know if I possess.

So to the LA Times commenters – from one privileged “law-abiding” citizen to another: don’t give yourselves too much credit.

Good news!

2011-05-17T10:39:00.005-07:00

It's not often you get to post good news on something immigration-related, so imagine my delight to find out that this incredible woman with her incredible husband and adorable little kiddo get to be a family once again!

It's been 19 long months, and in the meantime Emily has become a force to be reckoned with on immigration issues and has provided love and support to hundreds (literally -- we've got a Facebook group) of folks also struggling to keep their families together against all odds.

Apparently, the government reserves the right to appeal. Let's hope they realize they've done enough damage to this family and leave the Guzmans in peace.

UPDATE: (from MVMG) "It is very good news indeed. After the hearing on Monday, the government reserved the right to 'appeal' (not 'repeal') of the Judge's ruling of granting Pedro 'special rule of cancellation' under NACARA. On Tuesday, DHS lawyer decided not to file the appeal and the family is united after 20 months of horror."

I'm still alive!

2011-05-15T13:47:00.002-07:00

It’s been a long time since I posted! Sorry for that… I’ve been trying to focus on schoolwork, but I'm back after coming to three important realizations:

1. If I don’t take time off for myself, my body and mind take it for me by totally shutting down. It turns out that the mind was never made to shred through hundreds of pages of reading, writing, and editing for 10 to 12 hours on end. After about 5, I stare at my computer screen in this sort of vegetative haze trying to dredge word after word out of my flat-lining brain, sloppily pasting them into something vaguely resembling a sentence… whether or not it means anything becomes irrelevant after a while. Either that, or I unexpectedly conk out for 12 hours – dead to the world.

2. One of the benefits of this plan would be staying together with my husband; as important as my education is to me and as grateful as I am to have this opportunity, it is pretty empty if I never see Leo.

3. Even working 24/7, I have more work than I can finish by the actual deadline. Moreover, working 24/7 I produce crap and drivel (refer to the first point in this list); the good stuff takes time… and time off. (I seem to be alone in this realization, however…)

But I think I like grad school.

I know I don’t like that the ulcers are back. I know I don’t like feeling even more stressed out than when we were in the States, and I assumed a call could come at any second telling me that some overzealous cop had carelessly dynamited our dreams; or when we were Brazil, waiting on a Canadian visa, and running out of hope and money; or when I was alone in Canada with doubt as my only companion while Leo languished half a world away. I don’t know how this can be more stressful than that, but it is. And I don’t like that last Friday was the only day off I’ve had since December (and not because I could afford to take it; I was just at the end of my rope).

But I think I like grad school. I sure do like the perspectives. Geography is full of unorthodox perspectives, and it has made the world shimmer like a prism.

Hopefully Geography likes me back. This Friday I have my Spring Review, and I have to admit that I’m terrified. I don’t think I would be but for a terrible experience in one of my classes a few months ago… I presented some work that I wasn’t happy with but also had neither the time nor the neurons to make it something I could be proud of (see numbers 1 and 3 in my list). My peers smelled blood in the water, and what ensued was nothing short of a feeding frenzy. I’d trusted in a comradery that doesn’t actually exist, so now thinking of Spring Review with (gulp!) professors makes me a little queasy. I’m trying to focus just two days beyond it to a list of things I want to do but haven’t had the time... I’ve been compiling it for a few months:

- Plant an herb garden

- Have a picnic

- Buy some art supplies and use another part of my brain for a few hours

- Go for a walk

Of course, the blog belongs on that list, too. I’m going to try to neglect it less. I don’t know if I’ll be able to write that much. Often, when I get two seconds off, I try to be anywhere BUT on my computer. Still, there’s plenty of news I can post because – if anything – the immigration picture is getting more and more absurd in the US. So that’ll be the plan: intermittent updates with lots of news! I also know a lot of good folks who are in bad situations with immigration, so I may see if there’s some interest in “guest posting” their stories. I’ve said it before: our situation is about as close to normal as you can get, and that means that anyone looking at our story likely assumes that exile is a walk in the park. Bullshit. There are countless women (and handful of men) who’ve made truly humbling sacrifices to keep their families together. I am deeply in awe of them.

Some have started to blog for themselves recently, so I’ve added a few more links to the right!

So there you are. I'm alive -- if barely! And now there are some un-read chapters calling my name...

I Feel Like This Is Becoming A Habit...

2011-03-06T12:15:00.002-08:00

No post again today, folks.

March and April are going to be nuts for me. Aside from normal grad school whatnot (we're nearing the end of the semester, so I have presentations and papers on top of reading and RA work), I have to write up a paper to present at a conference in April, get my research cleared by the department and the university, get my ducks in a row for fieldwork in Brazil (visas, interviews, travel plans, etc...), and -- silly me -- I decided to take on an editing project, too. I've moved beyond the "so anxious I'm procrastinating on Facebook" stage to the "so anxious that I am a cantankerous, unkempt hermit" stage.

My apologies, but I'm going to be a bit scarce for a few weeks. I have good intentions of trying to update Sundays, so just keep checking back.

This post has been delayed due to life maintenance.

2011-02-20T14:31:00.003-08:00

I will post, as promised, within the next week! I've been on "Spring Break" for the last week, which somehow ended with me more behind on schoolwork than when I began, so I have to buckle down today instead of posting.

Check back soon!

The Grapevine

2011-02-13T13:03:00.007-08:00

When Leo and I were in the US, our relationship was constantly the subject of intense speculation. Folks from both of our communities asked the documents question – usually behind our backs and sometimes to our faces – as if there could be no other logical reason for us to tie the knot.

We would both insist that it was a moot point; there was no chance – given when and how he entered the United States – that our marriage would result in a green card without, at the very least, a long wait and an expensive waiver process… if we were lucky.

Many folks – and many lawyers – encouraged us to keep our heads down and wait for immigration reform. As I’ve written before, I thought the idea laughable; did no one else pay attention to politics?!

Well, the logic went, if it did come to deportation, we could appeal on some sort of humanitarian grounds. This, of course, is just as laughable. Anyone who thinks the United States immigration system is “humanitarian” or makes sufficient exceptions for this to be a viable strategy probably has never had any interaction with the institution! And I was happy to tell them so.

Speaking with Brazilians, the invariable response would be “but I know someone who knows someone who…”

To which I would respond, “you must not know their whole situation.” Certainly our situation would not allow for whatever they had just finished describing. Our options were as straightforward as our situation was mundane (on the scale of immigration sob stories).

Another common suggestion was that I take a trip to Brazil, during which Leo and I would “meet,” and I would then file for him from as my fiancé. We would just have to pretend that Leo had never been to the US. This proposal was usually supported by another “but I know someone…” yarn.

“Do you know what happens,” I would ask, “if they find out you lied on your application?”

The answer was almost always “no,” although sometimes they’d respond “oh, Immigration would never find out!”

In Leo’s case, his fingerprints would have linked him to driving without a license in the US well before we might have “met” in Brazil. We didn’t know that at the time, of course, but we also knew better than to test the system.

But these tales still wound their way through the grapevine, no doubt sucked along by the informational vacuum that characterizes the US immigration system. Such legends thrived on the superstitions and happenstance that sometimes swayed the spirit realm of immigration courts. And somehow these apparitions were more real to our friends and family than the stable ground I sought to place beneath our feet!

Our very good friend whose detention I wrote about (here and here) had a deportation hearing a few weeks ago. Prior to his hearing, an acquaintance had pulled him aside in church and confided in him that she had gotten “documents:” “a social security number and a driver’s license” with the help of such-and-such lawyer.

I was devastated that he’d been told this because, up until the judge finalized the deportation order, he was still convinced that he – like his acquaintance – could be some sort of winner in the magical SSN-and-driver’s-license lottery.

After knowing more about this woman’s background, I think that it’s safe to assume that all she got were interim documents during more drawn-out proceedings.

Frustrated, I told Leo this, and he shrugged: “Do you think she cares? It’s still documents.”

“No,” I ranted, “it’s not! It’s false hope! It’s irresponsible for her to be flaunting her documents without telling the whole story.”

Our friend believed her with every fiber in his being.

“I find out tomorrow if they’ll let me be a citizen!” our friend had crowed to me over the phone.

