My precarious days as a non-resident alien in this country are almost over. My beloved, who flew from the sunny and warm Tel Aviv, and I had our immigration interview last week. Even though our marriage is completely bona fide, as they call it in the legal lingo, I was nonetheless worried about having to prove it to the immigration authorities, especially since the two of us, because of the nature of academic job market, live together only 4-5 months a year. As far as I know, immigration is the only part of the US legal system that is not governed by the presumption of innocence (well, there’s also Guantanamo Bay detention camp for suspected terrorists, but that’s a completely different story). When I applied for visitor and student visas in the past, I had to prove that I had no intention to remain in the US; I also witnessed several harsh and unpleasant interrogations of foreigners on the US-Canadian border. The system also does not seem entirely rational: even though there is an immigration office in Manhattan, our interview was scheduled in Long Island, 30 miles away.
At the advice of our lawyer, I put together all of the proof of our seven-year relationship I could possibly think of and find: phone records, correspondence, travel itineraries between NYC and Midwest, apartment leases, joint bank statements, a bag of photo albums etc etc etc. I had also found a sample of questions married couples might be asked about each other and we practiced the night before the interview. The questions ranged from completely innocent – “How did the two of you meet?” (in graduate school) and “What did you have for dinner the night before the interview?” (black bean chili) – to quite intrusive, “What is your favorite sex position?” (we couldn’t pick just one).
The Long Island Homeland Security office is in a nondescript, boxy two-story building in the back of a shopping mall. Here, even the security guards were not very friendly, and the intake personnel were outright rude. In all, we spent three hours in the building, but most of it was lining up to a window, sitting to be called up, lining up to a door, sitting to be called up again. We met with our lawyer who prepped us once again for the interview. Actually, he wasn’t our regular lawyer, but some sort of an independent contractor specializing in representing other lawyers’ clients during interviews. My beloved, used to informality of academia that has been recently reinforced by even more informal Israeli academia, made a faux pas of calling our counselor by his first name. As a result, we got a somewhat stern lecture from him about the formal etiquette of the interview. The gist: don’t call the interviewing officer or the counsel by their first names, but instead Officer So-and-so, Mister So-and-so. I wasn’t surprised by such expectations, after all it was a government office and we were there on an official business. What did surprise me, was how informally most other petitioners were dressed. The two of us were the most dressed-up people – we both wore suits and my sweetheart even had a tie on. In fact, he was better dressed that our lawyer (tweed jacket, slacks, and some stubble); most other applicants wore jeans, t-shirts, baseball hats. There were a couple of other couples wearing “smart” clothes; not coincidentally they also had lawyers by their side, while most others did not. Of course, those, like us, who could afford legal representation, could also afford nicer clothes. After the last year fee increase for all immigration-related applications (now, “green card” is almost $1,400, and citizenship is another $700), it is remarkable that people who don’t have well-paying middle-class jobs can file for immigration at all.
An hour and a half after the scheduled time, we were finally called in. The adjudications officer was soft-spoken, smiley, and generally nice to us. But our lawyer had warned me that nice immigration officers might be the most dangerous ones and I kept my guard up. Although in this case she probably was a genuinely nice person and did not intend to entrap us by her congeniality. She swore the two of us in; I almost felt as if I was on “Law and Order” testifying in court. But this was pretty much the only similarity. For most of the time, the officer was checking out application materials, demanding more paperwork and generating some of her own. She sympathized with my efforts to recycle paper: some of the documents I brought were printed/copied on my students’ final papers from the last semester. The only substantive question she asked was about how we met and started dating. But she didn’t seem to be very interested in the answer. In truth, it seemed to me that our case had been decided before she ever saw us and the interview was a mere formality, even when she asked me whether I had a criminal record or had been involved in illegal gambling, prostitution, or abetting illegal immigrants (I don’t and I haven’t). However, she looked through all five of our photo albums with great interest and even made a few comments but nothing pertaining to our case.
Even though the interview was “successful,” I don’t have my green card yet. The FBI is still doing background checks on me and if my fingerprints don’t turn up on some old crime scene (see my post from February 11, 2008, on fingerprinting) I should be cleared within a few weeks.
The morning of that day was dreadfully gray and rainy. And to ease my anxiety about the interview CAG kept promising that when we leave the immigration office after the interview, the sun would be shining bright and the road back to the train station would be paved with gold. Neither happened, but the rain let up and the taxi drive didn’t seem as long as on the way to the interview.
The security guards might have been terse, the building dreary, the wait long and nerve-raking, but all in all this part of the immigration processes, much like the previous ones, wasn’t so bad, not to mention that the interview was actually scheduled four months earlier than I had expected. I keep wondering whether we were lucky or, as our lawyer suggested, positively “profiled:” young (well, relatively); (overly) educated; quite good-looking (especially the husband); and, according to official classifications, white. What country would pass up on such opportunity! Seriously though, I do wonder whether all those factors played a more important role than they should in a “rational” bureaucratic system.
When we got back to the city, we went to our favorite kosher deli to celebrate. Their pastrami is so good that had we lived any closer to it, we each would be a hundred pounds heavier; but we only go there for special occasions like this one. But who do we see as we walk into the deli! Our lawyer to whom we said goodbye an hour earlier and thought we never ever see again. I guess roads of many New York Jews lead to pastrami sandwiches and kosher dills! Welcome to post-Ellis Island America, dear!
