A few years ago, ok about 13 years ago, my mother called me on the phone to say that she thought we should become citizens. I said, “why?” She said, “what if something weird happens around immigration?”. I said – “what could happen?” The reality was that I knew that something was already afoot. In 1997 I went to the Cayman Islands and when I tried to come back to the States with my lifetime Greencard, I was asked to come back behind the curtain and asked why I hadn’t become a citizen yet. I said, truthfully, that my understanding was that I had a lifetime Greencard. At that time, they told me that the photo was out of date (probably true) and that the Greencard wasn’t intended to be lifelong (despite everything I knew). Fast forward to a few years later, I think it was 2013 or 2014 when I was coming back from Panama. The guy at immigration said, “you have been a naturalized citizen since 1986?”. I said yes. He said, “why have you not become a citizen yet?” I didn’t answer truthfully then, which was that I knew I could file for all my Social Security tax if I ever left the States and that would probably help me get an apartment in England. I said, “I don’t know”. He said, “you need to do that. These aren’t intended for long term”. Despite their definition.
In 2013 or 2014, my mom decided we needed to become citizens. She paid for it, so I said ok. It took almost two years. We went to Portland, and when I moved back to Texas in 2015, my application transferred to San Antonio. I really only remember a few things. I went to an immigration appointment in San Antonio sometime in 2015 and I met my officer, who had tons of documents about me all over her desk, fanned out, like so many decks of cards. In the pile was the security badge of me that I had gotten at Austin Independent School District the week before. She said when I expressed shock and disbelief that “we have everything about you”. She told me a series of bizarre stories about what was going on with her life, including how she had had to move out of her apartment really quickly due to a bad boyfriend (haven’t we all had those?). A few days later, she called me when I was on a bus on a field trip with students to tell me that my application had been fast tracked and approved. It was at the end of the Obama administration, and it turned out to be dramatic. I was part of all those people who (some of whom) apparently maybe shouldn’t have been fasttracked, but I digress.
In the fall of 2015, I went to San Antonio to a large auditorium somewhere and participated in my citizenship ceremony. There were hundreds of people, all dressed nicely, with their families, as if it was a special church service. They asked us to stand up when they said our country’s name. Mexico by far had the most people. They gave us cheap American flags and took our greencards and gave us instead a Citizenship Document that we later had to take to the Social Security Administration. Everyone was well behaved, and happy. There were a few monks from Tibet who became citizens that day, and all of their monk friends sat in the back in their saffron robes playing on their smartphones and laughing. At one point, I looked back and noticed most of them were sleeping. It was one of the nicest and best days of my life: everyone in that room had done the right thing and wanted to be a part of the United States.
Here we are, 10 years later. It seems that things have changed, but I think the writing was on the wall even then. Immigrants have become progressively less welcome over the last ten years. Let me ask you, though: in all these current immigration raids, how many are happening on farms where people are picking fruit and vegetables? None. They are all happening to people in cities, who can be spotted and singled out, easily, and taken to jail. You know that the government folks don’t want anything happen to their food supply. It is all so dark, so cynical. So gross and terrible.
I have always been conflicted about being a citizen of this country, but I did it because I thought maybe my mom was right. Turns out, she was. There would be little to no chance of us becoming citizens now. But does it justify it all? Right now I want to do something drastic, a la Josephine Baker. I now understand two things: the first, what Mr. Moore, a retired school principal and Baptist minister, used to say to me every time I got upset about the state of things: “What a World!” . And why people left the United States never to return. I understand the sense of dread and disgust, because I feel it today and have for the last little while. Dread, disgust, sadness, anger, resignation, confusion; I feel all of them at the same time.
I sincerely hope that what is happening in LA is not about to happen across our country. What a world.
Paciencia, Paciencia 