My reprieve from earning my stripes at work did not last long. My status as a legal resident in the United States soon became an issue. It seemed that as soon as one problem was dealt with, a much bigger one took its place. Permanent residency or the “green card” grants non-immigrant residents of the United States permission to work, and establishes them as productive assets. Although not an easy process, the document could be obtained mainly through marriage to an American, political asylum, amnesty, or corporate sponsorship.
Marriage was the riskiest way, especially if it was not based on genuine love. Couples had to live together for at least two years and be interviewed twice by immigration. Within that two-year period, they could become disenchanted with each other - leaving the foreign spouse often at the mercy of their American partner. If the marriage was arranged, there was no legal recourse or public empathy when things went awry and many spouses, including Americans, have had to endure the worst exploitation of trust and power from their partners.
Since I had heard too many horror stories, I had vowed to find an alternative means. My friend Kamau’s marriage was arranged such that, he would contribute money every month. After he defaulted for a couple of months, his wife vanished for almost a year. When she was found, Kamau and I tried to talk to her, but she was livid.
As we approached her at the warehouse where she worked, she began cursing at us shaking her head from side to side adding emphasis to each word. “What do y’all want, and why did y’all come to my job? Y’all are ignorant Africans, y’all need to leave!” The loud tirade disrupted the other workers who stopped to watch. I saw two security guards approaching, brandishing wicked batons. They told us to leave.
Though we had not uttered a single word, we looked like two criminals. I felt humiliated as I was escorted out of the facility in full view of all the workers. It was sad to be belittled in such a manner, but there was little we could do, no one to complain to, and only ourselves to blame. The marriage was arranged, and Kamau could only retreat in shame.
Even if the marriage was genuine, a green card was not guaranteed. My Ghanaian classmate Lebené, ran into problems after he married his college sweetheart, a graduate student pursuing a master’s degree. Soon after their union, they had a child together. But for some inexplicable reason, Lebené’s wife refused to provide the paperwork necessary to assist him with his residency status. She decided not to work after graduation and expected him to support her extravagant tastes. Lebené worked hard, but without a green card he could not find well paying jobs.
Eventually, his legal status in the country expired and the couple fell out of love when rising financial problems brought more conflict. It took Lebené two years of begging and pleading for his wife to agree to a divorce. He was slapped with monthly child support payments while he faced deportation because she had sent a malicious report to immigration.
Though the bulk of arranged marriages were horror stories, several genuine ones survived the test of time. I thought those who found soul mates in America were very fortunate; it was not easy to merge two very different cultures. I understood the challenges that the American spouse had to face. There were often too many opposing norms involved. The extended family systems and other cultural links to Africa were avenues for contention.
To apply for political asylum, an alien needed to provide proof of political persecution in their country of origin. This was not an option for me, because I had never been involved in Ghana’s politics. Amnesty was sometimes granted as a political tool to promote relations between governments. In such instances, citizens from the subject country were granted residency status in the United States for goodwill, or when severe political conditions or some environmental disaster had occurred in their country. Ghana had never been the recipient of such a policy.
When someone close to me tried to circumvent the process, it became another horror story. It happened again to my friend Kamau. Though he later developed a serious relationship with his American girlfriend, Kamau still needed a divorce. He had landed a good job in New York, which was scheduled to begin after his graduation at the end of the semester. But he needed to produce a work permit in a few months to keep it. With little time for anything else, he decided to take a gamble on a questionable amnesty connection.
The program was originally meant for Haitian refugees who were facing trying economic and political conditions in South America. Many had illegally migrated to the Florida coast in open boats under suicidal maritime conditions. But an unscrupulous immigration officer wanted to profit from the program by offering the same opportunity to those who could afford his fee.
Through donations from friends, Kamau raised $3000 in cash, to pay for the deal. When I picked him from the airport, Kamau was in high spirits. Everything had gone as smooth as silk in Miami. He had a temporary resident card that was good for six months - enough time to secure his job for a while. The permanent card would arrive four months later with his new social security card. We were thrilled with the outcome.
A couple of months later, we sat to watch 60 minutes, our favorite weekly news program. There was a breaking story about Haitian refugees and an immigration connection in Miami, who turned out to be Kamau’s connection man. They had a camera trained on him while he tried to make a clumsy get-away in a last ditch effort to elude arrest.
