Experiencing it myself. (VERY ROUGH DRAFT)

            I, myself am experiencing the fear that comes along with being married to an undocumented immigrant. I am so afraid that my husband could be deported, I think about it every day. When we had been dating for a while, and I started imagining us getting married, I was under the impression that doing so would make things better. I thought if we got married, he would get a green card, and deportation would no longer be a threat. I was wrong.

            If we could go back in time 10 years, and get married then, I would have been right. Years ago the U.S. government handed out green cards much easier, and that’s probably why they have cracked down so much now. How it works now when an American citizen marries an illegal immigrant is that nothing happens at all. You are legally married, but the immigrant receives no break in return and is still just as “illegal” as before. And illegal might as well just mean criminal because that is how undocumented immigrants (U.I.’s) are looked upon. In my opinion, it is unfair to judge U.I.’s  all the same, as many have a different story and live different lives.

My husband for example, Carlos, came to the United States as a teenager from Mexico. He was 16 and his mom who had came to the United States before him had sent for him. He didn’t even want to come. What teenager wants to leave their friends and home just to go to another country where they don’t even know the language? I’d say few to none. He was underage however, and so had very little say in the matter. He came to the United States. He has been here for over 10 years now, and as an adult who is much wiser, wants to stay here. Besides having built a comfortable life here and not wanting to leave it, Carlos knows that there are more opportunities in America and that Mexico is not safe. He doesn’t know anyone there anymore, all his family is here, and would be more alone in his own country than he is here in mine.

As soon as we got married, I was pushing for us to go see an immigration lawyer and right now we are beginning the long process towards changing his residential status here. The chances of it working aren’t especially great, but I am at a loss of what else to do. The whole lawyer process costs about seven thousand dollars and with no guarantee that we will get what we want, that’s a little hard to swallow. What we have to do is prove that I would face extreme hardship if Carlos were to get deported in order to convince them that under a special circumstance they should let him stay. The problem with this is that for 10 years my husband has stayed under the immigration radar; he hasn’t gotten in any trouble and has stayed away from police. If we go through this lawyer process, and then nothing happens; we will have essentially put the spotlight on him and then he could be at a higher risk for deportation. This risk is enough to convince many couples in our situation to stay put.

The other problem we have with our case is that I am a pretty healthy human being. The extreme hardships that they see as deserving for changing an immigrant’s status are usually sicknesses in which a spouse needs their undocumented spouse to take care of them. Although I am convinced that I cannot live without my husband, and that I would experience major hardships if he were to get deported, the government may not see things the same way. This is another thing I think about daily and which scares me half to death. If things don’t go as planned, and if this lawyer doesn’t get us anywhere, then my husband will stay here risking getting deported. If he gets deported one day, I am sure I would make the decision to go with him, but I am scared of that day ever coming.

Undocumented Immigrants Marrying U.S. Citizens: ROUGH DRAFT

 Should undocumented immigrants be able to acquire legal residency through marriage to a U.S. citizen? That is the question that millions of couples are facing in our country today. There are between 15 and 20 million illegal immigrants in the United States today and many of those people are married and/or have children with American citizens. Many of these immigrants are good natured hardworking people, who just for some reason or another came into this country through the back door. Besides not being born here, many of them are no different than our own families. They have wives and husbands who they love, they have children that they care for, and families that they want to protect. Coming here illegally though, does mean that there is one thing that does make these immigrants very different than U.S. citizens; and that is the fear of losing their families because of deportation.

Millions of marriages in the United States involve a spouse who is here illegally and millions of U.S. born children have at least one parent in the same position. When these people are discovered and get deported, they leave families behind to struggle. Many families who are living in fear of such a situation happening to them are pushing for immigration law reform. U.S. citizens who have married illegal immigrants believe that their spouses should not have to live in fear of getting sent away. They believe that marriage should provide them with legal status.

In the article, “Americans Married to Immigrants Push for Reform,” three American wives tell their stories about the hardships they are facing because of deportation. One woman chose to leave with her husband when he was deported back to Angola. They have three young children together and feel all alone in a country they do not know. They are fighting to be able to come back but with no response so far, the future seems dim. Another woman who is married to a native Guatemalan man says that her family is unwilling to petition for her husband to gain legal status. Doing so would require that her husband leave the United States for 10 years and so instead are left waiting in limbo.

Not everyone thinks that undocumented immigrants should be granted legal status if they marry a citizen. Many people think that it makes it too easy and encourages more illegal immigration. The article, “Rasmussen: Majority Believe Federal Government is Encouraging Illegal Immigration,” says that  58 percent of people surveyed said they thought the federal government was encouraging illegal immigration. They look at it like they are “catching a break,” and a break that is not deserved. Some people cannot look past the fact that these immigrants snuck into the United States and see them as strictly criminals for doing so. They are worried that it could inspire undocumented immigrants to pose in fake marriages just to get papers. Another article, “Immigrant Couples Face Scrutiny in Bid to Root Out Sham Marriages,” discusses sham marriages and how they are affecting immigration policy. According to the article, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services uncovered and denied more than 600 fraudulent green card applications for foreign spouses between 2007 and 2009.