Leo believed, too, even though he knew better; he thought that the hope was worth the disappointment.

I thought it was like being punched in the face, offered a reconciliatory hug, and then kicked in the gut. My personality is such that I’ll just take the punch in the face, thanks. The last thing I need on top of a broken nose is some internal bleeding.

While living in Boston, time and again, I saw this grapevine overgrow its trellis and creep into the pockets of rather desperate folks, snatching away one of the few tools that really could help them in the event of detention and deportation: money.

This sounds terribly materialistic, I know, but to those who would levy such accusations at me, I propose an experiment: that they give away all of their cash, get deported to a developing country with nothing more than a carry-on suitcase, and wait to see how long they can live off of righteousness alone.

In Boston, there were a few places that I saw this happen. The first was with lawyers. Some of the finest and some of the lowest people on this earth are immigration lawyers. Unfortunately, the excellent ones end up giving a lot of bad news upfront and then fighting the few good fights that they can. The terrible ones, however, are worse than liars; not only do they feed off of their clients’ unflagging hope, they often go on to destroy any immigration possibilities that had previously existed through poor lawyering. And they do it all to the tune of thousands of dollars per life wrecked.

One of my finer moments (of the sort I would hope Saint Peter has written down on my behalf) was helping to keep a Haitian man (with an LPR wife and a 6-year-old son) from being deported. One of the bigger victories was to get him (excellent and pro bono) legal assistance and help him fire his old lawyer (who had been recommended by a friend of a friend whose friend had gotten a green card with his help… that damn grapevine!).

The lawyer’s fate was sealed in my eyes when I called to offer some assistance (“Hi, I’m Corin from [so-and-so’s] office; your client is a constituent of hers…”) and the lawyer actually said “uh, um… I’m uh, going into a tunnel right now… um, so I might lose the call… yeah, it’s breaking up.” Click. He then called our constituent and tried to get him to stop working with our office by assuring him that “help from elected officials is pretty worthless.” Worthless, eh?

Another unfortunate and just as predatory example comes from some of the Brazilian evangelical churches in Boston. Of course, not all (and hopefully not even most) prey on their congregations’ status, but some do in audaciously transparent ways.

When I first arrived in Boston, I took up a family friend’s Brazilian housekeeper’s invite to a popular Brazilian evangelical church. I went on a few occasions because I enjoy watching worship of all kinds. Belief fascinates me, and I do understand that believing in miracles and a deus ex machina is sometimes the only thing that gets us through tough situations. But the bulk what was worshiped in this church startled me.

The pastor had obviously achieved his status in the community through his own fortune and being one hell of a salesman. And with the skills of a practiced hawker, he preached the gospel of money and documents. To the Brazilians who had come to the US looking for financial opportunities closed to them in Brazil, he promised wealth. To the Brazilians hungering after citizenship, he offered documents. He was happy to use his own story – his cars and properties in the US and Brazil, as well as the documents that let him come and go as he pleased – as an example of what the United States could hold. All worshipers needed to do, he insinuated, was to prove their faith with cold, hard cash; the larger the amount (inversely related to one’s salary, disturbingly enough), the more devotion to God one was exhibiting.

One night, the largest donation won a gift basket. Come on down!

While many churches give that money back to the community and struggling members of the congregation, many others are happy to profit from desperation, and I believe that this church fell into the latter category.

I started to make up excuses whenever I received an invitation.*

And now I worry that Leo and I will become the stuff of the grapevine. His friends have been calling here to ask about moving to Canada. I’ve gotten a few questions, as well, which I have tried to answer honestly. The last thing I want is for a lack of understanding about our situation to put others in harmful or exploitative situations.

So next week’s post will be on what it took – the planning and the strange luck and the uncanny coincidences – to get Leo and me to Canada.

And if you’ve been following the blog for a while, you might remember that I wish I’d known certain things about getting to Canada -- getting here and not even immigrating, mind you! We’re not immigrants yet! We are merely in the first stages of building up the credentials that would allow us to stay, but this is nothing more than a relatively stable plateau in a continuing hike toward finding somewhere to call home.

*In the interest of full disclosure: I am vaguely Catholic, having been baptized before marrying Leo with the intention to do communion and eventually also have a Catholic ceremony. My parents were agnostics for all intents and purposes who made religious claims ranging from a spiritual appreciation for the natural world to rather denigrating statements about organized religion. I now stand on the left-most edge of Brazilian-infused Catholicism with an outsider’s intrigue, a social justice connection, and a budding admiration for the power of belief… but not a lot of patience for patent exploitation of said beliefs by anyone.

Angry Canadians? No, those are called "Americans."

2011-02-05T23:20:00.005-08:00

I feel like I’ve been lying to Leo.

Speaking with him during the months before he arrived, all I could do was gush about how sweet and friendly folks are in Vancouver.

At first, everything appeared as I promised. His first week here – a glorious sunny stretch of spring-like weather – we went walking down by the beach. A paunchy, grey-haired jogger loped by, calling out, “how’s the young couple?” A small dog running on the beach barked playfully at us, and his pretty, young owner – totally mortified – overflowed with exclamations of “I’m so sooorry!” Everywhere we looked people were either interacting with perfect pleasantness or else apologizing for inappropriate missteps.

It's a far cry, certainly, from the US, where an irate man once yelled at us to “speak English!” in the street, middle fingers sprouted like enthusiastic weeds in snarled traffic, and even parking in Whole Foods became a car-jousting death match – Prius and Subaru parts flying in all directions.

Not in Canada!

During the fall, I witnessed an unusual interaction between a heavily intoxicated homeless man and some rough-looking youths: when the homeless man intentionally spat his vodka all over the group, I was prepared to spring in the opposite direction of what I was sure would be a raucous brawl. But no! “Not cool, man,” one dripping teen instructed patiently, “We’re buddies! You don’t do that to your friends.”

I was dumbfounded, but I’ve since come to expect such interactions. A few months ago, one of my good friends defended the Canadian way against an irate American by saying simply, “can we please not talk about other peoples’ countries?” When it became clear that her wishes would be promptly bulldozed, she mumbled her goodbyes and departed. Outside, she turned to me and apologized for “getting so upset like that.”

“Isn’t it great?!” I gushed to Leo, “folks are so sweet!”

Well, let me be the first to admit that I was wrong.

As the last two months have worn on, we have seen rowdy arguments in the streets, old ladies clucking impatiently at pregnant ladies, pregnant ladies growling menacingly at whimpering toddlers, anonymous neighbors leaving one another rude notes, impertinent students ramming through (the hallowed) bus stop line-ups, harassed customer service agents patently not giving a shit, and car horns loudly announcing the most minor of offenses!

It turns out that Canadians are downright nasty.

I know. You’re thinking, “I’ve never met a mean Canadian! They’re all so unobtrusive and enjoy documentary film making!”

Yes, we Americans remain blissfully unaware of the harassed, prickly, and passive aggressive tendencies lurking within our neighbors to the North.

Americans think Canadians are all maple sugar-sweet for one of two reasons: 1) having never been to Canada in the winter, or 2) having never been to Canada at all, instead meeting Canadians abroad or through finding out that a good friend in the States has been hiding his or her secret Canadian identity for years. (There are a lot of secret Canadians! Ask around; you will discover a gaggle of Canucks in your midst.)

The truth is that Canadians are like werewolves. When the sun is out, they’re happy-go-lucky, blue-helmeted, lumberjack beavers (I might be exaggerating)… but on the eve of a bitter winter storm, they become ferocious, toque-clad, blade-footed beasties (I am totally not exaggerating)! They will snap at you, glower disapprovingly, and perhaps speak honestly about what a total douche they think you are (some choice words, no doubt, that they’ve been saving up since July).

Ok, so let’s be honest: Vancouver winter behavior is comparable to a good mood in Boston – I mean a really good mood… like “the Pats just won the Super Bowl” good! But it’s the transformation that is decidedly disturbing. Luckily, they stay holed up this time of year and only bare their venomous fangs in line at Shoppers Drug Mart (everyone has to venture out for toothpaste eventually, but it might be the last errand you ever run...).

This morning I saw the first crocuses poking out through the wet ground, and all I could think was “thank God this dark, wet madness is coming to an end!”