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Famous by Association!
I’m married to a published author! CAG’s first book is finally out, in the bookstores and on Amazon.com! Last weekend, while I was presenting at a conference, he stopped by our neighborhood bookstore, and there it was both in the “new releases” and in the regular sociology section. We went back the next day – I wanted to see it for myself. My imagination ran wild and I was picturing dozens of copies laid out on the most prominent displays and selling like hotcakes. Of course, it wasn’t quite the case. The store only carried four copies, although it seemed to have sold at least one already. In the regular sociology section, the two copies were quite appropriately (albeit merely by alphabetical chance) placed between Erving Goffman, the father of the symbolic interaction school, and John Goldthorpe, the British scholar of class and inequality. I was a lot less happy with the book’s placement in the new releases section – it was hard to see on a lower shelf and was dwarfed by something a lot taller but with a lot less tasteful and interesting cover – so I placed one of the copies on a display table, right next to the most recent book by French sociologist Luc Boltanski. But my marketing effort was in vain: on a subsequent visit to the store a few days later, the book was back on the shelf.
Since that weekend, CAG and I have been quite obsessed with the book’s sales ranking on Amazon. It experienced a meteoric but short-lived success: overnight the ranking shot from below 1,000,000 to mid-80,000; it was in the top 10 of new releases in non-fiction/social sciences/poverty category. As of today, the book’s ranking is in 500,000, but it is a respectable number 20 in Poverty category and 44 in Civil Rights and Liberties.
It will probably be a while, if ever, till his book becomes a New York Times bestseller or be chosen by Oprah for her Book Club, but it is sure to win a couple of professional awards, and the publisher is already thinking about a second print run. We’ll have a book party, but not until CAG is back from the Promised Land in August, so y’all have plenty of time to get your own copies for the esteemed author to autograph!
Since that weekend, CAG and I have been quite obsessed with the book’s sales ranking on Amazon. It experienced a meteoric but short-lived success: overnight the ranking shot from below 1,000,000 to mid-80,000; it was in the top 10 of new releases in non-fiction/social sciences/poverty category. As of today, the book’s ranking is in 500,000, but it is a respectable number 20 in Poverty category and 44 in Civil Rights and Liberties.
It will probably be a while, if ever, till his book becomes a New York Times bestseller or be chosen by Oprah for her Book Club, but it is sure to win a couple of professional awards, and the publisher is already thinking about a second print run. We’ll have a book party, but not until CAG is back from the Promised Land in August, so y’all have plenty of time to get your own copies for the esteemed author to autograph!
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Gender-Bender
I’ve been down with the flu for almost a week now. And by Friday night, I got fed up with many of my favorite comfort foods, at least the ones that were available to me without much effort in my sickly state: I’d had chicken twice, chicken soup twice, mashed potatoes twice, and turkey sandwiches three or four times. So on Friday I decided to get lo mein for dinner from the Chinese place around the corner (*not* the one that had been closed down for health code violations). It was a perfect choice: steaming hot, greasy, salty, soft noodles with crunchy carrots and snow peas. As any Chinese food, my noodles came with a fortune cookie. I like the cookies, but the “fortunes” – unlike the cookies – I usually find generic and bland. But not this time, for better or worse. It read: “You are a gentleman of outstanding wisdom.” In my ten-year experience with fortune cookies (do they have them in China, by the way?), it was the first that was not gender neutral. I got quite outraged, I guess several days of fever and bad headache made me overly sensitive and highly irritable. Not showering for a few days, drooling and snoring in my sleep, and hanging around the house in sweatpants and a stained t-shirt do not make me a man! I almost went back to the restaurant to tell them off for their presumptuousness. But even now, in a better physical and emotional health, I can’t understand the rationale of this “fortune.” Is it a mistranslation? Did they mean to say “gentle person” instead? Or is it an attempt to have cookies more personalized? If so, the restaurants should make sure they don’t give “boy” cookies to girls and vise versa; although I understand that requires extra labor and effort, probably scarce on Friday night. I guess I could have focused on the second half of the fortune – my “outstanding wisdom” – after all, as I’ve said, the noodles *so* hit the spot. But somehow I couldn’t. Maybe it wasn’t just the fever, but the sexist coverage of the Democratic presidential race that made me see even Chinese cookies as gender-biased.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Thank you, Nicholas Kristof!
It was never my intention to write about politics here. But this one absolutely deserves attention.
I made exactly the same point as Kristof makes it today's paper a week ago commenting on Wisconsin Yankee's post on paranoid style of American politics. And I am really glad the Times picked up on this too. I'd like to see Clinton and McCain "show leadership," as Kristof puts it.
=============================
The New York Times
March 9, 2008
Obama and the Bigots
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
The ugliest prejudices in this campaign season are not directly about race. Barack Obama’s skin color may cost him some working-class white voters, but it’s also winning some votes among blacks and among whites eager to signal their open-mindedness.
Sexism seems more of a factor. Americans have typically said in polls that they are less willing to vote for a woman than a black, and Shirley Chisholm (a black woman who ran for president in 1972) always said that she encountered more prejudice because of her sex than her race.
Yet the most monstrous bigotry in this election isn’t about either race or sex. It’s about religion.