The issue of illegal immigrants in the United States is very controversial overall. It has many layers when looked into deeply, having co-issues like government money, crime, and family and community unity. Depending on which layer is focused on, one’s opinion could change. The bottom line is that the question is left unanswered. Should undocumented immigrants be able to acquire legal residency through marriage to a U.S. citizen? It’s difficult to say, but a look at both sides is definitely necessary before making any conclusion.  

Finding support. Being married in college is easier than you'd think.

I think a lot of college students don’t know how easy they have it. I know, I know, college is pretty hard no matter what but some students don’t know how lucky they are. There are a lot of students who have their parents to support them financially, and even if their parents don’t pay for everything, they can at least hit them up for a little extra money here and there. I’m not one of those students though, and I really never have been. I have always had to pay my own way; from buying my first car all on my own (a shitty 1989 Ford Bronco II for $1000) to moving out before I turned 18 and paying all my own bills and rent in-between. Although in many ways I am proud that I have been so independent, I would have loved to trade places with many of my friends who seemed to have it so much easier than me. Looking back now, I recognize that having parents in less than imperfect situations has shaped me into who I am today and I am happy with that person. If I could go back and change how things were for me, I wouldn’t, but back then I couldn’t see the big picture and really struggled at times. I have always had to work to have anything and therefore I was taught a good life lesson early on but one that made other areas of my life challenging. School for example seemed to always be one of those challenges. Going to college is like a job in itself with all the time and energy it takes up.  Working enough to pay all my bills and rent and going to school fulltime can feel crazy. There are just not enough hours in the day or days in the week to make enough money and/or get homework done and study. And even when I have been able to tweak my schedule just right so that I can do it all, the quality of one or both often suffers. I was always envious of students who didn’t have to work or only had to work to have spending money. I mean, really, it would have been so much easier to get up and go to class and to do my homework if that was my only job!        Basically, being alone and independent makes going to school, along with a lot of other things, difficult. So when people say to me that it must be hard being in college and married at the same time, I feel like I have an obligation to tell them differently. Being in a strong, solid, and healthy relationship has made going to school an option again and having my husband’s support and help has made going to college so much easier than it has ever been for me before. Before we ever got married and from the very beginning, Carlos has made my life easier. Being married has just locked it in. Its given me permanent security knowing that we will always be there for each other.      I can no longer take credit for paying my own way. I work, a lot, and go to school fulltime, but I am not alone and independent anymore. My husband is my partner in life, and that means I don’t have all the stress on just my shoulders. Carlos shares the load with me, and when I am short on gas or my insurance needs to be paid and Im broke till Friday; my husband helps me! What’s his is mine and vice versa and I cannot tell you how comforting it is to have someone like I have him. I had taken two years off school because I couldn’t afford to pay rent and go to college, and not only did Carlos help me financially so that we could afford for me to go back, but he encouraged me to return because it is the best thing for OUR future. He is always there for me emotionally when I am having a bad day or when I am completely overwhelmed by homework and assignments. I don’t think I would have returned yet, if at all to college, if I hadn’t met Carlos and developed the relationship that we have.      Students who have parents who act as financial and emotional support for them while they’re in school might not be looking for those traits in a potential boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or wife. I wasn’t looking for someone to make my life easier when I met my husband, I just got extremely lucky that he did. He helps me and is there for me, and I am there for him in different ways. We can always call on eachother and I am so very thankful to have that for once in my life. Anyone who has that kind of connection and is able to find true support somewhere should be thankful. I am no longer envious of those other students and the “easy” life it seems they have. I am just happy to have found someone who is happy to help support me; financially, mentally, and emotionally. And I am happy to be able to give my support in return.

Question?

I know that my blog is not one that many of you can probably relate to. That being said, how do you think I could make my topic more interesting and relatable for general readers without giving up my overall idea? Thanks!

A Package Deal

When I got married, my husband came as a package deal, a two for the price of one sort of arrangement. When I married Carlos I not only became somebody’s wife but I also became a step mother. That’s right; I’m 23 years old, married, and a step mom. It’s hard for me to believe I have racked up so many titles in this last year, but I am thoroughly enjoying each of them and trying my hardest to do well at them all.

            My step son’s name is Brandon and he will be five tomorrow, on Halloween. He’s a super cute, super well-behaved kid, and although I may have a biased opinion, I really believe it’s the truth. Everywhere we take him we get compliments on how good he is and people are always telling us how cute he is and that he looks just like Carlos. He really is his mini.