So there you go. I don’t know if it’s the cold, the precipitation, or the lack of daylight, but living this far north does things to you!

…which means that maybe Alaska’s latitude explains Sarah Palin! I mean, something has to, right? She falls well outside the bell curve, even of American nastiness and nuttery...

Visits and no Sunday post...

2011-01-27T12:15:00.002-08:00

My dad is coming to visit this weekend, so I am posting on Thursday instead of Sunday!

It was actually my dad who took me to Vancouver for the first time in 2002 when I was doing my college search. I don’t know where he got the idea of a Canadian university from (his bank account?), but he suggested I consider McGill and UBC. We ended up only visiting UBC, but I was so taken with the area and the school that it remained one of my top choices. I ended up choosing Smith because it had all of the trimmings of a small, East Coast, liberal arts college – from the traditions to the history to the name recognition and extensive list of powerful and intriguing alumnae. I also still had those dreams of working in US politics, and Smith’s government program won out over UBC’s (excellent but, obviously, not US-focused) political science department. In typical all-or-nothing fashion, I only ever sent a full application to Smith.

Being a divorced kid, I had always felt a little bad about choosing Smith over UBC because I had visited Smith on a trip with my mom and I worried that my dad felt left out. There was some distance between my dad and me during my teen years while my mom and I were very close; I think he felt left out a lot. It’s funny that all of these years later to know how important that Vancouver trip really was.

I’m excited to see my dad! There’s still some distance between us, but it’s not charged like it once was; it’s a relaxed space. Gone is that confused and perhaps resentful silence. I think we both are better at accepting the other now. I’m older, he’s wiser, and the stakes seem somehow both lower and higher. It’s also been over a year (the last time I saw him was at my wedding in Sept. 2009). He has since made an international move (from Switzerland to the US) and changed jobs. There’s a lot to catch up on, and what better place to do it than where he and I took one of our only big father-daughter trips?

So, no post on Sunday… we’ll probably be out having dim sum! Yum!

Landslides and Mommy Blogging

2011-01-23T14:08:00.004-08:00

First, if you haven't had a chance to help out the folks caught in the recent floods and landslides in Brazil, check out Adventures of a Gringa.

Next, Babies!

This is not a mommy blog. For one thing, I am not a mommy. But moreover, I’ve instructed a dear friend to pull the plug on this venture if it ever so much a swerves toward that road if and when I do become a mommy. Some mommy blogs are fabulous, funny, and insightful; most are criminally boring and will someday scar the very children they were erected to exalt.

But the other day, my mother said the strangest thing to me: you have to take good care of yourself, she told me, so that you have a strong body for carrying a baby. Not long after that, she told me about getting a bit misty while watching a grandmother-granddaughter reunion.

Babies?!

This is the woman who threatened to institutionalize me (speaking of not-the-best parenting moments) when I tried to convey to her that hypothetical unexpected babies in less-than-idyllic circumstances – while not desirable – do not the apocalypse make; I had begun to understand that a lot of people the world over make do with much worse every second of every day… although not in our quaint little hometown of Boulder, CO, which is both fondly and derisively referred to as “15 square miles surrounded by reality.” Growing up in Boulder was a wonderfully nurturing experience, but stepping outside of it and blinking back the harsh sunlight paralleled Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” – as did my disillusioned rantings about the “outside world” when I returned there for the first time.

I have since stopped thinking about Boulder and what’s “in there” as being less real than what’s “out here.” Sheltered? Yes. But still "real" enough. Besides, here I am in equally crunchy Vancouver – living in the neighborhood most like my childhood cocoon – so read into that as you will.

So, now that we’re in seemingly safe and familiar circumstances, my mother is almost encouraging babies rather than threatening to chuck me into a padded room for trying to tell her that elsewhere in the world people make do with hypothetical babies or hypothetical hardships (and are sometimes even happy in circumstances that Boulderites might deign unimaginable).

No doubt she was initially concerned because my uterus has been screaming for kiddos since I hit 22 and some internal switch went from “ew” to “aw,” but my head has been slower to catch up. Now that Leo has hit 30 and I’ve turned 26, it seems like we’re allowed to consider being parents. I must admit that I’ve started keeping an eye out for baby- and kiddo-themed news and advice.

So, in my Saturday cereal-and-news ritual last week, I ran across the hullabaloo about Amy Chua’s memoire “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.” (There are too many articles to link here, so do a little Googling.)

Suffice it to say that the debate has nothing at all to do with kids or parenting. Call it “strategic essentialism;” Chua has wielded “Chinese” throughout in ways that make squishy Anglo-American parents look at the Asian valedictorian of the 5^th grade class and see only the “Chinese menace” in all of its math-doing, violin-playing, Harvard-accepted, future-brain surgeon terror. They have responded in ethnocentric editorial style by rounding out any neglected stereotypes of Asians and throwing in a good measure of Anglo-American egoism – complete with self-conscious rebuttals around “ingenuity” and “initiative.”

Almost none of the respondents reflect on how their own parenting styles are a complicated product of one’s own culture, past lived experiences (perhaps with immigration or racism), and present expectations. Almost none consider the ways in which middle- and upper-class Anglo-Americans similarly enroll their 6^th graders in SAT prep courses, load them down with résumé-boosting extra-curriculars, or fight tooth-and-nail for precious spaces in charter or magnet schools.

Instead, almost all of the Western respondents blunder into discussing Chinese this-or-that without recognizing that their own perceptions of these presumed cultural truths have filtered through layer upon layer of Western “rights,” “wrongs,” and norms. More interesting would be a moment of introspection; why do Western parents (and, frankly, “Western” is too wide of a net to cast; this discussion is more about Anglo-American parents) prize self-esteem, foster uniqueness, and promote self-discovery? Why are we all “special” and (frankly) exempt from the systems and rules within which Chua railroads her daughters?

The tiff between my mother and me happened about 3 years ago (although there are lingering misgivings and iterations). It had a lot to do with the fallout from Anglo-American same parenting style – her coming to terms with where “my journey” has taken me and me realizing that I struggle to incorporate meta-rules and responsibilities into “my journey.” In either case, it’s Anglo-American parenting with a thick Boulder-granola crust.

Therefore, I am not surprised that my mother (who so wanted to lock me up for not being able to work myself into a Chicken Little tizzy about the million ways that one could “ruin” his or her life) can look around Vancouver and deem it an acceptable place in which to raise her grandkids. I must admit that I, too, find it a less daunting prospect – although my number one concern about starting a family has been geographical stability above anything else.

Even geographically united, however, Leo and I will never be parenting from the same country. We have talked many times about how we’d like to raise our kids. From my American background, I value lessons of independence, setting goals, and of following one’s dreams. From his Brazilian background, Leo values family-oriented lessons of caring for one another, being humble, and being present… and Flamenguista. We both, however, agree on the importance of education, responsibility, and big personalities (that last one is sort of a genetic given in our case).

But those expectations miss another point, as do the editorials responding to Chua: all of them also assume that kids are little receptacles; that they will develop passion and self-esteem through certain parenting practices or Harvard acceptances and a good work ethic through others.

My mother, however, is fond of sharing with me how "children" (read: yours truly) are also important players in their own upbringings; I was a stubborn little tyrant from day 1, and no amount of Tiger Mother-ing would have made me an obedient cub. Chua recounts not allowing her daughter to use the bathroom until she mastered a piano composition. Were she my mother, that piano would have been the site of a very damp protest in short order. It’s not that my parents were indulgent of such behavior; I would have been grounded until the end of time by my father. But I still would have done it.

Once my father washed out my mouth with soap for talking back (without a doubt, I was guilty as charged). For some reason, he served up my punishment on a washcloth.

“How does that taste?” he asked.

“Like soap on a washcloth!” I shot back.

Back-talking lesson: 0, Corin: 1,257.

I was talking in full sentences when most of my peers were still testing out their chubby little legs. I would shout for my father by his first name and demand my bottle of milk “warm.” I liked the word “actually” very much. When the other children at daycare talked about “woofs” and “li-berries,” I took it as an invitation to not-so-gently remind them of the proper pronunciations: “wolf” and “library.” (Although “fabric” and “flatirons” – or “favrick” and “flat-i-RONs” – were my secret Achilles’ heels).

