Guest post: On how I became an American

This is a guest post from someone who preferred to remain anonymous.
After fifteen years of living in the United States, I’ve embarked on the process of becoming a U.S. citizen. It’s important to me to write about this in this forum because immigration clearly is a feminist issue – one that has to do with everything from reproductive justice to political oppression to global capitalism to education justice. This is my immigration story, and how it has connected with these issues.
The first few months I was here are difficult to remember in anything other than broad strokes – I was lonely, culture-shocked, going through puberty, and angry at my parents for moving us from Venezuela to Minnesota (which, by the way, was experiencing its coldest winter in sixty years). We came in 1995, under a visa that allowed my father to work and for his family to come along. Of course, “family” means something very specific in immigration law – in this case, it meant a married heterosexual couple and their legal children. Our family, as is the case with many immigrant families, was not exactly this picture. Our grandmother was part of our family, and leaving her behind would have been as absurd as leaving one of my sisters – it was simply not an option. We were very lucky – because my father’s job was sponsoring his visa, they took on the task of making sure my grandmother could come as well. This is not the case for many other immigrant families whose families don’t mirror the heterosexual nuclear family that is given priority in many U.S. policies dealing with families.
Immigrants become eligible for U.S. citizenship after being legal permanent residents for five years or more, but it took my family over six years to obtain permanent residency. I was not yet a legal permanent resident when I applied to college, which meant that my application was categorized as international, making me ineligible for financial aid. Though I attended a large public university where I could pay in-state tuition, the fact that I was able to even consider this is an indicator of the tremendous privilege in my immigration experience. For most young people who want to go to college but have neither legal permanent residency nor the money to cover tuition, help is out of reach – an injustice that young immigrant activists have been working to end for years by demanding the passage of the DREAM Act. I received my permanent residency during my first year of college, and I have now had it for over eight years.

When I started looking into it, the price of applying for citizenship had just gone up, to nearly $700. Though I was about to graduate with a Master’s degree and had a well-paying job lined up, that is no small chunk of cash. Then I looked at the paperwork. Many of the questions I was required to answer were absurd and offensive: Had I ever been a drug addict? A sex worker? A habitual drunkard? A communist? Right after the communist question, they have the audacity to ask if I have ever persecuted anyone because of their political opinion. It ends by requiring a signature under a statement in which I am to promise that, if legally required to do so, I would serve the U.S. military “without mental reserve, so help me God.” These questions were deeply disturbing, and it was very clear which answers would lead to citizenship and which could lead to something far less palatable. “I have the right to be a habitually drunk communist,” I thought, “and fuck the military!” I put the forms away and ignored them for over a year. That I am not habitually drunk nor identify as a communist were irrelevant – I could not make peace with this document’s version of morality, one that criminalizes addiction, stigmatizes sex work, and continues the legacy of red-baiting in this country.
It was at the relentless nudging of my father, who believes I am a way more important activist than I probably am (thanks, dad) that I finally filled out and turned in the forms, along with a check to the Department of Homeland Security. I can’t say I never shared his fear that I would be targeted for my politics, however. Though at times the idea of being detained and deported for my politics seems totally far-fetched, at other times it feels ominously close to my reality. It’s difficult to brush off nightmares of political imprisonment knowing about the existence of secret immigration detention centers, or the REAL ID Act – which, among other things, includes a provision that allows the government to reject immigration requests on their discretion anyone without having to give any reason for it. And yet, I cannot dwell enough on the tremendous amount of privilege in my experience. My parents are upper-middle class and educated, which meant that we were able to come here with a visa, and that at least one of them was able to get a well-paying job with benefits. This in turn meant that I would have the resources to start college, even if I was not eligible for federal financial aid. I’m also lucky that I am able to apply for citizenship on my own – because my partner is a woman, she would not be able to petition me for citizenship.
Even with this tremendous amount of privilege, however, what has compelled me to become a U.S. citizen more than anything else is fear: fear of fully expressing my politics publicly, fear that the government has the legal authority to decide that a queer, anti-capitalist rabble-rouser is inconvenient to have around. It is enough fear that I signed my name to a document with which I vehemently disagree with the promise that the fear will come to an end; enough that I abided as Department of Homeland Security officials took my fingerprints; and enough that I asked for my name not to be attached to this piece.
My life is here now – my work, my passions, my best friends, my amazing girlfriend. I will never be fully from here, and yet when I visit back home I’m always a little gringa. For immigrants, this is a constant struggle – especially for those of us who moved when we were young, we are from everywhere and nowhere: a byproduct of global injustices that make some countries rich while others remain poor, displacing entire communities of people across the world. Now, it is difficult for me to imagine my life anywhere else, and as have taken ownership over my new home in the best way I know how: working in struggle and solidarity with fellow activists to make it better.