The whispering campaigns allege that Mr. Obama is a secret Muslim planning to impose Islamic law on the country. Incredibly, he is even accused — in earnest! — of being the Antichrist.
Proponents of this theory offer detailed theological explanations for why he is the Antichrist, and the proof is that he claims to be Christian — after all, the Antichrist would say that, wouldn’t he? The rumors circulate enough that Glenn Beck of CNN asked the Rev. John Hagee, a conservative evangelical, what the odds are that Mr. Obama is the Antichrist.
These charges are fanatical, America’s own equivalent of the vicious accusations about Jews that circulate in some Muslim countries. They are less a swipe at one candidate than a calumny against an entire religion. They underscore that for many bigoted Americans in the 21st century, calling someone a Muslim is still a slur.
There is a parallel with presidential campaigns in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when one of the most common ways to attack a candidate was to suggest that he was partly black, or at least favored racial intermarriage. For example, the Federalists charged that Thomas Jefferson was “the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.” And the word “miscegenation” was coined in 1863 and 1864 in charges that Abraham Lincoln secretly plotted for blacks to marry whites, especially Irish-Americans.
As late as the 1920 presidential campaign, a quarter-million letters were sent to voters accusing Warren Harding of being descended from a “West Indian Negro. ... May God save America from international shame and domestic ruin.”
In looking back at that history, you wish that a candidate had responded not only with, “No, I don’t have any black ancestor,” but also with, “So what if I did?”
Likewise, with countless people today spreading scurrilous rumors that Mr. Obama is a Muslim, the most appropriate response is a denial followed by: And so what if he were?
Granted, that’s not politically realistic as a comeback. A 2007 Gallup poll found that 94 percent of Americans said they would vote for a black candidate for president and 88 percent for a woman. In contrast, a Los Angeles Times poll in 2006 found that only 34 percent of respondents said they could vote for a Muslim for president.
Even if a prejudice is directed to a matter of choice, like religion or long hair, it’s still prejudice. It’s possible to believe that Catholics have every right to be president while opposing a particular Catholic candidate who would ban contraception; likewise, it’s possible to believe that Muslims have every right to hold office without necessarily embracing the candidacy of particular Muslims who advocate enveloping all women in burkas.
To his credit, Mr. Obama has spoken respectfully of Islam (he told me last year, on the record, that the Muslim call to prayer is “one of the prettiest sounds on earth at sunset”). If he were to go further — “and so what if I were Muslim?” — many Americans would see that as confirmation that he is a Sunni terrorist agent of Al Qaeda who is part of a 9/11 backup plan: If you can’t reach the White House with a hijacked plane, then storm the Oval Office through the ballot box.
This is a case where Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain should take the initiative and denounce the fear-mongering about Mr. Obama as hate speech. The wink-wink references to “Barack Hussein Obama” and lies about his going to a madrassa are the religious equivalent of racial slurs, and Mr. McCain and Mrs. Clinton should denounce them in the strongest terms. This is their chance to show leadership.
When Mrs. Clinton was asked in a television interview a week ago whether Mr. Obama is a Muslim, she denied it firmly — but then added, most unfortunately, “as far as I know.” To his credit, Mr. McCain scolded a radio host who repeatedly referred to “Barack Hussein Obama” and later called him a Manchurian candidate.
Martin Luther wasn’t a model of tolerance but even he took the position that, “I’d rather be ruled by a wise Turk than a foolish Christian.” In this presidential campaign, we should at least aspire to be as open-minded as 16th-century Germans.
I made exactly the same point as Kristof makes it today's paper a week ago commenting on Wisconsin Yankee's post on paranoid style of American politics. And I am really glad the Times picked up on this too. I'd like to see Clinton and McCain "show leadership," as Kristof puts it.
=============================
The New York Times
March 9, 2008
Obama and the Bigots
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
The ugliest prejudices in this campaign season are not directly about race. Barack Obama’s skin color may cost him some working-class white voters, but it’s also winning some votes among blacks and among whites eager to signal their open-mindedness.
Sexism seems more of a factor. Americans have typically said in polls that they are less willing to vote for a woman than a black, and Shirley Chisholm (a black woman who ran for president in 1972) always said that she encountered more prejudice because of her sex than her race.
Yet the most monstrous bigotry in this election isn’t about either race or sex. It’s about religion.
The whispering campaigns allege that Mr. Obama is a secret Muslim planning to impose Islamic law on the country. Incredibly, he is even accused — in earnest! — of being the Antichrist.
Proponents of this theory offer detailed theological explanations for why he is the Antichrist, and the proof is that he claims to be Christian — after all, the Antichrist would say that, wouldn’t he? The rumors circulate enough that Glenn Beck of CNN asked the Rev. John Hagee, a conservative evangelical, what the odds are that Mr. Obama is the Antichrist.
These charges are fanatical, America’s own equivalent of the vicious accusations about Jews that circulate in some Muslim countries. They are less a swipe at one candidate than a calumny against an entire religion. They underscore that for many bigoted Americans in the 21st century, calling someone a Muslim is still a slur.
There is a parallel with presidential campaigns in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when one of the most common ways to attack a candidate was to suggest that he was partly black, or at least favored racial intermarriage. For example, the Federalists charged that Thomas Jefferson was “the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.” And the word “miscegenation” was coined in 1863 and 1864 in charges that Abraham Lincoln secretly plotted for blacks to marry whites, especially Irish-Americans.
