Glowing With Health

The earthquake in Japan had quite a few people on the West Coast of America worried. Not just for the tsunami that caused quite a savage ripple in the Santa Barbara harbour. A couple of days after the disaster struck, I was in a meeting put on by the local medical society. The nurse giving the talk spent a good fifteen minutes creating a maelstrom of panic about the radioactive cloud headed our way.

Apparently she'd already sent her husband to Costco. With a list.

There were worried glances. One of the less mentally agile in the room asked if we would be able to see the cloud coming. It was going to make landfall in a matter of hours. There was talk of iodine tablets, of stocking up with supplies for the five days we would all be quarantined inside our buildings. People asked if we should eat the vegetables in our gardens or drink out of the tap. Everybody does so enjoy a brief flutter of panic.

Bearing in mind this was IF the reactor blew and IF it came our way.

That's when I thought - hang on a minute. The Fukushima reactor is thousands of miles away from California. Thousands more miles than Chernobyl was to the north of England.

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl meltdown. Twenty-five years ago this week a huge radioactive cloud drifted across the north of England, and we, well for as much as I can remember, we were told not to play outside in the rain. I think for a year we were advised not to eat local lamb as they had stayed outside in the rain - but that was pretty much it. I know for a fact that we ate the fruit and veg growing in our garden. We drank water straight from the local reservoir. Did we just panic less, or was there nothing we could do?

I am surprised there wasn't much mention of Chernobyl when Fukushima was threatening to melt down. I was even more surprised when my assistant at work hadn't even heard of Chernobyl.

God I feel old. And radioactive. Does that make me invincible? Like irradiated food, will I fail to go bad? I'm sure we all just got a dose equivalent to an x-ray or a half hour mobile phone call.

I am not discounting the threat of a nuclear meltdown. Not at all. There is a nuclear power plant about two hours drive away - Diablo Canyon - that is both on the coast, thus in a tsunami-risk area, and it's on a fault line. That is something to worry about. It was just interesting to be in a room full of panicking people and to find out that I'd actually gone through their def com delta moment before, without even realizing it.

No Smiling I'm Half British

Lucy is now a whopping 10 weeks old, and you know what that means in the K household?

Passports!

Here's Lucy's picture, and below that Anna's, also taken at 10 weeks.















































What do you think? Sisters?

I think they look very alike, except Anna was a cheery old soul with a rounder face and a too-cute-to-be-true hair tuft and Lucy has the weight of the world on her tiny shoulders and has perfected her new-world-order economic-meltdown look of gloom.

As it happens I also have to renew my passport, which you can do out of the country if you can pony up one hundred million dollars and lure a current British passport holder to counter-sign your application. Amazingly I am able to do just that (well, the second half anyway) due to a freak birthing of my friend Mooks in England while her parents were studying Shakespeare in Stratford. I knew I liked her.

So there we were in Sears, Lucy frowning in to the camera perfecting her superior British scowl, apparently unaware she was posing for her American passport and cheerfulness was allowed. I gave my hair a cursory finger-comb, tried to look British and OH. MY. GOD. the chins, the eye-bags, the lank unstyled hair. Don't get your passport photo taken two months after you've had a baby.

Is it vanity to think your passport photo is so bad you want to rush to another photographer and have it retaken? Well yes of course it is, but bloody hell I'd even slapped a bit of lippy on, but obviously to no avail. I will grant you than any photo of me wearing white, against a white background leaves me looking pale at best and bizarrely suspended nostrils and eyelashes at worst but damn.

It isn't helped by the fact that my last passport photo is really rather good. So good that several INS workers have looked at it, looked at me, and concluded that either we're different people or that that was one hell of a bad flight.

You could think positively on the situation and conclude that, well, your age 35 photo is really shitty, but in 10 years time if you have a good photo taken then you'll actually look better than your 35 year old self. I couldn't look worse surely. However, I know what it's like to live with a shockingly bad passport photo.........

When I was sixteen my family were driving down to Harwich? to catch the ferry over to Belgium to spend Christmas with my Aunty and Uncle. It was a Saturday, the day before Christmas Eve. I think it was an overnight ferry and it was pretty late in the day as we were nearing the coast. That's when I casually asked my Dad - "since I'm 16 now don't I have to have my own passport?"

*Crickets*

The answer of course was, yes. The reality was, no, I did not have my own passport.

To cut a long story shockingly full of expletives short, we filled in some emergency passport forms, and I had my photo taken in a crappy WWII throwover photo booth. I think we boarded the ferry with an idea that we could certainly be able to leave the UK, but there were no guarantees I would be able to get back. From Belgium. I thought that was bad. Then I saw the photo.

This is the picture I carried with me as my only form of ID in the States for many years.....




























There's really no excuse for any of it. All I can say is, from the looks of that jumper, thank God it's a black and white photo.

Fast forward 10 years and we have this ethereal photo. As I said, pupils, nostrils and not much else.
























Quite a transformation from 16 to 25 don't you think? As a bouncer in SB said when reviewing my passport as ID 'hon, you've grown in to yourself well'. Well the degeneration from 25 to 35 is no less dramatic, and that's why I'm going back to get my photos retaken this afternoon.

Imagine

The question of race seems to have been cropping up on a lot of blogs I read lately.

