I was an illegal immigrant

 

At a financial services conference which I was covering for a financial trade paper, the subject was banking services for immigrants, legal and illegal. 

I stood up and announced, "I've been an illegal immigrant."

I do not look like an illegal immigrant. I was a middle-aged-pushing-old-aged woman at the time. I was a reporter with a college degree. My clothes were stylish, my hair well cut. The only accent I had was Bostonian a little less thick than any of the Kennedys.

Many of the attendees knew me from other conferences, of my having interviewed them or having read my articles.

There was a hush as people adjusted stereotypes.

Here's how I became illegal.

The year was 1989. I wanted to move to Europe for many reasons. One was the violence which was nothing then compared to what it is now. Having had two acquaintances murdered was another box on my list of the reasons why I wanted to move.

Other boxes included the social contract such as better vacation and sick time never mind health care. I'd majored in English literature and history and loved exploring old towns and villages, not just in the U.K. I was aiming for France. I'd already bought my retirement studio in a tiny French village on the Med for $18,000 (good exchange rate). 

By selling my Boston condo at double what I'd paid for it, I had enough money to move while I job hunted. My dogs and I flew Air France and I stayed with friends as I sent CV after CV and started my battle with French.

I overstayed the amount of time I was allowed, making me illegal.

I never found the job. My mother developed cancer. The dogs and I returned to the States.

My next attempt was from Boston. I sent over 800 CVs (after I started counting) to Germany, Austria and France. I sent one CV to Switzerland and was hired, a fluke really. I'd been told Switzerland would be impossible. 

My employer got me my first an A, then a B permit. When I changed jobs, he loaned my permit to my new employer until I could get my Permis C which was the next best thing to citizenship. 

Twelve years later to the day that I was eligible, I applied for Swiss citizenship.Three years, eight months, and a few days later, after all kinds of paperwork and interviews, I turned in my Permis C, took the oath of nationality, sang the national anthem as part of the citizenship ceremony, drank the offered champagne, picked up my first voting package and received the red passport. I was safe.

No way, do I compare my experience to those that walked for months escaping poverty and gang attacks. No way were my working conditions in a hot field picking tomatoes. No way was where I lived anything but comfortable: nice apartments, well appointed kitchens, lovely bathrooms, balconies where I could check out rainbows after a summer storm.

What I can compare is having a dream for a better life and doing what is necessary to fulfill that dream. I lived where there was a clear path on what I needed to do. That I had certain skills made my task easier, but like many of those other illegals there was the constant fear of not doing what it is necessary to meet the requirements. 

Unlike those who fear ICE, the Swiss police were never going to sweep me up with illegals, jail and deport me, but there were times prejudice against foreigners showed. Fighting to learn a new language, frustration in not understanding what is being said, that is the same.

Geneva is 43% foreign. I'm told that years ago, Geneva tried to get rid of its foreigners and it hurt their economy. Maybe it could happen again???

Currently the U.S. in deporting farm workers are putting crops in danger of rotting in the fields. Getting rid of scientists who will take the talents to other countries, will mean other countries will benefit. I'm sure many American scientists will be snatched up by other countries too.

Foreign students will no longer come, Why bother? They can get far cheaper education and live less dangerous lives in other places. 

My life was improved by being first an illegal and then a legal immigrant. My social contract was far superior, my salary was higher. I have contributed to the country socially and economically where I've lived as well. 

It was worth the risk, fear and frustration. 

I sympathize with the immigrants in America. Like the Jews in Germany they are being scapegoated for political purposes. The way they are being attacked is disgusting at best, illegal at the most shameful way. 

Note: Please check my website https://dlnelsonwriter.com

 

 

 

 

Two Brats

 

If a country's democracy wasn't at stake, if the benefits needed by millions of people were not on the line, if education was not being compromised then watching the news as two spoiled brats, born of wealth and never really having to answer to others, squabbling with each other, would look like a bad made-for- television movie.

Unfortunately, there is too much at stake. 

 

 

Women

 I don't consider myself a poet, at best I'm a po... However, I've written a few poems in my life that have been published and this is one. Most of the women are gone now, but they will always live within me and have helped me be a better me.