Ordinarily, the program was humorous when the clips focused on fleeing perpetrators. But these issues hit too close to be amusing. My heart dropped as Kamau walked slowly to his room and shut the door. All the money had gone to waste. It took Kamau several years to repair this mess.
The safest method was through corporate sponsorship. Usually, the company would hire talent from colleges or directly from a foreign country and apply for residency on their behalf. They had to prove that the immigrant had unique qualities necessary for the company’s success, and they generally handled all legal costs. I could live with this method and maintain my integrity. It was the reason I had accepted the offer at Gittannes where they had dedicated immigration staff.
As fate would have it, the immigration laws were changed midway through the process. The new laws required companies to solicit more American applicants through postings in internal and national publications, and to justify in detail, why they had to be disqualified in favor of the immigrant.
I felt a premonition when my manager and I were summoned into the director’s office to discuss my future. They mentioned how highly they regarded my work before breaking the news to me. The corporation could not support my application for legal residency any further. They were not sure they could prove that, compared with other Americans, I was uniquely qualified for my position. I was not entirely surprised since I understood that the burden of proof was next to impossible to satisfy. I still had a year on my interim status before becoming illegal, and I was advised to explore other means of obtaining residency. Failing that, they would have to let me go - “Wonder boy” or not.
I left the director’s office still reeling. My manager surprised me when he tried his best to argue on my behalf, yet it offered nothing but cold comfort. As I sat at my desk, I was overwhelmed with weariness. I felt as if something or someone was trying to prevent me from getting any reprieve from my stressful life. Nothing came easy. Every inch of progress was earned through exhaustive battles.
Barely a week earlier, I had been delving full force into my career. Now I would have the major distraction of securing legal employment status. I looked forward to none of the remaining options, especially since I had less than a year. For all my planning, I seemed in no better shape than my friend Kamau.
I seriously considered returning to Ghana, but I wondered what my life would be. What would I do there? No jobs were waiting for me. And who would pay my bills? It would be unbearable because I would have no money, limited work experience and only a college degree to my name. How would my return reflect on my parents, when they had begged for loans on my behalf? I would be bringing them disgrace if I returned and had to depend on them to live, when others had seemingly been so successful.
The only thing left was to marry quickly. Oh, what a predicament, I thought, to have come this far and still be so far away from my goals. How in the world would I find an American willing to marry me within a few months? Not an easy task. I had not had a close relation with the opposite sex since I arrived in America, much less, found anyone who would marry me. I never thought I would stoop that low, but I contemplated paying someone to marry me. A few months earlier, I would never have considered such an option. But it looked like the only way out – I had come too far to turn around now.
My mistake was going to a reggae club to find a wife. I walked into the dark and smoky club at around eleven wearing a dark evening suit. If I was looking for a wife, I ought to look my best, I thought. The familiar music of Shaba Ranks thumped loudly through giant speakers. It was the middle of summer so the girls wore skimpy spandex dresses. The club had a large central dance floor, but limited seating. On busy nights, all one could do was dance or stand around and watch. That was entertainment enough because the reggae beat stimulated dancing creativity; some girls danced with such erotic abandon that I watched mesmerized.
I stood by the dance floor with my bottle of Guinness. Minutes later, I felt I was being watched. As I turned around, my eyes locked on a tall, olive-skinned beauty staring at me from the corner of the dance floor. She was dancing alone. She bent her knees and slowly rolled her hips and legs like a butterfly flapping its wings. My eyes stayed glued to her sensual curves. As if to acknowledge my gaze, she turned her back to me and sent her curvaceous body into multiple gyrations.
She was dressed in the shortest black spandex imaginable. As she danced, the dress rode high up her thighs. Her full breasts looked ready to lunge out of her dress. As for her behind, I thought of the song, “My baby got some back.” Just like the full-figured beauties in Ghana, this one had some back - and then some more.
When the song ended, I tried to figure out how to approach this Nubian beauty, but lost sight of her as she wove through the dark club. Still lost in thought, I felt someone tap my shoulder and turned to find her smiling at me. “Wanna dance?” She asked. She must have sensed that I was a pushover because she walked towards the dance floor without checking to see if I was following. I had taken the bait. She acted as though she did not care whether I danced or not. That was brazen in my book but I was too excited, especially when she danced with her back turned to me. We were so close that our thighs rubbed together.
