Oh Those Myths...

Every day I tell myself I will bypass the comments on news articles I read, and every day I make the mistake of reading one, then two and then falling into frustrated anger. It never fails, there is always some moron who has no idea what he or she is talking about, but has to make a stupid comment that happens to be entirely false. So just because I type responses every day and then delete them before I hit post, I am going to take some of those falsehoods I see portrayed by ignorant people on the subject of immigration and provide the truth. And these truths don’t come from hearsay, they come from real life situations that I have lived myself, that people close to me have lived or that I have seen happen in front of my eyes. I am an immigrant, and I have lived in this country for 12 years now, on a temporary visa, without papers, with papers and now with a green card.

“She’s just lazy, if she’s been here for 21 years then she has had ample amount of time to become a citizen”

One of my favourites. Only those who are immigrants or related to immigrants know how HARD it is to become a US citizen. I was 21 in the year 2000 when my mother came to the US and she applied for my green card when I was 22. When I was 33 my mother applied to become a citizen, and a few months after she became a citizen I finally had my green card interview and received it a few weeks later. I can now apply for citizenship if I so choose as I have had my green card for 5 years. All in all this entire process cost my mother thousands of dollars and both of us a lot of frustration and tears. If she hadn’t become a citizen I would still be waiting for my green card, 16 years later, with no end in sight.

Keep in mind that I arrived in the US with a valid temporary working visa (for one specific job). Even though by the time I had my green card interview it had long since expired and I was working somewhere completely different, off the books. I had been given a SSN on arrival years before, because I had a valid, albeit temporary, working visa. I still have that same SSN. But because I had proof of entry into the country I was able to continue my green card petition from within the country without having to leave, even if my legal status had expired.

Now, imagine you come here with your parents at an early age, or even as a teen looking for a better life for yourself and your family back home. You get through the dangers of crossing the border, end up in a new city, learn the language, work hard and start creating a new life for yourself. Maybe you find love and have kids, and send them to school here in the US. You may be using a fake SSN that you bought off the street (more on that later), and you most likely pay taxes and all the rest that is withheld from each paycheck. Maybe you actually file those taxes and get a Tax ID number and whatever refund you are due. But most of the time you probably don’t and never see any of that.

The ONLY way you can possibly get citizenship right now is to leave the country and have someone apply for you (family member, work etc). Kids cannot sponsor anyone until they are 21. You don’t just apply for citizenship after a few years in the US and get a passport. So you spend the rest of your life hoping to fly under the radar, never leaving the city you live in because you are worried that if you travel anywhere you will get caught and deported, never seeing your homeland again.

Yes, it’s a choice that we all make. But it is never an easy choice and there is never anything easy about being an immigrant in this country.

“All these unvaccinated immigrants are going to cause outbreaks of diseases again!”

In order to obtain a green card you have to go through a vigorous medical exam (not covered by any insurance) and you are tested for immunity in all different things, including chicken pox. I had never had chicken pox before so I had to be vaccinated before I got the clean bill of health from the doctor. This was not my regular practitioner but a doctor who specialized in immigration laws.

In Mexico vaccinations are taken very seriously and all children have to be vaccinated before they can go to school. They even vaccinate against TB at birth which is not done in the US. More information HERE. 

Actually, take a look for yourself… Here is the World Health Organization’s chart containing percentages of coverage of each available vaccine for each country.

I think the US should probably worry about US citizens not vaccinating their kids rather than immigrants, documented or not, invading the country, spreading infectious diseases all over the place. Because if you are concerned about things like measles and whooping cough, the outbreaks that we see happening across the country are not due to immigrants.