Still, that “doggy” is “actually” a “golden retriever.”

Ignorant fools.

The daycare informed my parents that this behavior was highly unusual.

My mother quickly learned that under all of this was a somewhat cautious and very law-abiding streak… provided that such rules were not the result of an arbitrary exercise of authority. Under her roof, a strange little experiment in participatory democracy took place; she would explain her thinking, I would explain mine, and the end result would be a binding rule. We negotiated everything from TV time to curfews (and almost always with a fairly conservative result).

It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than the rare instances in which she or my step-dad used the authoritative shortcut “because I said so.” Duck and cover!

Leo’s head would probably explode with a daughter that took after younger-me; he expects that inherent in family structures are certain rules and codes of respect and affection, while younger-me would make fast work of both – like a cat on the arm of a new couch. I, on the other hand, would probably find myself exasperated with a younger-him, toss out his pacifier, unwind his clinging fingers from my legs, and hand him some ingredients to help me cook dinner because I’m not a slave and he’s not an invalid.

But the truth is if we have kids of our own, they’ll be little beings in their own right. Some traits they will inherit from us, others they will learn, and still others will appear strangely inherent. No doubt we’ll both have to adjust our expectations – cultural and intellectual – as we go.

I, for one, plan to lean on the only fail-safe bit of parenting advice I’ve ever heard. Our family friend Chuck once told my mother: “You will fuck up your kids, and they’ll forgive you.”

Truer words have never been spoken.

As I get older, the most incredible shift in perception has been from seeing my parents as concomitantly infallible-and-unjust demigods to seeing them as people who’ve done the best they can with a stubborn little critter like me. Have they fucked me up? Sure! Have I forgiven them? It’s a process. Do I appreciate all that they’ve done for me? With solemn and increasing gratitude. Do I love them very much? Without a doubt.

More important than declaring the cultural supremacy of one parenting style over another is recognizing that any parenting style (and how kids respond) is at once cultural, situational, and personal – as well as imperfect and incomplete.

When I hit 18, my dad congratulated himself on being a good parent because I hadn’t gotten knocked up before then. At the time, I was offended by his low standards, but I've since come to appreciate his simple baseline – perhaps he knew full well that his role was only one in an enormous orchestra of personality shaping forces.

He similarly wanted to meet Leo “to make sure he wasn’t a serial killer” – beyond that, he only cared that Leo made me happy.

Husband and Wife.

2011-01-16T15:09:00.005-08:00

This is a terribly quick post because I've got a big ol' project to do before Tuesday (yes, classes have started back up, although it seems much less daunting with Leo here... even as he takes up much more of my time!).

Vancouver seems to be a "partner" city, as in:

"My partner and I celebrated our anniversary last week"

"My partner grew up in Victoria."

"Oh! Your partn-- I mean, your husband arrived!"

That last one came from a professor of mine and made me realize how obstinately I cling to the term "Husband" for Leo. I had to think hard about why I prefer this somewhat old fashioned terminology; I did the same thing when Leo was my "Fiancé," too. Both sound so objectively silly!

It's not indicative of any desire to cling to gender roles nor is it a mark of our heterosexual relationship. Besides, when we lived in Massachusetts (where -- hooray! -- gay marriage is legal), I always met women introducing their wives and men talking about their husbands.

Leo has been my "Husband" because it's better than introductions going something like this:

"Hello! I'm Corin. Nice to meet you. This is Leo. He's my [insert coupling term here]. We got married, and don't you dare give me that 'is this for a green card?' bullshit because choosing to be with him has meant the end of the American dream for both of us. Oh, you didn't know that? Well, that green card trick works in movies and Lou Dobbs head, but for the rest of us there's exile. So, yeah. We're fucking serious about one another. Oh, you don't want to meet us anymore? Well, we don't want to make friends with ignorant xenophobes anyhow. Yeah, walk away! Or run! Same to you, asshole!"

That would just have been... unfriendly.

Much better to say "Hi, I'm Corin. This is my husband, Leo."

Problem solved; "Husband" is just less ambiguous. There are already certain implications and connotations layered into the word, most of which are fairly conservative. And even though it might make people think of us as June and Ward Cleaver, it's better than other subconscious judgments to which we have been subjected.

Goodness knows that a lot of folks already struggle to think and speak rationally and respectfully about bi-racial and bi-cultural marriages (see the press tab above for the most recent example); layer "undocumented" on top of that, and you've got a potent mix of subconscious prejudicial inklings just waiting to spill forth in an ill-timed display of ignorance and -isms. Of course, the ensuing conversation involves my Husband's hurt feelings, my awkward white-girl attempts to draw that individual's attention to their privileged presumptuousness, and the individual's offended rantings of "I'm not a racist! How dare you! [insert proof of 'color-blindness' -- usually non-white relation]"

Aaaand that's just shitty for everyone.

But does Leo need to be my "Husband" in Vancouver, where everyone is partnered and no one is whispering rumors about green cards? What does "Husband and Wife" say here that we might not recognize or intend?

It's that lovely, eerie "miracle of normalcy" all over again...

UPDATE: one the subject of the "miracle of normalcy," the SF Chronicle has an article on the difficulties of dating across statuses. Amazingly, they also mention the bar: "Marriage was once seen as a sure-fire ticket to a green card. But many illegal immigrants now need to return to their birth countries to apply for papers and will be barred from returning for a decade unless they get a special waiver." Even though it affects many such relationships, it never seems to make it into print... It would be awfully nice if we could do away with the "illegal" bit, though!

Arizona.

2011-01-09T20:15:00.010-08:00

It’s Sunday. Time for a post! And what can I possibly write about other than Arizona?

My thoughts are with the Congresswoman and all of those affected by yesterday’s terrible events. Any time that lives are taken, altered by violence and hate, or threatened and disrespected is deeply upsetting.

My thoughts are also with the state of politics in my country.

After yesterday’s events, the talking heads began spinning so fast that the “news” – who’s dead, who’s alive, and who’s to blame – became a nauseating blur. Who knows which “truth” with prevail in our national memory. The moment has already become highly political, with a Palin aide claiming that the gun sights her campaign placed over Congresswoman Gifford’s district and 19 others were “Surveyor's Symbols," Sen. Lamar Alexander blaming the media for making such connections where none existed, and Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik faulting inflamed "rhetoric about hatred, about mistrust of government, about paranoia…”

I’ve got my own opinions, obviously (and to my mind, given all of the overtly violent rhetoric of the right, land surveyor’s symbols would be a non sequitur). But I don’t want to write about that. I don’t want to paste my political beliefs onto the individuals -- principally the shooter and Congresswoman Gifford -- involved in what is as much a personal tragedy as a public one.

I wanted to think about this event in terms of the strangely symbolic – those byline details that nagged at me, that made me uncomfortable and clashed with what are very poignant touchstones of the American ideal... even in exile.

Like or lump the (GOP-led) constitution ceremony that kicked off this congressional session this week (I am in the lump category; despite the bipartisan reading, it seemed like a sanctimonious display of one party’s supposedly unique command of that which is American while simultaneously perpetuating a revisionist history), Congresswoman Giffords read the 1^st Amendment (“gleefully”) in the words of the New York Times. Of course, the 1^st Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

It protects some of our most fundamental rights, including the freedom of speech. And speech (along with a lack of consideration for its consequences) is exactly where many are placing the blame. Who can say if the uptick in undeniably violent and warlike political rhetoric "directly caused" anyone’s death this weekend. I happen to think that when elections in a free, open, and democratic society are equated with armed conflict, it is a symptom of a seriously ill political culture. Palin and others no doubt have played along, but this is bigger than Palin (as indicated by fluctuations in anti-government militia activity that correspond with Democratic administrations; remember the Oklahoma City bombing). Has a politically motivated GOP-in-opposition sanctioned these actions -- now and in the past -- by invoking the specter of a Democratically provoked “end of days?” Who can say. I don't think it matters; even without blood on their hands, the Republicans – and their nuttier offshoots – ought to behave respectfully and responsibly by rejecting at the bare minimum threatening their political rivals (however metaphorically) with physical harm.