THE WOMEN IN MY LIFE

 

Llara

My daughter is thirty. I tell people

we’ve had twenty-eight wonderful years.

Five and thirteen are best forgotten.

She was always independent,

insisting

on making her own decisions

which were almost always right

and certainly as good as mine.

She is nothing like me.

I am neat,

needing things in neurotic order.

She marks her territory

scattering her possessions

wherever she goes.

She is good at math

and can put furniture together.

I am good at words and

can put furniture together, but wrong

so she fixes it.

We lived in a small flat for nine months

agreeing our relationship

was more important than neat or messy,

making a lie of the saying that two women

can’t get along under the same roof.

 

Susan

She knows if I am well

By the way I walk through a room.

Maybe

because we walked in each other’s souls.

She saved my daughter’s life

and thus saved mine.

When we had a rough patch

I thought she was reading my journal

so I wrote in green ink.

“Susan I know you’re reading this.”

In blue ink, the next day I found

“No, I’m not. Just keep writing.”

A problem with old friends

is that they don’t let you fool yourself.

Each year we go on retreat,

one year in Argelès-sur-mer,

the next in Ocean Grove,

walk on the beach,

eat fresh corn

lick ice cream cones

listen to music

rent movies,

read to each other,

play Scrabble,

talk about men, my writing,

her teaching, women’s studies,

politics, history and art.

Freed from chores

it is a renewal of

all that is good

In our lives.

 

Mardy

A boy with beautiful blue eyes

dated Mardy and me at the same time.

At sixteen we decided

we liked each other better than him.

Tied by a telephone cord for hours

we told our dreams.

 

When I was getting divorced,

Mardy held the glue pot

as I pieced myself together.

When we walked in the woods

behind her parents’ Maine cabin,

we tasted wild blackberries

as we spoke of nightmares.

 

And now that we are happy,

she tells me that we are not just

foul-weather friends.

 

Norma

My father fell in love with my stepmom

when they were both married to other people.

She whirled across the dance floor

in a white gown embroidered with violets

and into his arms.

They never had her children

and his children.

       “We have our children,”

she always said in a tone

that let everyone know

there was no alternative.

 

When she visits,

we play cards.

She wipes me out

no dainty widow lady she.

We go to restaurants, laugh a lot,

share memories of my Dad

and build new ones of our own.

 

Lillian

They met in secretarial school

Lillian and my mother,

agreed on nothing for sixty years

stayed friends and fought

over every issue.

At eighty, Lillian

picketed the British consulate,

marched for pro-choice,

and told of a man in an

Irish pub who raved about her hair.

He suggested they sleep together.

“Did you?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“I was wearing a wig.

I didn’t want him to know.”

“And if you weren’t?”

She just smiled.

 

Dar

No one, least of all me, knows why

I called my grandmother Dar,

but soon the world followed,

Even her friends from childhood.

She never minded being

renamed in her fifties.

When she baked a cake,

she used all the batter,

but gave me the spoon to lick.

She read me the Bobbsey Twins and

made mudpies

that looked good enough to eat.

A high school dropout,

she prodded me through algebra,

tested my Latin verbs,

knew more history

than the substitute teacher.

Despite her thick glasses,

she told me I was beautiful.

She was a New England Yankee,

Right was right,

Wrong was wrong.

When she had eye surgery,

she didn’t tell the doctor

the anesthesia hadn’t worked,

thinking it should hurt.

When she lost two children,

she bore that hurt too.

Dar saw five wars,

Lillian only four.

Norma was a WAVE

in World War II

while Mardy, Susan and I

can touch names

on a long black wall in D.C.

Names of boys we played with

and will play no more.

Llara?

She knows war as a media event

As men with mikes talk on CNN.

These women’s lives span

the invention of electricity to e-mail.

Dar abandoned her horse and buggy,

was called The Woman with the Ford,

while the rest of us jump on planes

to change continents on whim.

 

No Stantons,

Steinems,

Sangers or

Curies

in this group.

They march through history

not make it.

No one will write books,

sing songs,

make movies

or sculpt statues for public places,

honoring their lives.

They honor themselves.