“It’s a felony to use a fake SSN, so ‘illegals’ are criminals”

First of all there is a HUGE difference between stealing another person’s identity and using a fake SSN. If you steal someone’s identity you are using a REAL SSN that belongs to someone. A fake SSN is a fake number that someone has made up that doesn’t belong to anyone. Usually this fake number is printed on a fake card and bought on the street for a certain price. Anyone who knows what to look for will know that this fake number is FAKE and cannot be used for anything. It is however possible to pay taxes and any other federal withholdings towards that fake SSN. The money just goes into the federal banks, and everyone knows about it. Using a fake SSN IS a crime but depending on what it is used for can be considered a felony or a misdemeanor. Which leads to my next point…

“Immigrants come here and steal our jobs and all of our benefits and don’t pay for anything!!”

It is IMPOSSIBLE for an immigrant without documents or on a visa to be granted any type of benefits. If you hold a green card then it is possible (after 5 years of holding this card). EVEN if you have a fake SSN your request won’t even make it past the first step because Social Security will confirm that the number is FAKE. There is only ONE type of benefit that an immigrant without papers or who has a visa can actually obtain and that is pregnancy Medicaid (and not in all states). This is a very specific prenatal and birth health insurance coverage for pregnant women who earn under a certain threshold, and only covers certain things. This health insurance is removed 3 months after the baby is born.

I hear people stating that immigrants use their US born children to get benefits for them, but honestly, you would really have to work the system to make that even work. I mean I don’t know how a 2 year old can fill out paperwork and go to interviews… That would be a sure sign for CPS to get involved, no? Maybe they take advantage of Medicaid for their kids, which makes sense because their median earnings most likely fall under a certain threshold (we do, there is no way we would be able to afford our eldest’s regular cardiology check-ups if we weren’t eligible for Medicaid). But all in all, I seriously doubt people are flooding into the US to steal all the amazing (not) benefits this country provides. If that were their main interest they would be flocking to places like Finland and Sweden.

And stealing people’s jobs?! I read today that California farmers are regretting their Trump votes because now they are worried they will be losing their field workers. I don’t know if anyone actually researches facts anymore, but the unemployment rate peaked at 10% in October of 2009, and then went down gradually to sit at 4.8% in January 2017 (where it’s been hovering for quite a while). I see that McDonalds is always hiring, so if you are really struggling then I’m sure there is a job for you. (This is coming from someone who has seen her fair share of crap jobs, cleaning puke filled hotel rooms and other super glamourous stories – a job is a job). However, if all of these highly skilled immigrant workers suddenly disappeared from the employment market I can only predict the strain that it would cause on the economy and the companies that employ them in general. I mean, they might even have to start paying minimum wage and providing benefit packages to their employees!

No one is stealing your job. Actually, let’s take that one back. I did. I came here on a visa where my company stated I was doing something a US citizen couldn’t do. Well technically I WAS doing a job no one else could do, which is why I ended up leaving it, but yes, I’m pretty sure any US citizen could have done it too. You are welcome to that job though, I would rather clean puke-filled hotel rooms.

“They only come here to have babies so that the babies become US citizens”

The US is one of a few countries that grants automatic birthright citizenship (jus soli). And while I am sure there are people who come here with the sole wish to have their baby on US soil (and I have read some of the stories first hand too), this isn’t what usually happens. Life happens. I know many, many immigrants, some very close friends of mine, who didn’t decide that they were having a baby here so that they would be US citizens (myself included). We just happened to have a baby. And we weren’t going to leave our lives behind just because of this life change.

“All Mexican immigrants are drug dealers and rapists”

Yeah no. And also, just so you know, if you thought being undocumented only applied to Mexicans then you don’t really know much… You think Europeans only do it the “right” way? Let me go laugh quietly in my corner while you continue to think that. The only difference is the way someone enters the country. After that it’s all the same.

“I did it the right way so why can’t they??”

Good for you. Not everyone has your life, funds or even someone who wanted to actually marry them. Some people actually only want to marry for love, not for a green card. Others are running for their lives. Not everyone happens to be white and well-regarded. Not everyone has the time to wait for years until their number pops up. Not every country is eligible for the green card lottery (Great Britain wasn’t for years). Some countries have such a small quota of visas that decades could go by before you get yours (and that’s not including travel bans and things like that raining down). It takes YEARS for the normal everyday human being to get a green card. Even if the rest of your nuclear family lives in the US. Trust me, I know, I experienced this.