Today’s Times had a thoughtful but (in my opinion) quite generous take on such rhetoric and whether only sticks and stones may break one’s bones: “It’s not that such leaders [like Palin and the GOP] are necessarily trying to incite violence or hysteria; in fact, they’re not. It’s more that they are so caught up in a culture of hyperbole, so amused with their own verbal flourishes and the ensuing applause, that — like the bloggers and TV hosts to which they cater — they seem to lose their hold on the power of words.”

And that – to return to our national imaginary and the GOP's "close friendship" with the Founding Fathers – puts them at odds with one of the Founding Fathers' central preoccupations: the Founding Fathers had a healthy fear of demagoguery, of politicians inflaming and exploiting the passions of the public. They recognized both the radically virtuous and the devastatingly dangerous potential inherent in their nascent nation. They foresaw the strength and the Achilles heel of their “experiment” as being one and the same: the people. They guarded against it through measures we now find anti-democratic (like an unelected Senate) or historically quaint (like the Electoral Congress). We would tolerate no further limits on representation these days, but the same concerns necessarily persist. The political temptations toward demagoguery lurk in moments of instability and peril, as 9/11 so compellingly illustrated.

Which brings me to another poignant coincidence: one of the victims was a 9-year-old girl – born on 9/11. Her birthday has received a lot of attention, as have the twists of fate that led up to her presence at the event. That we seem to find these coincidences so significant speaks to our associations with 9/11; originally a cast in a light of unity and hope, it quickly became a call to arms – in a very literal sense. Unsurprisingly, hate has only begat more hate; killing has rendered only more killers and victims. We failed in our response to 9/11; we are no more humane nor is this the world any safer or more just.

And they symbolism behind such carnage in Arizona is all the more distressing because, in the words of Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, Arizona has become "the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.” He may not have intended his statement to draw symbolically on Islam, but there is something extremely disturbing about the implication. Americans have constructed a version of Islam that thrives on prejudice and bigotry, that makes violent eradication of "the infidel" a holy act. Obviously, it’s nowhere near a true-color understanding of the religion – it’s more of a disembodied caricature of certain radical actors – but the connotation is pervasive in American culture, and, intentionally or not, the Sheriff is telling America: we have become what we fear.

The most virulent form of the prejudice and bigotry that Arizona embodies is articulated through immigration. The politics of immigration in American have come to encompass and implicate all Latinos, and Arizona has been especially aggressive on this front, going so far as to ban "ethnic" (read: Mexican) studies in public schools. In the midst of countless words and acts denigrating and denying the Latino community and its value, there is something oddly poetic about the role of intern Daniel Hernandez in Saturday's events; he ran to the wounded Congresswoman, and he can be credited with keeping her alive while waiting for the paramedics. Daniel Hernandez could have been anyone with a bit of medical knowledge and a lot of courage, but in his moment of bravery, he did not cease to be a young, gay Latino -- and I challenge anyone to deny his worth in that critical juncture and beyond.

I believe, quite frankly, that anyone who thinks immigration is purely an issue of visas, passports, and “following the rules” is dangerously under-informed or has ulterior beliefs. The debate over undocumented immigration especially cannot be extracted from larger questions of race, power, capital, colonization, or development – to name a few. It is only about the men and women walking days through the deserts of Texas and Arizona in so much as they embody these forces, giving such mighty intractables a deceptively singular expression.

I’ve written before about Arizona’s SB1070 not being all that different from laws and practices elsewhere, but what is noteworthy is the flagrancy with which the state rendered this infinitely complex and very 3-dimensional conundrum and as a pixelated 8-bit checkerboard of black-and-white so-called rights.

The jurisdiction of SB1070 may end at Arizona’s own borders, but the rhetoric that enabled its passage is rife throughout the country, like a bruise. And it bleeds beyond the borders of the United States, as any of my blogging sisters in exile can tell you from their stashes of hate mail.

A dangerous set of beliefs inheres in Arizona’s law, in words like “illegal,” in the indifference of the public, and in the venom of the anti-immigrant movement: this is a system of values that places certain lives above others. This is a system of values that punishes people for things they cannot change: including the color of their skin, the country in which they were born, and the social, political, and economic circumstances there -- barring, furthermore, any chances of rising above those social, political, and economic constraints.

This mentality thrives on the creation of two tiers of personhood: if you are documented, you are valued (or at least allowed); if you are “illegal,” you do not exist, you have no rights, you have no worth, and you must be expelled. It – dangerously – casts those differences in terms of “criminal” and "virtuous." And it gives the “virtuous” papers with which to prove that they are worthy of rights.

I hope I don’t even need to draw the parallels between ID cards in Rwanda or stars in Nazi Germany to illustrate how very dangerous it is to officially document human worth in this way.

On the same note, I also want to take a moment to mention another Arizona shooting this week that will get almost no attention: that of 17-year-old Ramses Barron Torres. He was gunned down by US Border Patrol early on the 5^th – on the Mexican side of the border (although it means little, really; he’s dead either way. It is supposed to have meaning in the realm of international politics, but I assume it will be quietly forgotten like an earlier incident this year).

US accounts claim that he and his friends were throwing rocks at Border Patrol officers (for which “deadly force” is somehow considered an appropriate response), but accounts from those who knew this young man as something more than his lack of virtue-proving documents point to other motives for crossing: a girlfriend on the U.S. side who lives only blocks from the fence. Hopping the fence is common in border communities, which highlights the artificiality of the border: it sure can't stop teenage romance… but neither could it keep a bullet at bay.

If I had a wish for my country this week, it would be to value one another -- without limits; it would be that we see each other in relief, as the complex beings that we are; and it would be that we appreciate that no document could ever hope to embody or sanction the vibrancy or value inherent in each person… be it one’s voter identification or a US passport.

Survivor Guilt

2011-01-02T00:27:00.005-08:00

The blog has a new look! I’m not sure how I feel about it... it’s mostly because I spent hours futzing with the design while trying to write a new post. I’m still having a hard time putting my thoughts into writing, but I don’t want to let this blog die an undeserving, neglectful death, so here goes:

I’m content, and it’s weird. I’ve been dancing on coals for a few years now, and suddenly all is quiet. I don’t know how to take it. I mean, I like it.

I’m content.

I look at my husband, and I am happy.

I look out the window, and I am grateful.

I go to school, and I am excited.

I come home, and I am peaceful.

And when I climb into bed, wrapped up tight in a down comforter and Leo’s embrace, I sleep.

It’s amazing. Sleep. I haven’t done it right for so long. Living in the States, I’d go to sleep with my jaws latched tight and wake up with aching temples after a fitful eight hours. In Brazil, the churning in my gut never let me doze off easily, drilling stinging burrows into the lining of my stomach as I hovered between anxious nightmares and anxious daydreams. The first months in Vancouver, I abandoned sleep entirely and stared through puffy eyes at my reading, computer screen, and the streetlight outside of my window; sleep never came, but the next morning always did – offensively insistent.

Now, I sleep deeply – oblivious even to my husband’s seismic snoring.

It already feels like Leo’s been here for months even though it’s only been two weeks. I have no idea why this all feels so… uninterrupted. Life here is unlike anything we’ve experienced together. I don’t jump when the phone rings, terrified that he’s calling me from a detention center. I don’t run to the door as he’s leaving to give him the sort of bone-crunching hug that he could carry with him on a plane back to Brazil. I can finally make dinner expecting that he’ll arrive home to eat it. And we’re not waiting on anything, either – permissions, permits, documents that will let us start our lives. I can go out for the afternoon without fretting over missing a call or email; I don’t make a bee-line for my laptop the moment we walk in the door.

For the next year at least, we’re allowed to live in the present and revel in the routine.

All of this is so unusual, but it feels so familiar, as if we’ve simply joined our real lives already in progress.

The Deportee’s Wife coined the best term for something so remarkably unremarkable: “the miracle of normalcy.”

It is a miracle, and I run the risk of forgetting that from within this space of warm and drowsy contentment. All of the fear and fretfulness of the last several years – 2010 especially – seems so far away… foggy and unreal. A lot of people have told me “I told you so!” and their retrospective confidence is catching. “Of course,” I think, nodding along… nodding off, “of course.” The inky depth of my despair looks like a wading pool from here; I find myself asking “how did it ever seem possible to drown in that?!”

