30 June 2009

The interview: part three

(This is part three; it makes a lot more sense after you've read parts one and two.)


"Well, that's a relief," says Agent G on his way back into his office.

We look back - snap back, really - looking to see if his face is screaming "green card" yet. And quickly I wonder, "With whom did he just meet? Is there a protocol, or does he go talk to someone and say something like, 'So, I've got this couple in here - I think they're for real, everything seems right, but I can't find his OPT stuff. Do we think we screwed this up? Or is he probably ok? I could just tell them to come back another time if we need to see it...'"

And somewhere it hits me that this guy - he's not giving us a hard time. This is by far the nicest and most congenial interaction I've had with anyone in the USCIS or State department apparatus. The tension - the conflict - is entirely on our side of the table.

This guy isn't at all like that jerk at the US Consulate in Brasilia (which bears the name of the Secretary of State, Robert Dulles, of Dulles Airport fame!) who went off on me - all because my dad's secretary in Rio had booked my interview appointment for me. You should know, to share in my complete fury, that you had to use an arcane phone system to book the interview, that the phone system didn't have an international access number, and that once in Brazil, I would have been stuck there until the interview took place (4-6 weeks after it is scheduled, depending on the season.)

"You are old enough to book your own appointments, aren't you?" he asked me in broken Portuguese, but using borderline baby-phrasing (you'w'a' big boy, awen't you?). "The text on the site doesn't give an option for scheduling from abroad," I answered in perfect English. "Well, that's not possible, because I wrote that copy," he answered, in slightly accented English. Suddenly becoming aware of the power structure, I answered, simply, "I'm sure I misread it, then, and I assure you, it will not happen again. I don't enjoy visiting Brasilia anyway."

No, our guy was nothing like that jerk. He wasn't trying to keep me out - and there was no ego on display. He simply wanted to help an American citizen and her spouse settle into their life together here in her country of origin. Suddenly, we understood that we were getting the green card, that all would be fine. "Now," he added pleasantly, nodding toward our wedding album. "Do you guys have some pictures you'd like to show me?"

All of a sudden, it was more like a dinner party than a federal office. We told stories, named people in pictures (I got Sasha's grandmother's name wrong!), and generally had a great time for the next twenty or so minutes. At some point he let it slip that he'd be stamping my passport and that we'd be ok, and we took it in stride, just trying to keep the interview moving forward.

When it came for him to stamp my passport, he showed a completely different side. We had already noticed that this guy was like us - he probably chuckles over "Stuff White People" like and watches "Top Chef" - but now it really came out. "Ok, so, I'm gonna stamp it, but...oh, I'm so bad at this part. I don't think I do this often enough. Ok, so, where's my calendar? The stamp is good for exactly 365 days, so...that means the day BEFORE today's date next year, right? So, June 3 of...2010. Right?"

We smile and try to seem agreeable. He returns the passport to us.

"Wait, can I see that again? I'm just...not used to this or something. I just don't want you to get into trouble if you use that to travel before you get the green card..."

We hand it back over. Then, he tries to ask a few closing questions, but his mind is clearly...unfocused. "Ok, so, I'm going to ask for your passport just ONE MORE TIME, and then if I ask for it again, tell me 'no,' ok? I just want to be super sure that it's right."

He glances at it, and then again at this calendar. Rising suddenly, he says, "Well, that's it. Let's get you out of here before I find an excuse to look at it again." He walks us to the door, and stops. "I was lying. Let me just look at it one more time, ok?"

By this point, we really don't care. I doubt we'll be leaving the country in the next sixty days, and we're just eager to get on with our day - our day in which, as it turns out, I became a lawful permanent resident after years of legal wrangling and forms and fees and lawyers and detours. We get back in the smart car, draw our usual share of glances, and head out, back into a world that was unlargely unchanged by that morning's events.

28 June 2009

so, video-chatting?

I'm liking this 21st century thing. Having participated in a video chat for the first time ever - and only about 8 years or so after the rest of the humanity! - I strongly encourage everyone I know to get a webcam.

25 June 2009

RIP.

Michael Jackson is in the hospital.

I admit that I have had long internal debates about how to prepare for the inevitable deaths of Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and other such sad-bastard types. I have no idea what Michael Jackson tune would be playing if I were to sit down for a melancholy memorial glass of scotch in his name, though.

22 June 2009

"To your point" and "it is what it is"

Over the past four months or so, I think I have heard the phrase “to your point” or “to so-and-so’s point” as an introductory clause more than at any other point in my life. I even heard Alexi Lalas use it on ESPN in discussing soccer. When did this phrase become a standard-issue conversational crutch?