So, please, if you want to continue blaming immigrants for everything bad that has happened in this country, please do so by using the correct FACTS. Otherwise you just sound like a racist, ignorant bigot who spends his or her day reading “alt-right” news and repeating things about people you have never even encountered. It’s easy to believe propaganda if you don’t bother to learn the actual truth.

Immigration Series: Serial Immigrant

This week's story is my own mother's... We have lived thousands and thousands of miles away from each other for many years, but now all live together in sunny California. 

Serial Immigrant

I am an immigrant. I have been an immigrant, and an émigré, for much of my adult life: not because of dire need, or suffering, but from a desire to travel, to experience the world, and to provide a good life for my family. I’d always dreamed of travelling; as a child it was to Canada and France, or exploring the South Pole, as a teen I wanted to work on a kibbutz or travel the desert on the back of a camel; as an adult, to visit the ancient sites of Greece and Turkey and Jerusalem and Egypt and Japan. (I’ve been lucky enough to be able to do all of those, except Greece the South Pole, and while a visit to the Galapagos is still on the bucket list, I’m a little more wary of the cold these days.)

It all began when I was offered a short-term contract in the Netherlands when I was looking for full-time employment in Thatcher’s UK. The idea of spending a few months outside of what had become a depressed and gloomy Britain under Thatcher’s iron rule, in the country of windmills and clogs and Edam, was exciting and liberating. We packed a very few belongings into a mini-bus and took the ferry from Harwich to Hook of Holland, and never looked back. The children went to Dutch schools and my daughters were fluent in the language within a very few months. The short-term contract became three years, we experienced life as Europeans, and then a new job offer came along, from an American multinational with a large site in France.

Nine years in France, a country full of culture and life and history and strong friendships, and then, once again, I’m offered another job—with the same company, but this time, in the mothership—in the USA. Moving between European countries, pre-Brexit, was one thing. Across the world was another. It was a major decision: three children, divorced parents, oldest child already in university in France… but it was another adventure, it felt right, and it was an opportunity to experience yet-another way of life.

I entered the USA on an L-1 visa. That’s a visa specifically for “management transfers”: companies can bring in their managerial staff and workers with specialized knowledge, transferring them from overseas locations to a (new) location in the USA.

My employer provided help with the visa. They also provided legal help to make sure that the green card I applied for, for myself and children, were expedited, because my second child would celebrate their twenty-first birthday a few months after our arrival in the USA. Wait. Why is that important??? Because after 21, a child is considered “just another relative”, and you have to petition for them to join you, and wait years. But what about my eldest child, who is already over 21, yet still in full-time education and supported by me? Oh tough. They’ve “aged out”. No green card. You have to petition for them to join you, once you have a green card yourself, and then wait. And wait. And wait. At least seven or ten or more years.

My eldest was denied a visa to visit the USA for a few months, on the grounds that, “All your family is in the USA and you might be tempted stay.” Well duh… yes, all close family was in the USA. So you deny a child the right to stay with their only surviving parent???”

We found a work-around. My eldest was able to claim Canadian citizenship due to her father’s own citizenship, and then work in the USA on an annual TN visa, which wasn’t without stress. We waited and waited for her green card to be approved. We paid all the fees. Eventually, after several years, the green card was approved… but there would be another seven or more years before “the number would come up”, and the card would be issued. I learned that if I became a US citizen—by this time I was eligible, having held a green card for five years—then the wait for my daughter’s green card would be cut to just a few months.