We got lucky. We are the exception and not the rule. And that is why – even when Leo emailed me from the Toronto airport to say that he’d made it through customs and would see me in Vancouver – I half expected that his plane would burst into flames or go careening into the Pacific Ocean. Spend enough time dealing with US immigration issues, and you come to believe that there’s just no such thing as happy endings.

So how did we get a happy ending? We’re not at the end yet, to be sure, but the worst might actually be behind us.

Some days it makes me feel invincible! In the depth of our troubles, my friend Deb wrote to me: “acho que fiquei triste mesmo porque você sempre foi a amiga que sabia ‘kick the system's ass.’ E eu tenho muito orgulho de quão bem você faz isso. Saber que talvez o sistema esteja prestes a ‘kick your ass’ me deixa um pouco desanimada.” (I think I was actually sad because you were always my friend who knew how to kick the system’s ass. And I am very proud of how well you do it. Knowing that the system might be ready to kick your ass leaves me a bit despirited.)

Deb was absolutely right about my habit of not cooperating well with systems, frameworks, or hierarchies that I find restrictive, unfair, or unjust. I’m still obnoxiously uptight about not breaking rules, but I can usually Houdini my way around them (little wonder that I fell in love with Brazil). I’ve never agreed with the adage “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” preferring to change the game to one that I can win and make it that much more fun to play. Looking at a hardship waiver, for instance, got me thinking “I’d rather not let some bureaucrat rate my misfortunes on a scale from Great Expectations to A Tale of Two Cities. How about grad school in Canada instead?”

When I start thinking like that, I get an intense high. I am cunning. Clever. Indomitable.

But then I think about the strange coincidences that crystallized before us, inexplicably paving a path to our present. Every time I thought I’d reached a gaping crevasse – fearing my next step into the void, awaiting an endless tumble into the abyss – I’d find myself somehow on solid ground, unexpectedly provided for: a place to stay, money in my pocket, a chance encounter, a kindly stranger, an old friend, a new friend... I cannot possibly claim to have influenced any of these uncanny occurrences or benevolent actions.

I think about all of the folks who deserve to be where I am – who deserve it more and who need it more – and my hubris feels repulsive.

I ask myself not “how” but “why did we get a happy ending?” I feel guilty – sort of immigration survivor guilt. Here we are: miraculously normal, together, and frankly no worse for the wear; it’s obscene. I know that we got lucky. I know how easily we might have been derailed. And I feel ashamed, almost like I’ve betrayed or at least deserted my comrades.

The truth probably lies somewhere in between. As ludicrous-and-improbable-but-ultimately-successful schemes go, this one was worthy of a 2010 “best of” award. It was the fruit of considerable effort and forethought, and both Leo and I had our share of ninja moments. On the other hand, it required the suspension of Murphy’s Law; anything that could go wrong ultimately aligned in our favor, a testament to a rather eerie-but-welcome grace…

I am relieved. I am grateful. I am content… and I am sorry…

Meet the Team that Will Beat Your Team in 2014

2011-01-02T00:00:00.000-08:00

A frankly adorable profile of Brazil's sub-20 national team, some of whom will probably headline the 2014 World Cup roster!

It's in Portuguese but will still be of interest to those of you who don't speak it; they're just that cute... and I'm trying to inoculate everyone early! I don't want to see any of you rooting for Argentina!

A post... a bit late!

2010-12-28T16:54:00.002-08:00

I thought I would have so much to say this week, but I… don’t…

I plan to write a bit more about that month that I was offline; it was probably the most difficult of all. There’s also a lot to say about how Leo’s visa finally came through. I want to write more about Canada and what it’s like being here (hint: think “Twilight Zone”). I certainly plan to write more about the debacle that is US immigration policy. And goodness knows that there’ll be plenty to say about our next steps as they unfold…

For now, though, I’m basking in a few days of quiet contentment.

I'll cook something up for next Sunday, so stay tuned...

It's not Sunday, but I couldn't wait!

2010-12-18T08:35:00.000-08:00

Anyone remember this guy?

Moreover, anyone recognize that airport?

If you guessed "Leo" and "the Vancouver airport," you'd be correct!

Believe it or not (neither of us do yet), Leo is in Vancouver!

He arrived yesterday, having flown from Rio to São Paulo to Toronto (making him officially better traveled in Canada than I am) to Vancouver! He arrived at noon, and (incredibly) it was sunny and clear, so we grabbed a late lunch, walked down to the beach, had salmon for dinner (this salmon has been part of our Canadian Dream for well over a year; whenever things got tough, we started talking about this salmon), and hit the hay quite early.

I have not slept so well in at least a year nor have I woken up so happy to see the day (or the 7am pre-dawn darkness... as I write this, it's 8:30 and just barely light out!).

To be somewhere together and secure without preparing to move (for the next year and a half, at least) is... weird. But a relief. Stepping out of the airport, I asked Leo how he was feeling. He looked around, breathed in, and said, "it's so good to feel this cool breeze coming in through the front door."

So, that's the news from rainy Vancouver! I'll try to post next week more about how all of this ended up coming together, but I'm going to sign off now and spend some time with my long-lost hubby.

Leo is currently looking up maple leaves on Google Images.

Car Trouble

2010-12-14T18:17:00.005-08:00

I'm inches from finishing my semester (one more paper to go), and I should REALLY not be posting anything because I need to finish this darn paper... as is, I will have to pull an all-nighter.

But, I was taking a break, having dinner, and came across a re-post of a re-post of this (I've also pasted it below). Solidarity, ladies and gentlemen:

This past year I have had 3 instances of car trouble. A blow out on a freeway, a bunch of blown fuses and an out of gas situation. All of them were while driving other people's cars which, for some reason, makes it worse on an emotional level. It makes it worse on a practical level as well, what with the fact that I carry things like a jack and extra fuses in my car, and know enough not to park, facing downhill, on a steep incline with less than a gallon of fuel.

Anyway, each of these times this shit happened I was DISGUSTED with how people would not bother to help me. I spent hours on the side of the freeway waiting, watching roadside assistance vehicles blow past me, for AAA to show. The 4 gas stations I asked for a gas can at told me that they couldn't loan them out "for my safety" but I could buy a really shitty 1-gallon one with no cap for $15. It was enough, each time, to make you say shit like "this country is going to hell in a handbasket."

But you know who came to my rescue all three times? Immigrants. Mexican immigrants. None of them spoke a lick of the language. But one of those dudes had a profound affect on me.

He was the guy that stopped to help me with a blow out with his whole family of 6 in tow. I was on the side of the road for close to 4 hours. Big jeep, blown rear tire, had a spare but no jack. I had signs in the windows of the car, big signs that said NEED A JACK and offered money. No dice. Right as I am about to give up and just hitch out there a van pulls over and dude bounds out. He sizes the situation up and calls for his youngest daughter who speaks english. He conveys through her that he has a jack but it is too small for the Jeep so we will need to brace it. He produces a saw from the van and cuts a log out of a downed tree on the side of the road. We rolled it over, put his jack on top, and bam, in business. I start taking the wheel off and, if you can believe it, I broke his tire iron. It was one of those collapsible ones and I wasn't careful and I snapped the head I needed clean off. Fuck.

No worries, he runs to the van, gives it to his wife and she is gone in a flash, down the road to buy a tire iron. She is back in 15 minutes, we finish the job with a little sweat and cussing (stupid log was starting to give), and I am a very happy man. We are both filthy and sweaty. The wife produces a large water jug for us to wash our hands in. I tried to put a 20 in the man's hand but he wouldn't take it so I instead gave it to his wife as quietly as I could. I thanked them up one side and down the other. I asked the little girl where they lived, thinking maybe I could send them a gift for being so awesome. She says they live in Mexico. They are here so mommy and daddy can pick peaches for the next few weeks. After that they are going to pick cherries then go back home. She asks if I have had lunch and when I told her no she gave me a tamale from their cooler, the best fucking tamale I have ever had.

So, to clarify, a family that is undoubtedly poorer than you, me, and just about everyone else on that stretch of road, working on a seasonal basis where time is money, took an hour or two out of their day to help some strange dude on the side of the road when people in tow trucks were just passing me by. Wow...