I dislike it because it seems that if we are having a conversation, and if you plan to depart from a point I just made, the burden is on you to indicate that we are switching gears. Otherwise, I will assume that whatever you say is “to my point.”   

As for “it is what it is”…didn’t this begin as a malapropism, a phrase uttered by a coach or by Scott McClellan in a presser, and which subsequently underwent a makeover from idiotic statement to zen-like aphorism (like “they are who we thought they were” or Rumsfeld’s “known unknowns”)?

Damn skippy it is what it is. How about you tell me when it starts being what it’s NOT?

Is there something secretly elegant or insightful about this statement that I’m not getting?  

 

18 June 2009

Owen! Paul!

Drove through this on my way home. Well, through the trailers and teamsters and street closures. No sign of Owen or Paul in the flesh, though.

The funny thing about Owen Wilson playing a Nationals middle relief pitcher is that he probably is better than what passes for the Nationals' bullpen these days.

Wait, that's not funny.

17 June 2009

add this to the list!

Avenue Q clearly dates itself during the “I wish I could go back to college” number, I just realized. The Princeton character murmurs, as an aside, “I wish I’d taken more pictures…” The line comes at the end of the song, which makes me think it’s a pretty personal statement that the authors wanting to tuck in there. Well, since I have about 40 pictures or so to show for my four years in college, I can definitely relate. Especially considering that a night out or a weekend trip can easily yield twice that many pictures.

Something about it is nice – the half-remembered past, barely documented. It gives some room for your memory to exaggerate, to downplay, to romanticize things. That’s great, and there’s something about my experience now – going through old journals, looking at frayed pictures – that is very comforting to me, while there’s something about my sister’s equivalent – facebook, picasa – that’s a bit disquieting, though I can’t say why.

Well, along with not being able to get ahold of a friend you’re meeting up with (in the post-cellphone age), getting lost and needing to ask for directions (in the post-GPS age) and not having access to vast archives of all sorts of media in a matter of minutes (in the post-internet age), this “I wish I had taken more pictures” bit is clearly dated.

For fun, try watching tv shows from the 1990s and figuring out what would be different today. George leaves Jerry a voicemail and sends him a text message, for insurance: “J – please ansr ph as Vandalay Industries. If they ask, I sell latex. Will explain l8r. Thx.” Or how about getting lost in that mall parking lot, not being able to find the car? Well, there’s an app for that. And as my brother has pointed out, the one time a Seinfeld episode did feature a cell phone – in the first half of the finale – they completely fail to anticipate the fact that we all “walk and talk” these days. (Jerry admonishes Elaine for making a phone call while walking.)

The other problem I have with the song is the “f___ my T.A.” bit. As a student, I never had attractive T.A.’s. And as a T.A., I never had hot freshmen coming on to me. And because this was not part of my immediate experience, I therefore reject it as false or dated. You lie, Avenue Q!

15 June 2009

The interview: part two

[This is part two of a (likely) three-part series. Part one is here.]

“Hello, I’m Officer G____.” And into the hallways we go, into what should have felt epic and labyrinthine but which was instead sorta…sterile and office-y.

I take an instant liking to him, but don’t really know how to make small talk. Are we together in this? Do I assume he’s having a bad day because they’re obviously running behind? Or is running late par for the course, and would any suggestion that he must be having a bad day sound like I’m making a passive-aggressive comment about how much I think my time is worth?

We go into his office, and sit down across a desk from him. He plops our file in front of him, and this is the first time we’ve gotten a clear look at just how bad the pile looks.

“I know it looks like these have been sitting out in the rain for the past few weeks,” he offers by way of an apology. Actually, it looks like it was rained on and then dragged through the mud. It looks like the file was stepped on repeatedly before being buried in a mausoleum with a deceased emperor a few thousand years ago, and like it was only recently recovered by a team of intrepid National Geographic explorers. The yellowed corners are peeling upward, and we’re both a little disappointed that something we put so much into – making it look crisp and approval-worthy – has been negated by administrative indifference.

“No problem at all,” we reassure him, almost simultaneously. “No worries whatsoever,” I add, and I realize that our cadence – the fact that both Ms. AC and I say almost the same thing, with almost the same beat, should already be a dead giveaway that we have been together for a long time.

“First things first, then. Can you tell me her name and place of birth?”
“Ms. Abstract Citizen, born in Randomtown, New York, on xx/xx/xx.”
“Great. And his?”
“Mr. Abstract Citizen, born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on xx/xx/xx.”
Except that her xx/xx is off by a day. I want to lead her, but I’m afraid of looking like I’m coaching her. He raises an eyebrow. We sit in silence for a second.
“XX/XX! I mean XX/XX! I always get it wrong.”
Whew. No harm, no, foul.