As late as the 1920 presidential campaign, a quarter-million letters were sent to voters accusing Warren Harding of being descended from a “West Indian Negro. ... May God save America from international shame and domestic ruin.”
In looking back at that history, you wish that a candidate had responded not only with, “No, I don’t have any black ancestor,” but also with, “So what if I did?”
Likewise, with countless people today spreading scurrilous rumors that Mr. Obama is a Muslim, the most appropriate response is a denial followed by: And so what if he were?
Granted, that’s not politically realistic as a comeback. A 2007 Gallup poll found that 94 percent of Americans said they would vote for a black candidate for president and 88 percent for a woman. In contrast, a Los Angeles Times poll in 2006 found that only 34 percent of respondents said they could vote for a Muslim for president.
Even if a prejudice is directed to a matter of choice, like religion or long hair, it’s still prejudice. It’s possible to believe that Catholics have every right to be president while opposing a particular Catholic candidate who would ban contraception; likewise, it’s possible to believe that Muslims have every right to hold office without necessarily embracing the candidacy of particular Muslims who advocate enveloping all women in burkas.
To his credit, Mr. Obama has spoken respectfully of Islam (he told me last year, on the record, that the Muslim call to prayer is “one of the prettiest sounds on earth at sunset”). If he were to go further — “and so what if I were Muslim?” — many Americans would see that as confirmation that he is a Sunni terrorist agent of Al Qaeda who is part of a 9/11 backup plan: If you can’t reach the White House with a hijacked plane, then storm the Oval Office through the ballot box.
This is a case where Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain should take the initiative and denounce the fear-mongering about Mr. Obama as hate speech. The wink-wink references to “Barack Hussein Obama” and lies about his going to a madrassa are the religious equivalent of racial slurs, and Mr. McCain and Mrs. Clinton should denounce them in the strongest terms. This is their chance to show leadership.
When Mrs. Clinton was asked in a television interview a week ago whether Mr. Obama is a Muslim, she denied it firmly — but then added, most unfortunately, “as far as I know.” To his credit, Mr. McCain scolded a radio host who repeatedly referred to “Barack Hussein Obama” and later called him a Manchurian candidate.
Martin Luther wasn’t a model of tolerance but even he took the position that, “I’d rather be ruled by a wise Turk than a foolish Christian.” In this presidential campaign, we should at least aspire to be as open-minded as 16th-century Germans.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Unrealized Reality TV
In general, I’m glad that television writers’ strike is over. Hopefully some of my favorite shows (let them remain unnamed lest I appear as a total geek) will run full season instead of a meager 6-8 episodes.
There’s only one regret. I thought that if the strike draged on a lot longer, producers would be looking for fresh ideas for reality shows and I could pitch them mine, “Dissertation Boot Camp.” Can you imagine how quickly graduate students would finish their dissertations if they were faced with fierce competition, had writing coaches taking them through the process step by step, and could potentially win a prize of hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay off their student debt! And what a treat it would be for the viewers: sociologists taking on economists, historians teaming up with anthropologists against cultural studies folks, comp lit people making out with art historians. And all those riveting repartees between Marxists and feminists, Kantians and Hegelians, small-N and large-N political scientists…
For now, I’ll have to motivate myself, rely on my friends for support and stimulating conversations, and hope there are enough jobs for all of us. And watch less TV!
There’s only one regret. I thought that if the strike draged on a lot longer, producers would be looking for fresh ideas for reality shows and I could pitch them mine, “Dissertation Boot Camp.” Can you imagine how quickly graduate students would finish their dissertations if they were faced with fierce competition, had writing coaches taking them through the process step by step, and could potentially win a prize of hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay off their student debt! And what a treat it would be for the viewers: sociologists taking on economists, historians teaming up with anthropologists against cultural studies folks, comp lit people making out with art historians. And all those riveting repartees between Marxists and feminists, Kantians and Hegelians, small-N and large-N political scientists…
For now, I’ll have to motivate myself, rely on my friends for support and stimulating conversations, and hope there are enough jobs for all of us. And watch less TV!
Monday, February 11, 2008
Immigration: Step Two
Monday last week I had a biometrics appointment. In plain English, the Department of Homeland Security called me to be fingerprinted and photographed, as a part of my immigration process. The appointment notice sounded very strict: if I didn’t show up or reschedule, my application would be “considered abandoned;” I couldn’t have a cell phone, camera, or any other recording device with me; I couldn’t have scars or bandages on my fingers (they’d prevent proper fingerprinting); I was advised not to bring anybody with me unless I needed their assistance (with paperwork, interpreting, etc.) during the appointment because of the limited seating at the DHS office.
As a law-abiding citizen-in-the-making, I got up at 7 AM (to be downtown by 9), left my cell phone at home, and even trimmed my nails the night before: I wasn’t sure how the fingerprinting was going to be done – hi-tech electronic image scanning or the old-fashioned way, how it was ten years ago when I went with a friend of mine to keep her company during her procedure – and if I was going to dip my fingers in black powder, I didn’t want it to get stuck under my nails. Expecting the same low level of efficiency and organization as I usually experience at the infamous West 112th street post office, I brought a ton of reading materials with me. I also got another cup of coffee on the way, from a guy who assumed I had stayed up late the night before watching the Giants win the Superbowl and who was disappointed to know that I was not a football fan. (Until that day, I actually thought it was Super*ball* as in foot*ball*.) To my distress, it turned out that no beverages were allowed at the DHS office either. Does this government of yours have to be so rigid?