So I paid all the fees, studied for the exam, and became a US Citizen. I now hold two passports, British and USA. My daughter has a green card, issued a few months after I became a citizen, and can live and work in the USA. The family is together. But am I a proud US citizen? Do I feel this glowing patriotism, and the need to put hand-on-heart when the Stars and Stripes are played? The belief in the right to bear arms? Not for one second… Do I feel somewhat compromised, and coerced into embracing a nationality, just to enable my family to be together? Some days, indeed I do. Resentful? No… I’m happy with the life we have, though I miss the history, the discussions, the cultural richness that is outside the USA. I don’t understand the American money-based mentality that drives everything and blinds people to the fact that there are better ways to manage health care and social welfare and ensure that everyone – EVERYONE – is taken care of. I don’t understand the shoot first mentality. And I really, really don’t want to live in the USA that Trump is proposing. I’m disturbed by the way the world is turning, whether it’s insulting click-bait political lies here in the USA, Brexit votes in the UK that will deny future generations the freedom of movement we enjoyed, and the rise in fear and hatred and intolerance around the globe… Maybe once you’ve seen more of different cultures and languages, you ask more questions, and are more frustrated by a brick wall of ignorance. I don’t know.

Those people who talk about immigration “done the right way”, obviously have no clue about how broken the “right way” is, how it can divide families, how much stress and anguish it can cause, how many years of wondering if your child will be allowed safely through the airport “this time”, or if they will be deported, or worse… and yes, that’s doing immigration “the right way”.

#iamanimmigrant. But I’m one of the lucky ones who had a choice, and tried to make the right decision. Was it? Ask my kids. I think you’ll get mixed answers.

In addition to being a wonderful parent and all-around great person, my mother (Alison Toon) is also a fantastic photographer and you can check out her work on her website, Facebook page and Instagram.

Immigration Series: The Ten Year Wait (Part 2)

If you missed the first half of this story you can find it right HERE.

One Friday afternoon in March of 2005 I received a call from a foreign number. I let it go to voicemail, left the office under the guise of needing a smoke break and listened to an American woman tell me that they had received my resume and were wondering if I would be interested in talking about a project management position within a large translation company in NYC. She also followed up with an email with a little more information. Since 2002 my only concern had been California, I had never even considered another part of the US. Unlike many people in the world, I had never dreamed of going to, let alone living in, NYC. NYC was that place in many TV shows and movies and the place of a tragedy that was forever etched in my brain, but never a place that I wanted to consider my home. But then again, NYC was also a hell of a lot closer to Sacramento than London was. Ever since I had become determined to move to the US my mother had sent my resume out to different contacts in the translation industry and one ended up in the right hands at the right time.

After several phone interviews, language tests, back and forths and a job offer based on the fact that I would receive a TN visa on landing (specialty visa offered to Canadian and Mexican citizens to perform jobs that no qualified American can perform), I handed my notice in and flew off into the unknown at the end of May 2005. Everything was a big risk really, for both myself and the company, but I had a one year visa, a shitty starting salary that was a tiny bit more than the pittance I was earning in London, and a possibility that I may transfer to California one day if things worked out. But then, the moment I saw the Manhattan skyline I knew I had come home. If you have ever traveled a lot, wondered where your roots are or were and wandered the soil of this earth trying to find a place to call home, then you know that feeling, a peace within your soul, a sigh of relief, of knowing that this is it. Home.

The gamble paid off. I worked extremely hard, and for quite a few years I played extremely hard, but for the first five years it still felt like I was on borrowed time. I was reluctant to get too close to people in case I would have to leave suddenly. My visa got rejected the first time I tried to renew it, and I had to do a mad rush to Toronto to try again. Every time I had to renew my visa I felt anxious, at the mercy of some immigration official who could stamp my passport for another year or see through all of the lies and deny me entrance. The company grew and merged and HR began to realize that I wasn’t going to last much longer on a temporary visa and finally gave it one last chance before they would make a more permanent gesture. I suppose everything worked out for them right then because the TN visa was extended to three years instead of one. But by then I was done. I was overworked and completely burnt out, I felt trapped but I also had no real interest in leaving the country.  I continued working in a job I had begun to resent because it was the only way I could legally stay in the country and benefit from things like health insurance.