Turning to me, he says, “Ok, let’s start with your arrival. When did you arrive here?”

I purse my lips at an angle. “Which, um, time? On which visa?”
He turns back to my thick stack of correspondence from USCIS. I’ve arranged it chronologically, starting with H1B visa in February 2000. I’m sure most of the cases he sees are much simpler than mine, but I’m used to that feeling by now. “On the J-2. When did you arrive on a J-2?”

I dig around for my old passport, the one with a picture of a 12-year old me, back when I was a little brown boy wearing a shirt commemorating the 1988 Seoul Olympics. “Early 1990s. 1992, I want to say. But note that I have a waiver on the two-year home residency requirement for J visas – a copy of the letter is in the correspondence in that pile.”

Relieved, he looks through his stack and finds the letter letting my mom off the hook for her two-year residency in Brazil following the Fulbright.
“I see that – she got a waiver. But did you get one?” he asks, somewhat nervously. He’s not good at being bad cop.

“Well, I was her dependent when I came in, right? So the waiver should apply to me as well?”

We go back and forth, and he ultimately determines that this is not a big deal. That being disposed of, I’m sure we’re about to move to, you know, this decade, when he says, instead, “Ok, then, let’s jump to 1996. You became an F? Did you bring your college diploma, by any chance?”

Sigh. This is exactly the kind of thing I was afraid of. I want to say, “No, goddamnit, I don’t have my college diploma. Why is that relevant to the fact that I’m married to a U.S. citizen? I would think my international certificate of vaccination – necessary to re-enter the U.S. after travel to certain African countries – would be more germane to the question of whether I ought to remain here than my major in college.” But I just shake my head. I tell him I saw it just that morning – which is true – but didn’t think to grab it.

He doesn’t push it, and so we move on. I’m relieved until I realize that he’s moving on to…something else for which I have no documentation. As he begins to ask me about my first year after college – the crucial transition from F to H visa status – I get that familiar awful feeling, the kind you have in those dreams where you show up for class only to find it’s exam day. (Amusingly, my version of that dream – about not being prepared for something – always takes place at an airport. I am showing up for a flight with no ticket, passport, luggage, and no idea of my destination.)

He is asking me about 1999, the year when I had an optional practical training (OPT) visa that you apply for to work in the field you’ve studied. In my case, part of the reason I applied for my job was because it was the only one in the mega-employment issue of the Washington Post in January of 1999 that said “English or journalism major preferred.” The thinking is that you will work in your field of study, and if your employer likes you enough, they will sponsor you for a work visa – the H1 visa – which you can have for up to 7 years. The move to the H was not simple for me, partly due to the aforementioned Fulbright/2-year-residency rule. You also have to demonstrate that you have unique expertise (like, you wouldn’t be a pure administrative assistant and be able to get an H1 visa), and to go from there to an employer-sponsored permanent resident status can include the requirement that your job be advertised in newspapers and in your workplace.

I can tell you from experience that having your salary posted in the kitchen at work to demonstrate a “recruitment effort” is terrifying and oddly liberating. In any case, that first year – the transition from OPT to the H1 visa - was a pretty traumatic year, now that I think about it. And to think that I cannot remember getting any documentation from USCIS, nor did I have any in the correspondence I’d been saving for years. Ai ai ai.

As a quick sidenote, just imagine how daunting the steps outlined above are for a foreign national graduating from a US college today – into an economy with close to double-digit unemployment, where employers are feeling very pinched. Does anyone think a 21-year old stands a chance of convincing an employer in one year that they are worth an investment of time and money (slightly over $1000 before attorney’s fees) and getting on a track toward a work visa and, possibly, toward citizenship? It seems improbable, doesn’t it, especially as the number of unemployed Americans grows? I wonder whether this will have any measurable effect on the number of people who cobble a life together out of many different visa status classifications the way I did.

But still, I am eager to move on. Except that we don’t. “Well, I’m not seeing how you go from being an F to an H. We really need some of that OPT paperwork. I think,” he says. We are silent. “Maybe,” he goes on, “I should talk to someone. To figure out whether we need to go down this path or not. Because if we do, things will get a little complicated. So, tell you what. I’ll be right back, ok? Would you guys mind waiting for me here?”

He leaves, and I nervously tap the arm of my chair. I look over at Ms. AC. Eyebrows raised. I want to ask if I should freak out, or if she is, or if I’m the only one who thought the guy’s statement was incredibly ominous. But we say nothing, choosing instead to sit nervously for what must have been the most interminable five minutes of my life, and maybe of hers too.