I could feel myself getting aroused and tried to avoid further contact to save myself from embarrassment. But I was no match for this “hoochie mama.” I abandoned my feeble attempts to keep my distance. It was hard to believe what was happening to me and hoped that not too many people were watching. Several other couples were dancing the same way - all too busy to give us a second thought.
When the song ended, she signaled she’d had enough and walked off the floor. I followed but before I could say anything, she said, “I want a glass of ‘sex on the beach.’ Can you get me one?” I eagerly went to order the drinks from the bar. When I returned, I asked her name. She stirred her drink and licked the straw before answering. “Shaunté-Monique,” She said in a low, seductive voice.
She had come to the club with her cousin, who was busy with her boyfriend, and she needed a ride home. I was overjoyed because now I could find out where she lived. After the club closed, we stopped for a bite to eat before going to her house. Shaunté asked if I would like to come in for a minute. I nodded my agreement. As far as I knew, this only happened in the movies. My conscience was cautioning me to slow down, but I was like a wild bull in heat. When we entered the house, Shaunté-Monique led me directly to the bedroom.
On my way back home, contentment turned into real anxiety. I had just gambled with my life in a game of Russian roulette. The protection I used had broken and the thought of contracting some disease from this woman made me face the risk I had taken. We had barely talked, so I decided to go by her house the following day to find out more about her; something I should have done before sleeping with her.
I drove through the East Side neighborhood wondering if I was in the right place. The quiet ambiance in the wee hours of the morning had changed drastically. Extra baggy pants and Nike’s Air Jordan shoes were the accepted dress code and several walls were covered with graffiti and gang symbols. By the time I stopped by the house, my heart was in my mouth. In the dark, the house had appeared modestly presentable, but now it looked dilapidated. Had the drinks distorted my vision that much?
Several people were sitting outside on their porches, and children were running everywhere. As I got out of the car, I felt nosy eyes following my every move. When I walked up the stairs to Shaunté’s door, two young women were sitting on the porch. “Who do you want?” They asked. When I answered, they simply yelled out, “SHAUN-TÉ- MO-NIQUE,” and turned their attention back to me. Now the whole neighborhood knew who I had come to see.
Shaunté’s neighbors introduced themselves as Sheila and Mika. When I met their children, I wondered how they could live under such conditions. Sheila had three children and Mika had two. Neither of them looked more than twenty, but their young bodies were heavy and stretched out of shape.
The door to Shaunté’s apartment flew open and out walked a woman carrying a baby, followed by a man, then three other children. Shaunté was the woman with the baby. Where had my Nubian Queen gone? To make matters worse, the man said, “Are you the one looking for Shaunté? What do you want?” His drawl sounded like a threat. What a mess, was she married too? I just wanted to disappear. Instead, I said I had just stopped by to say hello on my way home. Shaunté signaled with her hand to her ear and quietly mouthed, “I’ll call you” from behind the man. I wanted to say, “No please don’t call.” I sped off leaving the bitter experience behind me.
The worst shock for me was the drastic change from Shaunté-Monique, the hoochie mama to Shaunté the ghetto queen. Short black hair replaced the long light brown wig. As for her rough skin, I blamed that on make-up and the dark club. But I could not explain how the full cleavage could look so flat in daylight. And where were all the children yesterday? I sure could not handle a woman with four children.
Though born in America, they were in many ways as disadvantaged as the barefooted village children in Ghana. I felt a tinge of guilt for not to giving them money for candy, as I would have done in Ghana. I was reminded of the perils involved in finding a green card woman. I would have to find another way to get legal residency.
But Shaunté refused to let go. All week I tried to ignore her phone calls but it was impossible to screen calls without missing important ones. Cordial phone conversations had deteriorated into arguments about why I would not visit. She insisted that the man at the door was her youngest baby’s daddy and not her husband. He was just visiting his child when I stopped by.
Each of her children was by a different father. One was deceased, two were unemployed, and a forth was in the military. I felt sorry for the children - if only I could give them something without encouraging their mother, I thought. Even so, I was glad for the opportunity to leave town on a two-week business trip, hoping this would blow over by the time I returned.
It did not. My answering machine was filled with messages from Shaunté, insisting I had lied about my trip to avoid her. I answered Shaunté’s next call and tried to explain. “Where’ve you been?” She said. When I attempted to speak, she interrupted and told me she was not feeling well. My heart dropped as Shaunté described her bouts with morning sickness and missing her time of the month. That’s right, she was pregnant!...........