Leaving and entering the country on a TN visa is always touch and go, even if you still have time remaining on it. The best time was the one where the official checked through my papers and waved me on through. The worst was the time I went to Mexico and we flew back through Arizona. Unfortunately my Canadian passport renewal had been held up and was still stuck in Canada so I traveled on my British passport. As my visa was associated with my Canadian citizenship and not my British I assumed that I would get a slap on my hands, but I didn’t assume that I would be threatened with deportation, told that I was an idiot for traveling on the “wrong” passport, and then after all that fined $800 for not having the right “paperwork” on me (I actually DID have all of the paperwork, including my old passport and my valid British passport)- thankfully I had the money on my credit card, because if I hadn’t been able to pay I would have been detained. They also told me that I was “lucky” because the main immigration dude wanted to send me before the immigration court, but in the end they decided to just fine me. And all I could think about after I ran across the terminal to make my connecting flight that was leaving in five minutes was: I’m very, very lucky. I can’t even imagine how they would have treated me if I had been of a different skin colour and/or nationality. I learnt two important lessons that day: never move to Arizona and never put yourself in a situation where you feel frightened of an official again. I hadn’t done anything wrong, and for over an hour they made me feel like I was a piece of scum on the carpet. Of course, part of that issue WAS my own fault, but at the same time there was no need to treat me like a criminal. It really reinforced my opinion that it doesn’t matter if you have a visa or not, you are still going to be treated like a lesser individual until you have either a green card or a US passport.

My mother checked my green card status in 2010 and we were years and years off, so she filed for citizenship and became a US citizen about 6 months later. About 6 months after that, in the middle of 2011, I suddenly received an appointment to get my fingerprints and photographs done, as well as a request to get a full physical with a USCIS-approved doctor. It was also around that time that I was functioning on auto-pilot at work, depressed, barely able to drag my feet through the door every day. I was messing up left, right and centre, and all I wanted to do was release myself of the chains that I had tied around my ankles, and soar high, find myself and my real desires again. Over the weekend of Hurricane Irene I walked out and never looked back, and by doing so I became an undocumented immigrant, part of the huge underground network in this country. I was done. I didn’t care anymore, after years and years of waiting, of doing the right thing, of watching friends marry other friends and get their statuses adjusted, of convincing myself that I didn’t need to do that, I gave up. I would find work and I would be OK.

I did both. I also began to breathe again. And yes, I paid taxes. I didn’t claim any type of state health insurance, because that isn’t possible, despite what you hear. I used the social security number I had been given with my temporary visa, the same one I still use today, and I continued to live my life, hoping that my good health would hold up and that I wouldn’t get sick, ever. And then, at the end of 2011 I received a letter from the USCIS with an interview appointment. THE interview that I had been waiting for, for so many years (TEN to be exact). I arrived there with snacks and a book and my journal, prepared to be waiting for hours, but instead I was called in within five minutes, my interview lasted 30 minutes, and I was told I would receive their decision in the mail within six weeks.

A week later, to the day, I received my green card in the mail.

I still remember the river of emotions that flew through my body, not being able to breathe, running upstairs to my apartment so that I could burst into tears, of happiness, of sadness, of pure relief. That little piece of ID opened up so many doors again, I could work wherever I wanted, I could study again if I wanted to, and most importantly, I could leave the country and come back, as many times as I wanted. A few months later my beloved Nana passed away, and I was able to go to the funeral and read the eulogy that I had written for her. I was able to hop on a plane in NYC and pop over to Sacramento without worrying about someone demanding to see my visa or immigration ID. All of a sudden I had the exact thing that I had been waiting for since 2001.

It did come with a certain price though, because the only reason that I am not still waiting for my green card today is because my mother became a citizen. Yes, there are perks with being a citizen like the right to vote against men like Trump, but there is also the fact that for the rest of her life my mother will have to pay US taxes, wherever she lives in the world. Something to think about if you ever have to make that decision. And I haven’t even touched upon the money that my mother spent on the USCIS (previously INS) over the years, sometimes even double price because they provided conflicting information on what we needed to pay and where (non-refundable of course). She didn’t have to give up her British citizenship, I doubt she would have become a US citizen if she had to, but there are some countries that require you do.