But in this case its efficiency exceeded all my expectations. It sure looked like a DMV: fluorescent lights, rows of cheap plastic chairs, electronic number display on the wall, and mostly minority employees (Latino and African-American security guards and Asian women technicians). And of course there was more paperwork: in addition to an inch-think application package that our lawyer had put together, I had to fill out yet another “personal data sheet”. Mostly, it wasn’t hard: date and place of birth, my name and names of my parents, height, color of my eyes. But three items proved tricky: My weight – I hadn’t weighed myself in almost a year and knew only approximately what the number was. Color of my hair – did they want to know the color I was born with (dark brown), as it is likely to be now (one third salt, two thirds pepper), or how I’ve wearing it for the past seventeen years (reddish-brown); after a consultation with one of the friendly guards, I put down “red.” And, lastly, my race. This one is always a challenge for me. Is this a category of official designation or subjective perception? I am clearly not African- or Native-American, Hispanic, or even Asian (although I often do think that I must have some Asian ancestry, if only because of the two hundred plus years of the Mongol Yoke in Russia). But people rarely think of me as a Caucasian. And so do I. While, arguably, Jews in this country had become “white” by the time I arrived ten years ago (although one of my sociology professors, who’s an American-born Jew himself, strongly disagrees with this point of view), we are not quite as “white” in the old country. For example, the nicknames I had growing up ranged from the affectionate “little chocolate bar” to the hurtful “crow.” So, in this respect, you can take a girl out of the old country, but you can’t quite take the old country out of a girl. I wish they had “rootless cosmopolitan” as one of the options. But they didn’t, and I went for “race unknown.”
No one seemed to care how accurately I filled out this data sheet. At this time, it was much more important that my fingers were clean and I didn’t fidget while being fingerprinted. Even though each of my fingers was scanned – yes, it was hi-tech! – at least three times (and some more than that because I did fidget and the sensitive scanner did not take it well), I was out of the door and having another coffee by 9:15. So far, this immigration stuff is taking far less time than I anticipate.
On my way back home I kept thinking whether I hadn’t totally inadvertently left my fingerprints on some crime scene. I was also wondering how long they would be kept on file. Are they going to be expunged once I become an American citizen? If not, it doesn’t seem fair that naturalized citizens without a criminal record (I hope!) are treated differently than the native-borns. Maybe I should ask ACLU about this, I doubt the Department of Homeland Security will give me a straight answer…
As a law-abiding citizen-in-the-making, I got up at 7 AM (to be downtown by 9), left my cell phone at home, and even trimmed my nails the night before: I wasn’t sure how the fingerprinting was going to be done – hi-tech electronic image scanning or the old-fashioned way, how it was ten years ago when I went with a friend of mine to keep her company during her procedure – and if I was going to dip my fingers in black powder, I didn’t want it to get stuck under my nails. Expecting the same low level of efficiency and organization as I usually experience at the infamous West 112th street post office, I brought a ton of reading materials with me. I also got another cup of coffee on the way, from a guy who assumed I had stayed up late the night before watching the Giants win the Superbowl and who was disappointed to know that I was not a football fan. (Until that day, I actually thought it was Super*ball* as in foot*ball*.) To my distress, it turned out that no beverages were allowed at the DHS office either. Does this government of yours have to be so rigid?
But in this case its efficiency exceeded all my expectations. It sure looked like a DMV: fluorescent lights, rows of cheap plastic chairs, electronic number display on the wall, and mostly minority employees (Latino and African-American security guards and Asian women technicians). And of course there was more paperwork: in addition to an inch-think application package that our lawyer had put together, I had to fill out yet another “personal data sheet”. Mostly, it wasn’t hard: date and place of birth, my name and names of my parents, height, color of my eyes. But three items proved tricky: My weight – I hadn’t weighed myself in almost a year and knew only approximately what the number was. Color of my hair – did they want to know the color I was born with (dark brown), as it is likely to be now (one third salt, two thirds pepper), or how I’ve wearing it for the past seventeen years (reddish-brown); after a consultation with one of the friendly guards, I put down “red.” And, lastly, my race. This one is always a challenge for me. Is this a category of official designation or subjective perception? I am clearly not African- or Native-American, Hispanic, or even Asian (although I often do think that I must have some Asian ancestry, if only because of the two hundred plus years of the Mongol Yoke in Russia). But people rarely think of me as a Caucasian. And so do I. While, arguably, Jews in this country had become “white” by the time I arrived ten years ago (although one of my sociology professors, who’s an American-born Jew himself, strongly disagrees with this point of view), we are not quite as “white” in the old country. For example, the nicknames I had growing up ranged from the affectionate “little chocolate bar” to the hurtful “crow.” So, in this respect, you can take a girl out of the old country, but you can’t quite take the old country out of a girl. I wish they had “rootless cosmopolitan” as one of the options. But they didn’t, and I went for “race unknown.”
No one seemed to care how accurately I filled out this data sheet. At this time, it was much more important that my fingers were clean and I didn’t fidget while being fingerprinted. Even though each of my fingers was scanned – yes, it was hi-tech! – at least three times (and some more than that because I did fidget and the sensitive scanner did not take it well), I was out of the door and having another coffee by 9:15. So far, this immigration stuff is taking far less time than I anticipate.