            We only get Brandon every other weekend, Friday through Sunday, and the rest of the time he lives with him mom in Antioch, about an hour away. Since our time is so limited with him, we try to make the two weekends out of the month as fun and memorable as possible. My parents were divorced when I was very young and I was on the same visitation schedule as Brandon is. My dad always did fun things with my sister and I on his weekends and I remember them very clearly. I want the same thing for Brandon and so I am always trying to think of things we can do with him and places we can go together.

            This last weekend we decided to go to the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Sometimes we take Brandon with us to the dog park here in Richmond, on the bay, and he always points to the city and says, “ I wanna go to Safancisco!” It’s so funny how he says it. We always tell him next time he comes that we will take him and so we decided to finally keep our word and go. For those of you who don’t know what the Exploratorium is, it’s like a huge hands-on, interactive museum for all ages. It a lot of fun for everyone and I was very excited to take Carlos and Brandon there for the first time.

            We came through Marin and took the Golden Gate Bridge to the city. I have NEVER seen Brandon so excited. It was hilarious.

 The rest of our day was a lot of fun, we went to dinner in the city and then came home and relaxed for the rest of the night. Sunday morning we woke up and got ready to go to the pumpkin patch before heading back to Antioch to take Brandon back to his mom.

This is my favorite picture from the weekend. My two favorite boys : )    

 

                                                               Our little family photo

                                                     Brandon having a blast on the jumpy

        We have a lot of fun with Brandon when he is with us and I hope that one day he remembers the good times we have had together. I want to be the best step-mom possible, and to me that means not trying to replace his real mom, not getting in the way of him having a relationship with his dad, and just being someone he knows cares about him. I know that if we had him full time, I would be faced with more challenges as a step-mom and that its a pretty easy job to have only two weekends per month. I'm thoroughly enjoying my part-time job however, and if things were to change for some reason and we were to have him full-time; I would totally be up for the challenge.

Being married is challenging.

I love being married, don’t get me wrong, but I’d be lying if I said it was a piece of cake. I think all marriages have their challenges, and it is normal to have ups and downs- any real relationship does, and it’s how you get through those trials and tribulations that makes a marriage strong.

My husband and I have just begun our journey as a married couple but we dated for two years prior to tying the knot. In the combined time that we have been together, I have caught a glimpse of what might lie ahead for us in terms of challenges.

The thing that makes our relationship the most exciting, is also the thing that sometimes makes it most difficult. Aside from my partner being a man and me being a woman, (in my opinion that’s enough for a problem in itself) we each come from very different backgrounds. My husband is from Mexico and although he has been in the U.S. for 10 years, he is very much still stuck in a lot of his Mexican ways. I would like to consider myself, on the other hand, an all-American girl and so our differences show up in everything. From choice of music to thoughts on manners to what is expected of men versus women; a mixture of ideas and values surrounds us. We are nothing alike, and yet somehow manage to share a life together. I think with us, the saying “opposites attract,” couldn’t be more true.  There really was no logical reason for us getting together, but somehow, like two magnets with contrasting charges, we were pulled together and we have been stuck that way ever since.

A few weeks ago, my husband was sick with a sore throat. I woke up early to go get him some cough syrup, throat lozenges, and to make him some tea. To me this seemed like an obvious choice of remedies for his raw throat that he was complaining about so much. He took one dose of the medicine and went back to sleep. I went to work and called to check on him later and remind him to take another dose of medicine, for you can only take it once every four hours. When I reminded him that it was time to take it again however, he refused. He said it hadn’t worked and therefore he was going to send his mom to the Mexican store buy something stronger and that she was going to give him some massage to make his throat get better quicker.. 

I was surprised to hear this. “Huh?” was probably the first word that came out of my mouth. I had never heard of anything so absurd. First of all, I was a little annoyed that he wasn’t giving my knowledge of American medicine the time of day, literally. I mean, this is what I had been told by the doctor my whole life to do in such a case- and it had always worked, that is if I had given it time to work. Second of all, a massage for a sore throat? To me it didn’t make any sense at all. If this was a real remedy, wouldn’t a doctor have used it on me at some point in my 23 years of life? When I asked him about it, he said that when he lived in Mexico, people would always come to his house and pay his mom to give them this special massage when they were sick. She would rub their throat and insides of their elbows and wrists and that it made them recover faster.

Anyways, as frustrated as I was that he would go to his mother to take care of him, rather than his wife, I am a busy girl and so I let him do what he wanted. I figured, let him be sick and maybe he will figure it out for himself. When I came home however, he was feeling much better, and he swore he had been cured by the massage. He even suggested I watch next time so that I can know how to do it in the future. Inside, this drove me a little crazy.