So, my story is one of many, many years of waiting. There is no grey area when it comes to immigration here, no possibility of talking to people face to face and coming to some sort of agreement. You either choose to be part of the system and become a number, waiting year after year for yours to advance one or two steps, or you do it your own way. If I am asked what I would change if I had to do it all over again I say everything. I used to say that I would only get married if I were madly in love, nowadays marriage is only a piece of paper, and if that piece of paper helps moves things along a little faster, then why not. And before you flame me for saying that, just put yourself in my, or someone else’s shoes for a year, and see what it is like. Telling a 21 year old that she cannot come back to visit her family for a year is pretty despicable in my opinion. And I had it easy. Some of the stories that will be featured in this series are a million times more difficult to digest than mine are. Mine is just unfair, and in the end it all kind of worked out.

Sometimes I wish I hadn’t spent all of those years waiting and waiting because I didn’t live life as fully as I should have. But at the same time I don’t have any regrets because I now have my own family, my own family of immigrants. My children were born here which makes them US citizens, but there will always be that worry at the back of my mind that one day they will be forced to live without me, just because my and their father’s immigration status could technically be revoked at any time. And that is a story for another day and another time…

Next week on Monday I will be posting someone else's story. If you would like to be featured in this series please feel free to contact me!

Immigration Series: The Ten Year Wait (Part 1)

Kicking off this guest post series with the first part of my own US immigration story. Over the next few weeks there will be all kinds of immigration stories appearing on this blog, and if you would like to see your own featured don't hesitate to contact me. This series is in no shape or form limited to the US, I am interested in featuring all types of stories from anywhere in the world.

When I hear people discussing immigration in the US I often hear terms like “the right way” and “the wrong way” being thrown around. Or that someone came here to steal someone else’s job, or on the contrary came to find a better life. It seems that everything is black or white and that there is nothing in between: either you are a “good” immigrant or a “bad” immigrant. So I’m going to tell you a little story about someone who didn’t come here for a better life, who didn’t come here because she was particularly enamoured by the country, and who didn’t come here to steal someone else’s job. Actually this person just ended up here and just stayed here for a lot longer than she had planned to. This story is my story and I feel that it is a perfect example of how everyone’s immigration story is different, how no one’s story is “good” or “bad” and how there is no right or wrong way. Instead of looking at all of the blacks and whites let us look at the greys and pinks and blues and yellows and reds.

I wasn’t the easiest teen, but then again who was? I dropped out of school at the age of 16 because I couldn’t stand being there anymore, but by the age of 18 I realised I actually wanted to be one of the first people in my family to earn a degree. So I sat my Baccalauréat, passed, and went to university. I loved university. French universities have an element of freedom to them and you are treated like an adult, not like an annoying child. Since you are treated like an adult it is also assumed that you will act like an adult (for the most part anyway), so I went to the classes I found interesting, winged my way through my first year exams and passed with flying colours. My second year was a lot more interesting, and the third year, my BA year, even more so. That was also the year that my mother decided to take her company’s job opportunity up in California. It was the year 2000, and while I was super happy for her to go, there was no question about the fact that I would be staying put. My life was mainly in France, a little in England my country of birth, but mainly in France. I had lived there for so many years, going through school and adolescence and everything you go through and more when you are growing up.

I had never even been to the States, let alone move there. I had a couple of close friends in California, but they had their own lives and friends, and I had no intention of starting over somewhere else. France, Grenoble, was my home. I flew over to California with my mother to look for a house before her big move, liked the area, saw NIN in concert, and came home, with no desire to move anywhere except into my new apartment by the train station in Grenoble.