On my way back home I kept thinking whether I hadn’t totally inadvertently left my fingerprints on some crime scene. I was also wondering how long they would be kept on file. Are they going to be expunged once I become an American citizen? If not, it doesn’t seem fair that naturalized citizens without a criminal record (I hope!) are treated differently than the native-borns. Maybe I should ask ACLU about this, I doubt the Department of Homeland Security will give me a straight answer…
The darkest days are behind us!
At least, for the next eight months or so.
When I happened to look out of the window at 5:30 PM today, it was not pitch dark as it has been for the past couple of months. Even though we’ve been having the coldest weather of the season lately, I’m optimistic that the spring is coming, no matter which groundhog pair – Chuck and Hal or Phil and Mel – you think was correct in their predictions.
Twenty-eight days until Daylight Savings Time!
Twenty-seven – till International Women’s Day (the unofficial beginning of spring in the old country).
Yankees pitchers and catchers report for spring training this Thursday.
Can spring be far behind?
(I am a lot less certain about the Democratic presidential nomination.)
When I happened to look out of the window at 5:30 PM today, it was not pitch dark as it has been for the past couple of months. Even though we’ve been having the coldest weather of the season lately, I’m optimistic that the spring is coming, no matter which groundhog pair – Chuck and Hal or Phil and Mel – you think was correct in their predictions.
Twenty-eight days until Daylight Savings Time!
Twenty-seven – till International Women’s Day (the unofficial beginning of spring in the old country).
Yankees pitchers and catchers report for spring training this Thursday.
Can spring be far behind?
(I am a lot less certain about the Democratic presidential nomination.)
Sunday, January 27, 2008
The Language of Matrimony
A few weeks ago, for the first time ever I had to introduce CAG, my beloved, as my “husband” (we spent our first month as a married couple almost a thousand miles apart, that’s why it happened only recently). He later commented on the seeming ease with which I did it. I told him he was quite wrong. But not so much because I’m still not used to us being married, but because I don’t like the word. It seems to lack affection, romance, and fun of couplehood and implies, to me at least, nothing but responsibility and burden, not to mention the old-fashioned patriarchic domination. It got me thinking – is there a word that would satisfy me more?
I don’t seem to find one entirely to my liking, in either languages I speak (English and Russian that is, for those who might be wondering). Unsure whether this is my very subjective perception, I did some etymological research, which was a lot easier to do from the couch than pretty much any sociological study: my main data source were the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary online, and the Russian version of Wiktionary (the last, I concede, is not the most authoritative source, but the only one available to me without a trip to a library). Here are my findings.
Turns out, I wasn’t so wrong about “husband”: as far I can decipher MWCD’s abbreviations, in Old English it meant “master of a house” and in Old Norse – “householder.” What else but relations of property and power comes to mind?! (“Wife,” on the other hand, is “of obscure origin,” as OED puts it.) The politically correct and now hip “partner” would seem a lot better: it’s gender-neutral and almost unequivocally suggests parity of both participants. But it does not transcend, in my opinion, the connotation of marriage as a business-like union that two sides enter for utilitarian rather than romantic reasons.
For someone, who does not speak Russian, “spouse” would probably be ideal. It too evokes equality of the two sides and even hints at something metaphysical, not just purely material: it is related to “espouse,” one of which meanings is “to take up and support as a cause, become attached to.” I kinda like it: marriage as faith rather than a business venture. But the Russian ruins it all. “Spouse(s)” translates as suprug for him, supruga for her, and suprugi for them together, which quite literally mean “joined together by a harness (upriazh').” The two of them, like workhorses covered in sweat and grime, pulling a plow, forever yoked together, that’s the image that comes to my mind. Suprug is not a lover, soul mate, or even friend; he is bonded to, if not by, his spouse for backbreaking toil.
There are also muzh and zhena, which, respectively, come from “man” and “woman.” Not bad maybe, but the former rhymes with “gorged on pears” which connotes “kicked back, slacked off,” while the latter – with “Satan,” no analysis necessary here although the roles of domination seem to be reversed. Another wonderful marriage-related Russian word is brak, the institution of marriage itself. Apparently, it comes from Old Slavonic for “take” and, in this particular context, to “snatch, kidnap [the bride],” as apparently was a custom of ancient Slavs, according to Wiktionary. Better yet, a modern homonym of brak means “defect” and “waste.” Why would anyone even contemplate partaking in an institution with such a name?!
In any case, husband, spouse, partner, muzh, or suprug, are all either too bland for my taste or smack of old-fashioned conception of marriage as an economic union, rather than romantic relationship. Well, it is widely known that marriage based on love rather than economic considerations is an utterly modern phenomenon (see, for example, “Love and Property” in Randall Collins’s Sociological Insight). But does it mean that we have to carry on using the terms with outdated meanings? After all, as offspring of cultural and linguistic turns in humanities and social sciences we need to remember that language constitutes reality just as much as the other way around. Maybe the decline of the institution of marriage – high divorce rates, late nuptials, commitment-phobia, marital infidelity etc. – is to a certain extent a result of this discrepancy between expectations of affectionate companionship and the old notions of marriage as economic enterprise that still pervade the language we use to describe it?