But we aren't done yet. I thank them again and walk back to my car and open the foil on the tamale cause I am starving at this point and what do I find inside? My fucking $20 bill! I whirl around and run up to the van and the guy rolls his window down. He sees the $20 in my hand and just shaking his head no like he won't take it. All I can think to say is "Por Favor, Por Favor, Por Favor" with my hands out. Dude just smiles, shakes his head and, with what looked like great concentration, tried his hardest to speak to me in English: "Today you.... tomorrow me."

Rolled up his window, drove away, his daughter waving to me in the rear view. I sat in my car eating the best fucking tamale of all time and I just cried. Like a little girl. It has been a rough year and nothing has broke my way. This was so out of left field I just couldn't deal.

In the 5 months since I have changed a couple of tires, given a few rides to gas stations and, once, went 50 miles out of my way to get a girl to an airport. I won't accept money. Every time I tell them the same thing when we are through: "Today you.... tomorrow me."

(GOOD) News!

2010-12-12T10:28:00.005-08:00

I'm in finals mode. I have two papers to finish before Wednesday, so please forgive a somewhat unsatisfactory post, but I couldn't keep this news to myself any longer:

Remember how I went to see my MP for help? Constituent services are just the best! The very next week, the consulate requested Leo's medical exams! I took it to be a great sign, since the visa officer had told me in August that they would not request Leo's exams unless he had been deemed admissible. The wonderful aide in the MP's office, however, managed my expectations a bit; her contact at Immigration Canada said that Leo's admissibility had not yet been determined. We were told not to expect news before Christmas.

Leo did his exams in Rio a few weeks ago. That whole process was a bit of a doozy (no doubt I'll write more about this at another point), but -- upwards of R$1300 later -- the tests were complete and his results were shipped off to be processed in Trinidad and Tobago (?!). They arrived there last Friday, December 3rd.

I emailed our MP's aide to tell her that Leo's exams were complete, and received an email back on Wednesday asking whether I was still in Vancouver... I thought it a bit unusual, and wondered if she wanted to see me in person... what could have possibly gone that wrong, for goodness sake?! I said I was. After an excruciating 30 minutes, she sent a reply: "can you call me? I have some news."

I think I might have suffered a stroke/heart attack/panic attack all at once. My phone line and internet had been down (they're back up now), so I called on a rickety, stolen Skype connection. On the other end of the line, the staffer picked up and said "I wanted to share the good news over the phone--" (I could hardly breathe) "--I spoke to my contact at Immigration, who said that your husband's visa was printed today. I asked her if she was sure, if I could share this with you, and she said 'absolutely!'"

I don't know what I said. I sure hope it was a lot of "thank yous." I know that I cried a lot, and then I called Leo. He was extremely calm; I couldn't tell if it was disbelief, shock, or that he already had an inkling. I suspect that it was a combination of the three (he won't believe it, he told me, until the visa is in his hand), but he must have felt something because he'd been planning to call the consulate the next day.

So, that's where -- happily -- we stand at this moment! He doesn't have the visa in-hand yet, but I think we can say that it's only a matter of time!

And with that, I think that I might have just a bit more good news next Sunday, so please check back!

And we're back...

2010-12-08T17:24:00.003-08:00

I am very sorry for my absence, dear friends! I have missed this community immensely. Even across cyberspace, I feel your support. I also got a surprising number of emails asking why access to the blog had become “invite only” and soliciting an invite (I’m always amazed to find out how many folks read Corin in Exile!). But don’t worry: it wasn’t really “invite only;” that’s just what comes up on blogspot when you make a blog “private.” I have not actually written anything since I took it down.

So, why was Corin in Exile suddenly offline?

I’ve been contacted several times over the last year to give interviews about our experiences. Most of these folks have made an effort to ensure that we were comfortable with sharing our story and worked to build trust. But several months ago, I was contacted by someone who did not make the same effort. A few weeks ago, our exchanges began to make me feel so vulnerable and disrespected that I needed some space to think about the future of Corin in Exile – which is unfortunately what precipitated my absence.

So, why am I back up? I haven’t reached any sort of deal with this individual about speaking of/linking to/writing about Corin in Exile (or Corin in real life, for that matter). I’m sure this person knows their legal responsibilities, and I know my legal rights, but this isn’t simply a matter of copyrights and ownership. It cuts to the core of what it means to have an online community – and the politics of that community being “open.”

I thought carefully about making this blog public when I first went online, and I decided to do so because I wanted to build a community that could supplement the one I was leaving behind. I also wanted it to be open so that I could meet other exiles and share – candidly – this experience with non-exiles, most of whom have never heard of the 10-year bar. I chose to upload pictures, speak frankly about our lives, and share certain personal information because I wanted folks to understand the ways in which these laws affect real people – young kids in love, like Leo and me, who are just trying to find a patch of stable ground on which to build a life together.

All of you have exceeded my expectations. I have made friends and found support across the world. I am so grateful for this community. Thank you.

Not everyone can be so open, however. Most bloggers in exile cannot use their real names because they have waivers and legal processes pending. The ones who do use their names have often exhausted their options and now have nothing to lose. In fact, some must use their names and share intimate details of their lives because their blogs are the only means of publicizing cases that require special intervention.

We, on the other hand, do not have a waiver pending, nor are we banking on any sort of intervention – although one never knows what the future may bring. I write as myself because 1) I believe that USCIS should have better things to do than trawling the blogosphere for lonely exiles (like processing those waivers of inadmissibility), and 2) I believe that when given trust and responsibility, most individuals rise to the occasion – or, otherwise stated, that readers would come to respect my blog as a safe (albeit public) space and act accordingly.

Yes, I expected a few nasty comments from people whose world views differ drastically from mine, but I never expected someone claiming to be supportive of our situation to make me feel violated, vulnerable, and even more impotent. Unfortunately, that unforeseen situation came to pass recently when I was contacted about an interview for a written project on US immigration policies and bi-national couples.

I won’t share specifics in hopes that the project turns around and ultimately succeeds. I have no interest in causing problems for the individual whose project it is.

In summary, we exchanged a few emails, and I came to realize that I was extremely reticent about being interviewed and also hesitant about being associated with the project at all. When this person ultimately did not appear to respect my request to be left out, I took down the blog. I did not like the idea of my voice being co-opted by someone else for a project with which I was not comfortable. My voice is sacred to me (which I did not believe that this person understood or appreciated).

So, why am I back? Online, my voice is vulnerable. Offline, it is as good as dead (or inappropriately employed in academic papers… a girl’s gotta have a creative outlet!). I am back online, therefore, because I have decided to trust my voice. It is strong enough to tell our story, and should I need to use it to defend that story, I hope it is strong enough for that as well.

Unfortunately, this also means that I feel the need to lay some ground rules for other individuals who might be interested in our story. I usually welcome interviews, and I’m quite certain that most writers and journalists are conscientious and professional, but to avoid future conflicts and misunderstandings, I have listed a handful of boundaries and expectations below (which I am happy to clarify, amend, or discuss further as needed):

The List:

1. Know the Laws: please note the copyright notice (part of the disclaimer at the bottom of the page). I mean it.

2. Know the Ethics: please refer to the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics for a refresher.

3. This Isn't Reality TV: this is our life, and I would ask you to respect that fact. I share certain parts of it in order to build a community and to show the human side of these policies, but it doesn't make the subject matter any less personal. It must also be said that I consider someone using our story – our lives – in furthering their professional ambitions to be tantamount to profiting from our hardship.

4. Respect Boundaries: exiles’ situations are legally complicated. I therefore find very threatening the idea of information circulating about us that I was not part of producing. We are vulnerable and portraying us gives you enormous power over our lives – not just how others perceive us but potentially real power over the outcomes as well. Public missteps could have a disproportionately large impact, so please tread carefully. By allowing you to translate this experience to others, we would be putting immense trust in you.

5. Listen Humbly: too often, good intentions make for the most belligerent allies, who can cause a lot of harm. Good intentions don’t earn you a pass when something goes awry nor will they automatically grant trust. Instead, please start by listening humbly. Unless you’ve also experienced “exile,” you will not instinctively “get it;” that’s not a failing – just a fact. But if you listen, you will learn more and earn more trust. And if you have a question, just ask (and don’t assume); I see no sense in being upset with someone for not knowing – especially if they are willing to learn.