12 June 2009

Ex. Tinc. Tion.

From this great New Yorker article about the search for a general theory of extinctions (hint: we may be contributing to the current one – shocking, I know…)

It is difficult to say when, exactly, the current extinction event – sometimes called the sixth extinction – began. What might be thought of as its opening phase appears to have started about fifty thousand years ago. At that time, Australia was home to a fantastic assortment of enormous animals; these included a wombatlike creature the size of a hippo, a land tortoise nearly as big as a VW beetle, and the giant short-faced kangaroo, which grew to be ten feet tall. Then all of the continent’s largest animals disappeared. Every species of marsupial weighing more than two hundred pounds – and there were nineteen of the – vanished….This die-off roughly coincided with the arrival of the first people on the continent, probably from Southeast Asia.

11 June 2009

Do you like feeling smart?

Sure you do! We all do! That's why I recommend that you sit around and repeatedly answer sample questions from the naturalization test that I will have to take in a few years. And before you know it, you'll feel pretty darn smart.

09 June 2009

It only takes a few seconds...

I’ve been around a lot of babies and small children recently, and let me just say this: holy shit. I had forgotten how a short distraction – a momentary lapse of attention – can lead to horrifying morbidity and even death. It’s nice to be around young and innocent life, but man is it taxing when you know that you’re always only a few seconds away from something terrible and irrevocable happening. Scary stuff. Especially near swimming pools. And in kitchens. And living rooms. And where there are objects, cords, chairs, objects of varying heights that can serve as platforms, and near anything made of glass.

 

 

 

 

05 June 2009

The interview: part one

Every American should spend time here, in this line – at the gates of admission into the country. The gates of administrative admission, in any case, since we’re all undeniably here, physically.

All government waiting rooms are sort of similar, I think, like all DMVs and all doctor’s offices. This is a large rectangular room, with an informal welcome desk and long rows of seats. Everywhere there are people caught up in the seriousness of their own situation: families, couples, none-of-the-above’s. Seriously, is that a gay couple? Is the new America that cool? Or are they siblings? I know for a fact that sibling-based petitions are pretty low on the administrative totem pole, and that today they would be hearing petitions submitted at least fifteen years ago, based on processing times published on the USCIS site. If they are siblings, my imaginary hat was tipped to them. “That thar is a long wait,” I think in my fake Southern drawl.

Some, like us, have backpacks, totebags, luggage, 20 lbs of documents “attesting to a shared life,” as the interview notice describes it. Other have single folders, sleeping babies, or just attorneys. With apologies to Tom Waits, no one brings anything small into this type of waiting room.

I am too nervous to read Bowling Alone, so I fidget nervously and run down my mental checklist of documentation that I might have forgotten. I look around furiously at the groups of people who didn’t bring reading material and are chatting nervously, or distractedly. I am always more perplexed by this behavior than any other. Who are these people who happily ride trains, who wait for buses, who sit in waiting rooms, without reading material? The new thing of course is fidgeting with some phone-type gadget, but in a situation like this, cell phone use is strictly forbidden. And of course, maybe these people already know what I pretend not to – that this isn’t a time for reading anyway. I go over the same paragraph in my book three times, indifferent to the impact of replacing social capital with financial capital in professional politics. I snap the book shut again.

Ms. Abstract Citizen has her organic chemistry textbook open, and we eventually reckon that it’s a better use of our nervous energy if I quiz her on some new compounds. Asking her about alkenes, halides, and other things I don’t understand, it occurs to me that someone might think I am quizzing her on our life, doing some last minute cramming for our greencard exam.

Some stories in the waiting room are clear. He is in his late 40s, white, cell phone clipped to belt. The belt is that thatchy kind with no holes, his dockers are pleated. He is a weekend golfer who spends a lot of time thinking about real estate. She looks Laotian, late 20s. In fantastic shape, Puma sneakers, holding her baby more carefully than her Vuitton. They have been waiting for a long time, he gets up to pace. He picks up brochures that read (no joke), “Are you a refugee or an asylee?” She gets up and stands near him. They speak quietly, intimately, and she lets out a hushed laugh. He touches the side of her head, strokes her hair once before she turns away.

With the families, it’s harder to tell. A family that looks Irish or Scandinavian walks in. They have long hair, and wear shirts that are somewhere between wolf-fashion and high school metal garb. Who is the anchor there, I wonder. An Asian family is led by us, led by the matriarch. She is the go-getter, quick to approach staff and lobby to move up in line. When she speaks, the others in her family listen.

