Why New York City Breaks My Heart

I met my husband R in a renovated church that became a club called Limelight in New York City.  It was April of 1999, and I was married to another man at the time.

Shhh-that’s a secret.

A friend had come to visit from over a long weekend.  Sometimes it takes someone on the outside to reveal to you what is happening in the inside of your marriage, you know?  After months of knowing in my head that my marriage was over, my heart took it in.  And my friend and I  and I decided to go out dancing.

R was by himself at the club, leaning against a railing on the second floor.  I’d been drinking beer steadily all night, and I felt brave.  I ran up the stairs, crashed sideways into R and said, “What’s an attractive man like you doing by yourself in a place like this?”

We talked all night in this club, about things like God, art, our grandparents, the music thumping in the background.

While R spoke well in English, I noticed an accent that sounded like my mother’s.  “Are you Mexican?” I asked?  And he said yes.  I’d never dated a Mexican before.  Internalized oppression will do that to you.  Don’t know what that is?  Look it up, kids-I’m telling a story here.

A few months after that night in the club, April of ‘99 R and I were living together in a little room that he rented on East 26^th Street in Manhattan.

I’ve been to the city three times in the past two weeks that I’ve been in the States.   And each time, I have to swallow angry tears.

After all this time, I still can’t believe that R’s not holding my hand as I walk in the city, my city.  I cannot even name the streets, the specific places, because in the naming of them, I’m naming his absence in this city that was our city.

A few months ago, R discovered Google maps.  And through that program, he likes to walk down the streets that he used to breathe in, used to feel under his fingertips.

I can’t sit with him when he does Google maps.  It always makes me cry.

He’s not dead, but he’s denied.

Health Insurance and My Undocumented Husband

During the time that we first lived together in New York, (in ’99) on East 26^th Street, my husband started to cough up blood.

Where to go for a doctor?  He was afraid to walk into a doctor’s office and fill out a new patient form.  Through a co-worker of mine, we got an emergency appointment with a doctor and we paid in cash, and my husband signed his name, nothing more.

He was diagnosed with an advanced case of H. Pylori, a stomach bacteria that, left unchecked can cause things like gastritis, ulcers, or even cancer.

He got better, but without that visit to the doctor’s office, I don’t know what would have happened to his health, to his life.

This New York Times editorial puts it out there pretty succinctly.  They use the term “illegal immigrants,” which  Latina Lista does a great job of explaining why it’s more than “just semantics.”

For me, the correct term to use is undocumented immigrant.  The end.

However, I do agree with what they are saying about being against citizenship verification on this issue.

When I lived with my husband in the US, specifically in Chicago, I had good health care benefits.  But we did not have good health care benefits. Because he simply never would be able to.

So hard-line Republicans, my question for today is:  What do you do about healthcare reform with people like me?  A US citizen legally married to an undocumented immigrant?

Because allow me to let you in on a secret, Mr. Wilson:  I was not/am not  the only US citizen in this situation.

During my tours in the US as a writer and performer, I’ve met so many women (because it is often women) who identify with my show, because they are living their own version of it.

These women are US-born and raised, English is their first language,  they have usually some level of formal education. They’ve experienced different forms of privilege around race, and class.

And they never grew up thinking how much their choice of who they love would put their life as they know it on the line.

If you are one of those women, if you are one of those people right now, reading this, know that you are not alone.

And if you don’t know us, hard-line Republicans, and others, well get ready, puppies.

Because one of us is singing out loud.

You lie!-Joe Wilson

Nah, Joe Wilson, I ain’t lying.

I’m a deported man’s wife, (one less “illegal immigrant” in your land of the free, home of the brave,) and I most definitely have some thoughts on being married to a good man who was deported from Chicago, Illinois back to Mexico in April of 2001.  I went to live with him in Mexico in August of 2001.   We were legally married at the time of his deportation, and I was born and raised in the States.

There’s a story attached to those skimpy facts.  Trust me, when it comes to US immigration, there’s always a story attached.

The point of this blog isn’t to stay in the abstract,  keep you at arms length,  and only rail against people/policies/laws. There’s most definitely a place for that.

But this ain’t it.  This is about the mundane, the tragic, the fucking funny about being the deportee’s wife.

So pull up a chair.  No id check required.  Shit, with the exchange rate at 13.34 Mexican pesos to the US dollar right now, the only checks that should be going out should be of the financial kind, ya dig?