6. Be Reflexive: think long and hard about your privilege and your assumptions around race, culture, and gender in particular. I’m so sorry I have to say this, but I apparently do: imagining or representing bi-racial/bi-national/bi-cultural couples as somehow exotic or erotic is perverse, revealing more about the imaginer than the couples. Bi-racial/bi-national/bi-cultural marriages do come with a handful of externally imposed and internally manifested challenges, but they account for a relatively small part of married life. Really, Leo and I are fairly ordinary people attempting to have a fairly ordinary marriage in totally extraordinary circumstances. He drinks juice from the carton. I hit the snooze button 5 times before getting out of bed. I iron his shirts. He does the dishes. Sometimes we go out for dinner and a movie (and he usually dozes off before the previews even finish). If such images are disappointing, unexpected, or not compatible with those which you imagined, then you’ve got some work to do within yourself before you have any business representing someone else.

7. Watch your Language: no doubt, adept writers and journalists can find other ways to describe us and our relationship, but as a reminder I must ask that you simply avoid racially, sexually, or culturally charged terms. Some folks are in a position to reclaim those words and use them in a way that they find liberating. Those same terms, however, can be used in hurtful, othering, and oppressive ways – even (especially) by folks with good intentions who haven’t done #6. Basically, please don’t use words to talk about us that you would be embarrassed to use when talking to us. Also, when dealing specifically with our marriage, please refrain from using “clever” cognates for the word “relationship” that insinuate our commitment to one another is somehow different (lesser). When in doubt, show our marriage the same respect that you would show your grandparents’ (do Nana and Poppy have a “liaison?”).

8. Do get in touch with me! The only way we will see much-needed changes to the US immigration system is through publicizing its injustices. Like I said, I usually welcome interviews, but I might ask that we collaborate to ensure that your representation is true-to-life and will not cause us future immigration woes. The way I see it, collaborating on such a project is certainly better than working at loggerheads. Moreover, collaboration will help me to trust you – and ultimately to help you, meaning that you will get undoubtedly better information and access! I am therefore happy to play a role – provided that we can come to an understanding that respects and protects everyone.

Ugh. Sorry for the downer post. But this experience was a particularly negative one for me (a trifecta of disappointing, marginalizing, and violating), and I don’t want to repeat it.

To cheer everyone up (that’s a small hint…), I’ll post some news on Leo’s visa situation on Sunday!

Isn’t the anticipation just killing you?!

World's quickest update...

2010-11-07T12:45:00.004-08:00

Hello folks!

Today is -- much like every day for me -- chock full of reading and homework, so this is the quickest of updates:

1) We still haven't heard anything at all back from the consulate. Every time Leo calls, he's told that nothing has been decided. It's been 5 months since we applied, and it will take at least another month because they still need to request his medical exam (which he can't do until they ask for it), so we're looking at missing Christmas together.

That thought was just killing me, so -- hoping that I had some good immigration karma stored up somewhere from my work in a certain elected official's office States-side -- I decided to see if the local MP's office also follows up on immigration proceedings deep within the bowels of the bureaucracy. Turns out that they do! So on Thursday, I met with a staffer who told me that she could write a letter of inquiry from the MP's office to the consulate, which she said would at least help us understand the reason for the delay.

Then, she wrote me an email yesterday that said that she's spoken with her contact in Citizenship and Immigration Canada and that they are going to initiate a request from their office, which is stronger than from the MP's office and will likely get a quicker response! So... potentially some good news? I have no idea, but I couldn't sit on my hands any longer.

2) I got my socialist health care card in the mail this weekend. Pretty freakin' badass.

The Tea Party’s Misplaced Rage

2010-11-03T23:34:00.003-07:00

Exile feels official now… there’s no way that the sort of immigration legislation that will let us live together in my country will be passed before 2013 – at the earliest. There are only so many years you can spend as a nomadic 20-something before you start wanting to build a little nest of your own, and I don’t foresee us waiting. I’ve given myself over to a new trajectory. Be it in Canada or Brazil, mine is now a path that is unlikely to lead me back to my own country.

I predicted this election outcome back when Obama was inaugurated. No one believed me when I said “there will be no immigration reform; the Republicans will win big in the midterms, and the Democrats will be too terrified to act on anything important.” Call me Cassandra. It’s why I took that Fulbright. It’s why we left. It’s why I haven’t set my sights on returning.

And oddly enough, I don’t feel angry. I feel disappointed, sure, and I’m utterly perplexed by the conclusions being drawn about the results, but I also feel bad for the Tea Party.

I don’t empathize with the Tea Party’s cause or their fanaticism, but I think that the whole movement boils down to despairing true believers. These are the Americans who placed their complete faith in the conservative agenda decades ago, buoyed by dogmas that guaranteed prosperity in return for the agonized, wasting death of the state (all of which was packaged within the self-congratulatory rhetoric of merit and individualism). And they believed; set free, they would flourish!

The Tea Party was promised one America, but they’re having an unemployed midlife crisis in another.

They are looking back over the last 30 or 40 years and trying to account for the discrepancies. They were promised the American Dream, dammit! They’re desperate to regain even the faintest glow of their glory days – anything to distract them from the disappointment and impotence that their ideology tells them is their own fault.

This is what they were promised:

This is what they got:

So they’ve externalized that despair, clinging to vestiges of middle-class dignity while radically resisting further change of any sort. They live in mortal fear of the last plank of that white picket fence being wrenched from their grasp. They cannot move forward, and so they’ve developed a fierce nostalgia for an imagined mid-century America. They raise up conservative ideals and candidates like harbingers of some sort of Levittown rapture that is simply never coming. They were duped by an ideology and its promoters who have systematically worked against their interests, disemboweling the system and leaving the private sector to scavenge the spoils.

They shouldn’t be voting against Obama’s “failure” but Reagan’s. Still, after all that they’ve invested, they simply cannot see it.

Yes, another America existed decades ago, but you can never have that country “back” because it wasn’t a place; it was a moment in time – one that we will never relive unless Christine O’Donnell can hocus-pocus us all into poodle skirts or unless that phone booth looks a little like a time machine to Sharon Angle.

And were we able to revisit those days, we might realize how brutally they’ve been misremembered. Romancing the past is like a bad case of beer goggles; we idealize the good parts, whitewash the less pristine elements, and simply forget the truly horrendous bits all together. The problem with this rosy reimagining is that you will invariably wake up the next morning streaked with protest sign tempera paint, wearing Twining’s baggies hanging from your hat, and next to a shirtless, smoking John Boehner requesting a pre-nup.

Revisiting the past is impossible, and revisionist reconstructions are dangerous (if only because they seem to reanimate the prejudice and privilege that marred the era the first time around). Constructing a new populist order means not sacrificing the truly great aspirations of America on the altar of rage, disappointment, and fear.

But right-wing funders have poured millions of dollars into the movement precisely because widespread rage, disappointment, and fear – not to mention the divisions bound to result – produce an incalculable electoral windfall for demagogues.

I think that the Tea Party has been had.

I think that this year’s election results are one more example of their individual impotence but tremendous utility for conservative elites. If you look closely at the results, you‘ll notice that most pure Tea Party contenders fell to establishment candidates, but their antics – the whole circus surrounding their alienation and corresponding wrath – ginned up conservatives like an Anne Coulter centerfold or Scott Brown’s Cosmo spread (look it up, but be ready to stifle the accompanying involuntary retch).

The professional Republican political establishment was all too happy to appropriate the whole grotesque spectacle for their own ends. The Republican Party has developed a pathological dependency on power and control; they will exploit any issue for a few percentage points, and they don’t lose sleep over the body count. Usually, they need to trump up an "menace" to divide Americans, but the Tea Party made it laughably easy this year. The Republican Party has nothing but disdain for the Tea Party, yet they’re all too happy to have someone else doing the dirty work and will no doubt toss them a "social issues" bone from time to time.

Meanwhile, the GOP has decided that “no” is all the governing strategy they need because the only thing that matters is winning, even at the cost of the whole damn country.