In our case, we think it’s hard for the others to tell what’s what. And truly, it’s so gratifying to see couples where the answer isn’t clear at all. He could be African-American or Bahamian, and she could be Texan or Persian. Not everything boils down to a version of him-dark, she-fair. Every few minutes, Immigration officers come out through one of the four sets of doors and call out names. We instantly figure out the officer we don’t want: she looks pissed, barking out names and not greeting people as they walk in. I pick my guy: he is skinny, with short hair. He seems nice. He greets people by their first name and shakes their hands before leading them into a hallway, into we-don’t-know-where. I hope we get him.

Occasionally, half of a couple returns. The American, we figure. They are holding the other half, asking more questions, not buying their story. I nod to Ms. AC. “That might be you.” She does a good job of projecting calm, and shrugs. It’s over an hour after our interview time. Children and lawyers are getting antsy, but the rest of us are fine. Every now and then the doors spit out a whole set of people, looking happy, relieved. Hands are shook, congratulations proffered. Lives are changing, irrevocably, all around us.

Sitting on a long bench with bags strewn, Ms. AC is working out mnemonic devices for hydrocarbons, and I am remembering how hard it was to learn about alkanes and alkenes from a Scotsman at the British School in Rio, the distinction between those two words disappearing under the knotty turns of his speech. Alkens and alkens. And then, we get called. Or I do, but we both rise and scurry over to meet the nice-looking fellow who is holding the door open and who is carrying the thick stack of papers we mailed to Mesquite, Texas almost two years ago. He isn’t my pick, but he will have to do.

For further reading: part two.

02 June 2009

What the hell is going on at this store?

Rhode Island and Providence Plantations!

First of all, did you know that is the real name of the state? I think I did, but then I forgot about it.

 

In my macroecon class the other night, the professor made a point of saying that 49 out of the 50 U.S. states had a legal requirement – either in the form of an amendment to the state constitution or via popular vote/referendum – for a balanced budget. Right before class let out, I asked what state didn’t have such a requirement. “Rhode Island,” came the answer.

 

I turned to my chatty tablemate, and raised my eyebrows.

 

“Wow,” he said. “That was the least interesting answer he could have given.”

 

Indeed, it was. On a walk to the metro, he pointed out that people from Rhode Island are really from a plantation, which is sort of amusing. And then we agreed that there was really nothing to say about this tiny non-island state that is, confusingly enough, named after an island.

 

01 June 2009

Keeping Current(s)

The beach is still the beach, even when the weather isn’t beachy. When it’s cold and foggy and the flip flops you stubbornly hold on to start cutting up your foot – the flip-flops you hold on to even though they aren’t a good fit, and they aren’t that comfortable  - you still get the beat of the sea, and the wonderful unvoweled whisper of the foam reaching out, spread thinly on the heavy sand.

We like the beach when it’s like that – empty of beachgoers. We may have gotten a bit more than we bargained for in that respect though, considering the soupy fog and chilly evenings. Everyone was waiting for the weekend, and so were we – to get home. Where the sun was, as it turns out.

Thursday is my interview, and I am in official panic mode. There won’t be much sleeping the next few days.

On the drive back, a right-wing nobody blathers on about “homo-promo.”

We finished “The Wire” on Friday night. Happy with the lack of excessive speechifying, save for a few moments. When your drop-off in quality has you going from an A+ to a B+, I’d say you’re in pretty rare televisual company. I’m pretty hard-pressed to think of a show that, pound for pound, was as good for as long as “The Wire.”

I can’t tell if the summer will be really long or really short. But I am enjoying “A message to you, Rudy,” by the Specials. This may be my new favorite summer song.

 This missing plane…I’ve done the other leg of that flight – DeGaulle to Rio. Security at CDG broke my bottle of scotch, purchased earlier that day at Spirits of the World in Heathrow airport. This was a flight where passengers were split into 5 groups. The way this goes for flights to Brazil is as follows:

1. The first group gets called. 95% of passengers board.

2. The second group gets called. Virtually all of the remaining passengers board.

3. The third group gets called. I am the only one standing at the gate at this point.

4. The fourth group gets called. Reluctantly – even though I’m group 5 – I board.

 The heir to the Brazilian throne, were the country still a monarchy, was on the flight. Supposedly I have a relative who was involved in planning one of his family’s weddings. The family name is Orleans e Braganca.  Something about this seems anachronistic: monarchs shouldn’t die in plane crashes. “The prince died in a plane crash” just doesn’t sound right.  

And with that, I’ll probably take my leave till after the interview. Hoping for good news.