Well it’s been long time coming, but I can finally say it –
after living in this country for 14 years, I finally gave in and became a US
Citizen this year. I managed to retain my previous citizenship. Having both has
many advantages.
Now that I am an American, I think I can finally comment on
many of the processes and things I went through to get to this point.
It certainly was a long process. Some of it took longer than
expected due to events beyond my control, while other aspects were of my own
doing.
I can say this - I went through the process from start to
end legally.
I left my previous place of residence to come to this country
to work. I was on a yearly visa the first year because I was a contractor
working for a large company; I wasn’t sure how long the contract would last, or
whether it’d be extended and so on.
The wonderful world of working for a large software company
(okay let’s be honest – Microsoft was at that time the largest software company
at the time, and it was certainly the most unique) was before me – and I was
cast in.
It was like
indentured servitude at times for sure. That's the wonderful world of being on an H-1B visa. You're pretty much a slave to the corporation. Yeah sure you may *technically* be an employee, but the reality in the building is you're there to fufill a need and at any point if you don't you can be yanked out of your office, out of your desk, and shipped back to wherever you came from.
On top of that ... Since
just about every aspect of my contract was between the contracting company and
the client company, pretty much my entire life at that time and its forward
direction rested on spending the bulk of it as the service of the client
company.
Now to be fair, it's not as if it was all bad. That is, this isn’t to say I minded - I was young, I was ready and determined
to work (I sound like Hilary Clinton, 'I'm tested. I'm ready ... let's get to work!"). I was in a unique part of the world, working for a very unique company
in a very unique environment. There were a lot of creative people, lots of
positive energy, working with what was at the time cutting-edge technology, and
what seemed like lots of time and curiosity to figure things out. Needless to
say, we spent a great deal of time together.
Lots of geeks, dorks, nerds, and some attractive people as
well, all infused with a sense of power and a desire to learn. Admittedly I was
one of them. I’d like to believe along the way I even made some friends.
Then relationships develop, and things slow down. The pace
of churning out results and riffs and stuff begin to move at a crawl, when at
one point it was a sprint. Everything suddenly because a case of determining
where to find a large place to store all of one’s stuff.
Then 9/11 happened. That stopped the everything. The process of getting a green card was halted for a few years. Meanwhile I continued to exist as slave. Granted, when I got married, the company suggested I could simply get a new visa through my spouse and start the green card process that way, but at that point I figured I'd invested too much time, energy, money and dedication to suddenly stop what I had been doing ...
... little did I know it'd take another 3 years. Being fingerprinted like a criminal, being badly photographed more times that I care to admit. Endless questions, forms, money to send, waiting in line, sitting watching queues fill up, surrounded by morons (both immigrants as well as the private contractors whom the government has chosen to outsource this work to) ... a mound of joy for sure.
My green card finally did arrive ... I was no longer a
slave.
But then a kid arrives. Another kid arrives, and suddenly being a US Citizen (or at least starting
that process wasn't as important anymore). Just surviving and living and supporting the family becomes more important. So another 3 years go before that slowing starts working out.
Then another three years before I finally kick things off for good. And so ...
More good times of being fingerprinted like a criminal, being badly photographed more times that I care to admit.
Endless questions, forms, money to send, waiting in line, sitting
watching queues fill up, surrounded by morons (both immigrants as well
as the private contractors whom the government has chosen to outsource
this work to) ... an even bigger mound of joy for sure.
Which leads to where I am today.
I can honestly say, that a great deal of time was wasted due to my own inaction. I can see that. Had I been more active and forceful, I would've become a citizen 6-7 years ago.
Time will tell if that inaction really makes a difference in the rest of my life.
Perhaps it's all a test of some sort - like how badly do you really want to become an American?
Which leads me to one general thought about the whole process - when talking about illegal immigrants, I definitely think that shutting the borders down to them, and blaming them for many of the economic and employment woes that befall the US isn't the answer. Heck, it's not even the cause. It's funny how so many who do just that are rarely honest about the real reasons corporations hire illegal immigrants in the first place. I never bought into this lie that there are certain jobs Americans simply won't do - corporations hire illegal immigrants because they don't want to hire and pay someone in this country the wages and salary such employment is really worth.
Which isn't to say those who enter and work here illegally did the right thing.
I do feel though that there should be a general amnesty about the whole things. That decision to enter the US and work here in an undocumented fashion shouldn't count against them on the path to pursuing US citizenship. However it should also not entitle them to move the front of the line in terms of the general process. That is, they should be able to file and go through the process without any negative impacts of their status, but they should still go through the process just like everyone else did - lines, fingerprinting, photographs, forms, the whole works. Their undocumented status should not hurt them, but it should not be turned around and used as an advantage over every other immigrant who came here legally and followed the process.
That is - welcome to America. Fill out the form and get in line!
