Africa and Vietnam...it's everywhere

I took my friend Grace out to lunch the other day. She spent about a month and a half in Africa a couple years ago (teaching AIDS prevention), and in another month, she's going back for the rest of the summer. We spent 2 hours in the restaurant (even though I hated it when customers did that to me) and another hour in the parking lot talking about Africa, Europe, god, other exciting things, etc.. And we eventually got to immigration.

Turns out I'm not the only one with pals who are dying to get into the US.

Grace is the most sympathetic person I've ever met, and if my heart aches for those living in poverty, hers shatters. She made some good friends on her trip--people she still talks to and who want to come visit, but there is no way they could get over here because they aren't rich enough to prove they have something in Africa worth going back to.

Now I suppose that most people who have nothing tempting them to return home would probably stay in the US if they got in; the abundance of Hispanics proves that. The logical solution is to keep almost everyone out--or spend a lot of time and money keeping track of every person who enters for a visit.

No right answers.

Most of the people Grace met believed America to be a place where no one works hard (doesn't have to), and everyone is rich. By their standards, almost everyone here may be rich, but the part about not working hard is certainly not true. She tried to tell them this, but no one believed her.

I, too, believe most Americans (including myself) to be lazy. But I also know from traveling and studying that our culture is far less laid-back than others. In the US, people seem to be forever on edge, and as Grace will confirm, the African culture is anything but on edge.
"It's not the way you think it is," she told her students.
"You don't know what you're talking about," they replied.


This problem of only letting the rich into the country affects my friend, Charles, as well. Charles was and still is a regular customer at my restaurant. For the past 8 years, he has spent 5 nights a week consuming top-shelf margarita after margarita while he reads at the bar after work. He's over fifty, VP of a big company, and quite shy. We never had a real conversation until about a month before I quit; now I go back just to sit at the bar with him.

Charles is unmarried. Never married. He's had a few girlfriends but not for the past twenty years. Then a couple years ago, his sister-in-law introduced him (online) to her cousin in Vietnam. They started emailing. Then they started emailing constantly. Then instant messaging. Then phoning. He calls her when he's going to bed and she's getting up in the morning. She's young, pretty, and sweet. She's also incredibly poor and lives in a one-room apartment with both her parents. Last year, he got to meet her in person when he went to Vietnam for a couple weeks, but that's the only time they've ever seen each other.

He was showing me all the pictures at the bar one night, and I asked when she was going to come here to visit (A dumb question? I blame those 32 ounces of beer). He said there is no way she can come visit. She has no money and no way to prove that as soon as she sets foot in the US, she'll disappear. The only way she could possibly come is when/if she comes to marry him. So unless they are sure that they're hitching up, they've got a very, very long-distance relationship.


One more scenario:
There's a girl Grace knows who works on campus and is an international student. This girl came from Africa on a student visa several years ago, and the visa has since expired, but the girl is still hanging around until she gets caught.
They are pretty lax about checking those things.
She's hanging around and apparently she wants to stay in the US as long as she can, and she wants to renew her visa if she can. Her family is still in Africa, and she hasn't seen her mom in 6 years, but she can't go to visit her; she won't get back in.
6 years. I can't imagine. People give up some huge things to come here.

No right answers. That's why I'm an English major.