I don’t have a universal solution to the problem, after all I am not a linguist, just a sociologist. For now, my beloved and I settled for “wifele” and “husbandchik” to stretch a bit the linguistic limitations within which we have to operate for now.
I also propose that if we all want our unions to be joyous (most of us do get hitched sooner or later) we call it *merriage*. Any other suggestions, folks?
I don’t seem to find one entirely to my liking, in either languages I speak (English and Russian that is, for those who might be wondering). Unsure whether this is my very subjective perception, I did some etymological research, which was a lot easier to do from the couch than pretty much any sociological study: my main data source were the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary online, and the Russian version of Wiktionary (the last, I concede, is not the most authoritative source, but the only one available to me without a trip to a library). Here are my findings.
Turns out, I wasn’t so wrong about “husband”: as far I can decipher MWCD’s abbreviations, in Old English it meant “master of a house” and in Old Norse – “householder.” What else but relations of property and power comes to mind?! (“Wife,” on the other hand, is “of obscure origin,” as OED puts it.) The politically correct and now hip “partner” would seem a lot better: it’s gender-neutral and almost unequivocally suggests parity of both participants. But it does not transcend, in my opinion, the connotation of marriage as a business-like union that two sides enter for utilitarian rather than romantic reasons.
For someone, who does not speak Russian, “spouse” would probably be ideal. It too evokes equality of the two sides and even hints at something metaphysical, not just purely material: it is related to “espouse,” one of which meanings is “to take up and support as a cause, become attached to.” I kinda like it: marriage as faith rather than a business venture. But the Russian ruins it all. “Spouse(s)” translates as suprug for him, supruga for her, and suprugi for them together, which quite literally mean “joined together by a harness (upriazh').” The two of them, like workhorses covered in sweat and grime, pulling a plow, forever yoked together, that’s the image that comes to my mind. Suprug is not a lover, soul mate, or even friend; he is bonded to, if not by, his spouse for backbreaking toil.
There are also muzh and zhena, which, respectively, come from “man” and “woman.” Not bad maybe, but the former rhymes with “gorged on pears” which connotes “kicked back, slacked off,” while the latter – with “Satan,” no analysis necessary here although the roles of domination seem to be reversed. Another wonderful marriage-related Russian word is brak, the institution of marriage itself. Apparently, it comes from Old Slavonic for “take” and, in this particular context, to “snatch, kidnap [the bride],” as apparently was a custom of ancient Slavs, according to Wiktionary. Better yet, a modern homonym of brak means “defect” and “waste.” Why would anyone even contemplate partaking in an institution with such a name?!
In any case, husband, spouse, partner, muzh, or suprug, are all either too bland for my taste or smack of old-fashioned conception of marriage as an economic union, rather than romantic relationship. Well, it is widely known that marriage based on love rather than economic considerations is an utterly modern phenomenon (see, for example, “Love and Property” in Randall Collins’s Sociological Insight). But does it mean that we have to carry on using the terms with outdated meanings? After all, as offspring of cultural and linguistic turns in humanities and social sciences we need to remember that language constitutes reality just as much as the other way around. Maybe the decline of the institution of marriage – high divorce rates, late nuptials, commitment-phobia, marital infidelity etc. – is to a certain extent a result of this discrepancy between expectations of affectionate companionship and the old notions of marriage as economic enterprise that still pervade the language we use to describe it?
I don’t have a universal solution to the problem, after all I am not a linguist, just a sociologist. For now, my beloved and I settled for “wifele” and “husbandchik” to stretch a bit the linguistic limitations within which we have to operate for now.
I also propose that if we all want our unions to be joyous (most of us do get hitched sooner or later) we call it *merriage*. Any other suggestions, folks?
Monday, December 24, 2007
Why I am not in Therapy: Do I *Need* Another Fib?
Even Freud was more optimistic: at least he promised to turn neurosis into "ordinary unhappiness," whatever that means!
Robert Mankoff's December 10, 2007 New Yorker Cartoon is available for purchase
Robert Mankoff's December 10, 2007 New Yorker Cartoon is available for purchase
Saturday, December 22, 2007
The Making of an American: First Step
So I’ve begun my immigration process. Yesterday, I went for a special medical exam, which all aspiring immigrants have to take. Out of hundreds of special doctors, certified by the government to attest to the good health of newcomers, my lawyer recommended a doctor in Chinatown. To assure me that there was no impropriety in his recommendation, the lawyer said he had never seen or talked to the man, nor got as much as a Christmas card from him. The last part of the argument didn’t seem convincing to me: the lawyer is a Jew and the doctor – Chinese, so even if they *were* tight, why *would* they exchange cards on Christmas?!
I went to this doctor anyway: he was taking walk-ins and was, supposedly, cheap. I cursed my way through half of Canal Street – you try to stay calm amidst holiday shoppers and tourists mesmerized by counterfeit Prada purses and Chanel perfumes! – looking for the address. Even though the entrance I needed turned out to be well lit and marked by a bright-blue awning, I could not find it at first distracted by overpowering sights, sounds, and smells of the fish shops on both sides of the door and along the entire block.