I hadn’t considered how my fourth year, my MA year, at university would affect me mentally, how depressed I would get after 9/11, and also how spending holidays and birthdays far away from my family would take its toll. When I read through my journals from that period I can see how I withdrew myself bit by bit from my usual life, preferring to hole myself up at home, writing about Sylvia Plath for my thesis and listening to Bob Dylan and Tim Buckley on repeat. Something had to give and I decided that I wanted to move. All of a sudden I needed to see something different, not for the first time in my life and definitely not for the last. So, on the spur of the moment I decided I was moving to the US. I spent my last summer in France with my friends, signed my half of the lease over to someone else, packed up my stuff and sent it over to my mother’s, and got on a flight with my cat.

It was September 2002 and I was 24 years old.

You become an adult in the US on your 21st birthday. If you immigrate to the US with your parents and you are under the age of 21 you will automatically fall under their immigration plan/set-up/visa etc. My mother’s work visa was fast-tracked into a green card, and her immigration lawyer made sure that my sister’s was pushed through fast too, so that it came through before she turned 21 (this was before 9/11, a lot changed after that, understandably so). My brother was 16 when he moved over to the US and got his green card pretty much immediately too. I, as an adult child of an alien, had to apply for my own green card with no idea when or if I would ever receive it.

So there I was, in the US, with no ability to work or to get a student visa/pay for tuition (and my tuition in France had been free anyway) and no idea if I would ever be able to live with my family again. Even if I had decided to move with my mother in 2000 it wouldn’t have changed a thing as I was over 21.

I went back and forth using the visa waiver program a few times, applied for a 6 month tourist visa in London and got rejected immediately because I “had too many family ties in the US and there was no guarantee I wouldn’t overstay my visa or coerce someone into giving me a job”.  I flew back to the US right after that and was immediately sent to the second room (if you have ever been there before you know what I mean, I’ve been there too many times to remember). I was yelled at, told that I was obviously working in the US if I kept coming back (I wasn’t, my mother was actually supporting me at that point), and that I was stupid to keep coming back. Then, after leaving me in a freezing cold room for 30 minutes, the official stamped my passport and told me that I could stay another three months, and after that if I came back within a year I would immediately be deported.

To be honest, I really don’t want to know how many “comments” I have on my immigration file. That wasn’t the last time I was threatened with deportation. It also wasn’t the last time I was sent to that “second” room.

I was totally and utterly depressed. I missed my life in France and I wanted to start a new life in the US, but instead I was stuck in limbo, with no real direction anywhere. I spent three months feeling lethargic and anti-social, forcing myself to leave the house, preferring to stay holed up inside with my cat, my books, my music and the internet. The end of the three months loomed in front of me and I kept pushing any kind of decision-making until the next day. Then my aunt, a world traveler who had settled in Israel, converted to Judaism and started a family there on a moshav in the desert, invited me to come over and help her with her two little children. At the same time my mother pushed me to send off my Canadian citizenship paperwork. My father was born in Canada, and while he was back in Britain before he could walk, he retained dual citizenship until he died. At the time if you had a Canadian parent, dead or alive, you were eligible for citizenship, even if you had never been to the country. It was a long shot and we were told could take a year or so, but there was no harm in trying.

I ended up living in Israel for well over a year, a life-changing experience, and came back to the US with more drive, focus and plans up my sleeve, and my Canadian citizenship was waiting for me on arrival. My original plan was to stay in California for three months, go to London and work there for a while and wait for the person I had fallen in love with to join me. The latter part never happened, and for the best as he proved to be as flighty as I always knew he was, but I did move to London and spent ten months there waiting to see where I would go next.

London was both home and away. I had my first “real” job after university (“real” meaning I worked in an office and was doing something that resembled what I had studied to do), I lived in a lovely house with really wonderful people, and I was able to spend time with my family in England whenever I wanted to. It was away because while England is the country of my birth it isn’t the country I grew up in. Familiar and foreign, and London was so expensive and big and hard to actually live in. I had kind of given up on moving to the States at that point and was just treading water in London until I could figure out my next steps (and once I had given up on waiting for the boy to make his way over to England I started to think about my future in a little more depth too). 

To be continued... Part 2 will be featured at the same time, same day next week!