Personally, I believe that his sore throat would have been gone within the three days no matter what. I think that the special massage did nothing in reality but I since he believed in it so strongly and he was better, I didn’t argue with him. If he was feeling better, what else really mattered?

This is just a silly example of how our cultural differences make an appearance in our daily lives. Having respect for each other is a necessity in any marriage, but having respect for each other’s cultures is also a necessity in ours. Sometimes we have to agree to disagree with things that come up or else we may very likely argue about things that are simply not worth the fight. Sometimes however, there are times that we cannot stick to our ways and when we must meet in the middle and compromise. Those are the times that are not as comical, but more serious. It might not be easy to abandon half of what we each know so that we can reach an agreement, but it is the only way to get through a problem sometimes. We have grown the most in our relationship during those hard times and they continue to shape us as we continue our journey.

I decided that I will learn how to give this specialmassage. Although I think that him miraculously getting better because of it was all in his head, I would prefer to be the one to cure him rather than someone else. I want to respect his culture to my best ability and for him to do the same with mine; even if it means keeping quiet when I don’t agree with some of his ways.

 

Being married is challenging.

I love being married, don’t get me wrong, but I’d be lying if I said it was a piece of cake. I think all marriages have their challenges, and it is normal to have ups and downs- any real relationship does, and it’s how you get through those trials and tribulations that makes a marriage strong.

 

My husband and I have just begun our journey as a married couple but we dated for two years prior to tying the knot. In the combined time that we have been together, I have caught a glimpse of what might lie ahead for us in terms of challenges.

 

The thing that makes our relationship the most exciting, is also the thing that sometimes makes it most difficult. Aside from my partner being a man and me being a woman, (in my opinion that’s enough for a problem in itself) we each come from very different backgrounds. My husband is a native Mexican and I’d like to think of myself as an all-American girl. We are nothing alike, and yet somehow manage to share a life together. I think with us, the saying “opposites attract,” couldn’t be more true.  There really was no logical reason for us getting together, but somehow, like two magnets with contrasting charges, we were pulled together and we have been stuck that way ever since.

 

But coming from two different cultures makes for a mixture of ideas and values. A lot of the time this mixing of cultures can be something of great comicalness but sometimes it can also be the source for some minor frustration.

 

A few weeks ago, my husband was sick with a sore throat. I woke up early to go get him some cough syrup, throat lozenges, and to make him some tea. To me this seemed like an obvious choice of remedies for his raw throat that he was complaining about so much. He took one dose of the medicine and went back to sleep. I went to work and called to check on him later and remind him to take another dose of medicine, for you can only take it once every four hours. When I reminded him that it was time to take it again however, he refused. He said it hadn’t worked and therefore he was going to send his mom to the Mexican store buy something stronger and have her give him some sort of massage that makes sore throats go away.  

 

This was absurd to me. First of all, I was a little annoyed that he didn’t trust my knowledge of western medicine. I mean, this is what I had been told by the doctor my whole life to do in such a case- and it had always worked, that is if I had given it time to work. Second of all, a massage for a sore throat? To me it didn’t make any sense at all. When I asked him about it, he said that when he lived in Mexico, people would always come to his house and pay his mom to give them this special massage when they were sick. She would rub their throat and insides of their elbows and wrists and that it made them recover quicker. My first thought upon hearing this, was to wonder how he would know that it made them get better faster-I mean, where was the control group in this?

 

Anyways, as frustrated as I was that he would go to his mother to take care of him, rather than his wife, I am a busy girl and so I let him do what he wanted. I figured, let him be sick and maybe he will figure it out for himself. In two days his sore throat was gone, and he swore he had been cured by the massage. He even suggested I watch next time so that I can know how to do it in the future.

 

Personally, I believe that his sore throat would have been gone within the three days no matter what. I think that the special massage did nothing in reality but I since he believed in it so strongly and he was better, I didn’t argue with him.

 

This is just a silly example of how our cultural differences make an appearance in our daily lives. Having respect for each other is a necessity in any marriage, but having respect for each other’s cultures is also a necessity in ours. Sometimes we have to agree to disagree with things that come up or else we may very likely argue about things that are simply not worth the fight. Sometimes however, there are times that we cannot stick to our ways and when we must meet in the middle and compromise. Those are the times that are not as comical, but more serious. It might not be easy to abandon half of what we each know so that we can reach an agreement, but it is the only way to get through a problem sometimes. We have grown the most in our relationship during those hard times and they continue to shape us as we continue our journey.

 

I decided that I will learn how to give this special massage. Although I think that him getting better because of it was all in his head, I would prefer to be the one to cure him rather than someone else. I want to embrace his culture to my best ability and him to do the same with mine. Who knows, maybe if I open my mind enough, I’ll be a believer one day too.

 

My husband Carlos and I on our way to a concert : )