The doctor’s office was the least medical-like establishment I’ve ever been to (maybe with the exception of a “home office” of a respiratory-disease doctor my parents took me to almost thirty years ago, where I had to inhale some eucalyptus concoction for my bad sinuses in a corner of his living room). First, I talked to the receptionist, who did the paperwork, informed me about the payment (cash only, but it was half of what I had expected), and made sure I am not pregnant (for vaccinations and X-ray). When it came to the last issue, the woman, despite her pretty good English, decided to also use sign language: she started making circles in front of her stomach and then crossing it. I got confused at first: to me it looked like she was asking whether I was hungry, or whether I had eaten recently, or had digestion problems. Nothing in the sign evoked babies. But it must be a universal sign for pregnancy for the Chinese communicating with foreigners: when I went down to radiology, the man there did the same circle, only now I knew what it meant and almost preempted his question with a resolute “no.”
The immigration form for the medical exam makes it sound a serious affair. The applicants are warned that they will have to get undressed to allow a doctor a thorough check-up. They are urged to share any medical history and health concerns they might have during the exam. I was prepared to spend a good half-hour with the doctor discussing my higher-than-desirable cholesterol, my psychosomatic bladder problems, my bad posture, and persistent sinus problems (those visits to the “home office” of the Russian doctor evidently were a waste of time and money – also, cash only!). The man wouldn’t have it: all he did was draw some blood and give me a TD shot; I didn’t even have to take off my sweater all the way, just bared my forearm for the former and shoulder for the latter. More surprisingly, though, the doctor didn’t wear latex gloves, or even a lab coat. I wasn’t even sure his syringes were sterile. He barely spoke to me, and the whole thing didn’t last more than a few minutes. When I brought back my chest X-ray taken in a lab two floors down, his diagnosis – my lungs are healthy (which is surprising after so many years of smoking) – came way too quickly, but I am hoping it is because of his profound expertise rather than professional sloppiness or dislike of Russian Jews. I am due back next week to pick up results of my blood work; at least this takes some time to process.
I am not sure whether this encounter is a reflection on the immigration system of this country; or on the state of its healthcare; or on the standards and work ethic of Chinese doctors, although here I wonder how different my experience would have been with a Russian doctor in Brighton Beach and besides the man was chosen and presumably trained by the United States government. Or am I a cultural imperialist with no understanding and respect for another culture? In any case, something seemed a bit off, shady, and fishy, and not only because of the fish market outside of the doctor’s office. On the other hand, if the entire process of immigration is this quick and unintrusive, I’m all for it.
I went to this doctor anyway: he was taking walk-ins and was, supposedly, cheap. I cursed my way through half of Canal Street – you try to stay calm amidst holiday shoppers and tourists mesmerized by counterfeit Prada purses and Chanel perfumes! – looking for the address. Even though the entrance I needed turned out to be well lit and marked by a bright-blue awning, I could not find it at first distracted by overpowering sights, sounds, and smells of the fish shops on both sides of the door and along the entire block.
The doctor’s office was the least medical-like establishment I’ve ever been to (maybe with the exception of a “home office” of a respiratory-disease doctor my parents took me to almost thirty years ago, where I had to inhale some eucalyptus concoction for my bad sinuses in a corner of his living room). First, I talked to the receptionist, who did the paperwork, informed me about the payment (cash only, but it was half of what I had expected), and made sure I am not pregnant (for vaccinations and X-ray). When it came to the last issue, the woman, despite her pretty good English, decided to also use sign language: she started making circles in front of her stomach and then crossing it. I got confused at first: to me it looked like she was asking whether I was hungry, or whether I had eaten recently, or had digestion problems. Nothing in the sign evoked babies. But it must be a universal sign for pregnancy for the Chinese communicating with foreigners: when I went down to radiology, the man there did the same circle, only now I knew what it meant and almost preempted his question with a resolute “no.”
The immigration form for the medical exam makes it sound a serious affair. The applicants are warned that they will have to get undressed to allow a doctor a thorough check-up. They are urged to share any medical history and health concerns they might have during the exam. I was prepared to spend a good half-hour with the doctor discussing my higher-than-desirable cholesterol, my psychosomatic bladder problems, my bad posture, and persistent sinus problems (those visits to the “home office” of the Russian doctor evidently were a waste of time and money – also, cash only!). The man wouldn’t have it: all he did was draw some blood and give me a TD shot; I didn’t even have to take off my sweater all the way, just bared my forearm for the former and shoulder for the latter. More surprisingly, though, the doctor didn’t wear latex gloves, or even a lab coat. I wasn’t even sure his syringes were sterile. He barely spoke to me, and the whole thing didn’t last more than a few minutes. When I brought back my chest X-ray taken in a lab two floors down, his diagnosis – my lungs are healthy (which is surprising after so many years of smoking) – came way too quickly, but I am hoping it is because of his profound expertise rather than professional sloppiness or dislike of Russian Jews. I am due back next week to pick up results of my blood work; at least this takes some time to process.
I am not sure whether this encounter is a reflection on the immigration system of this country; or on the state of its healthcare; or on the standards and work ethic of Chinese doctors, although here I wonder how different my experience would have been with a Russian doctor in Brighton Beach and besides the man was chosen and presumably trained by the United States government. Or am I a cultural imperialist with no understanding and respect for another culture? In any case, something seemed a bit off, shady, and fishy, and not only because of the fish market outside of the doctor’s office. On the other hand, if the entire process of immigration is this quick and unintrusive, I’m all for it.
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