It started when I read this post on racism by the always brilliant OTJ. One or two of her readers commented that they'd found the UK to be a much more racist place than America. I was honestly surprised at reading that, having personally experienced much more overt racism here than back home. I have been called 'the right kind of immigrant' more times than I care to remember, I've known so many intelligent and well-educated people carelessly toss the words 'wetbacks' or 'illegals' into conversations and blame them for everything from ERs closing to peeing in fountains. I always found this a shock, being an immigrant myself and knowing becoming legal is not as simplistic as some might imagine, and having struggled myself to keep everything above board. Plus, my one big issue with people spouting about 'immigration' here, is that their definition of an immigrant usually starts about 10-25 years after their forebears arrived.

You're all bloody immigrants.

This overarching concentration on race can go both ways too. At my first job over here one of my colleagues went to great lengths to explain that her fiance 'was white'. Ironically, her name was Blanca.

I was consistently amazed at the way racial slurs were bandied around over here, at the number of mass emails that would arrive in my inbox forwarded by people I knew, concerning how America was better when it was whiter, churchier, and everyone assimilated to a perfect WASPy norm. I'm sure this isn't specific to the States, I'm sure the same emails are flying around the UK, I just haven't seen them because I moved over here before the age of email *gasp*. Those emails make my blood boil though, and moved by what OTJ had said, I spoke up on a website that had published one of them. I agree that no-one should suffer discrimination, whether it's reverse discrimination or not, I agree that being seen as too tolerant a country can make you feel that your society is being taken advantage of. I understand what it is to love and cherish your country (two countries in my case). I understand it's a many-layered debate. I don't think that justifies vitriol. I think we should be trying to find some common ground, channel our inner John Lennon. This is America after all, the land of diversity. There was a lot of respectful discussion, and eventually a consensus that you don't have to agree on every issue in order to be friends. And after about 3 days my heart stopped racing at a thousand beats per minute.

I am not a confrontational person.

In contrast, my experiences with racism in the UK were very limited.

Until I gave it some thought.

Doris Lessing once wrote that the only people in the UK who thought the class system was dead belonged to the middle class. Basically if something isn't affecting you first hand it is hard to have any perspective on the issue. I grew up in a very white, rural area of Northern England. I distinctly remember the first time someone who wasn't white-skinned joined my primary school class. I was intrigued. Turns out they weren't Indian, or Pakistani, or Arabian - they had just come back from a holiday in Israel and were tanned.

When I went to University one of my non-white friends said she couldn't believe what a bubble Cambridge was, and how predominantly white. To me, on first arriving, it had seemed wonderfully diverse.

In essence, my experiences with race and racism up to the time I emigrated to California had been mostly academic in nature. I had not perceived the UK to be more racist than the US because I'd simply not been anywhere near the issue whilst knee-deep in sheep droppings or libraries. Upon closer reflection, I was being more than a little naive.

I thought I'd better turn the mirror on myself, was I standing in a big glass house with a fistful of stones?

When we moved to our present house, school districts were not at the forefront of our minds. The fact that we had the chance to own property where a two bedroom fixer-upper is six figures was our main concern. Plus the creature was minus 2 weeks old when we signed the papers. Things change though, and I found myself on this website last week and was pretty gobsmacked that Anna's prospective primary school was 98% Hispanic. You can bet that the phrases 'white flight' and 'sanctimonious hypocrite' flashed through my head.

I culled my friends' opinions. Was my sudden decision to start researching other primary school options for Anna as bad as saying 'if you don't speak the language get out of the country'? As usual my good friend set me straight:

"Dude, half my family's hispanic and I wouldn't have Anna go to that school either. That doesn't make you a racist. If it was the best school in town and you didn't want her to go because it was mostly Hispanic then you'd be a racist."

Big sigh of relief.

"It makes you a snob."

So there you have it. 98% of the school may be Hispanic, but 100% of the kids are listed as 'socioeconomically disadvantaged'. Apparently you can't be a Brit and shrug off that 'clarse' thing.

Sooper Toosday

I couldn't vote in this week's primaries, because I've never become an American citizen. A fact that Netflix appeared not to be aware of when it decided to send me Maxed Out and Sicko this weekend. Both have been languishing on my 'queue' for a while, but interestingly popped up right before election time. Hmm. Nice try with your subliminal brainwashing Netflix! I wonder how many people across the States were going, wait, 'Sicko' was #1327 on my online DVD list - what the chuff, where's my 17th season of Lost?

One of the reasons I've not yet become a citizen, despite being out here for over a decade is because the US and the UK do not observe dual citizenship, unless you happen to be born with parents from each nation (although a lot of 'aliens' I know hold 'secret' dual nationality). Basically, if I chose to agree to bear arms for this dear country, then I would technically have to relinquish my rights to being a British citizen - and quite frankly after watching Sicko, not bloody likely!! Also, Anna has dual citizenship and so will any future K-spawn, and in this increasingly unstable world giving them the opportunity to hedge their bets citizenship-wise seems no bad thing. I have visions of them flitting between Berkeley, and the Sorbonne, living for a year in Paris then Prague, just because they can; whereas I'm sure they will actually use their US/EU citizenship to bum around Europe in a VW van until they find some equally directionless creature to marry so that they can live thousands of miles away from me.

Just like their dear old mother.

Anyway, I am a little conflicted about the issue of jury duty, err, I mean citizenship. Unlike a lot of immigrants to this country, I did not move here for the chance of a better life (Lord knows), I moved here in hot pursuit of some fine California ass. I do feel some form of obligation to the States though. I understand that citizenship for me, is not a right it is a privilege. I should support my adoptive country with more than my taxes, I should be more involved. I know that I'm lucky to have had the opportunity to move here, live life on the other side and move on from that deeply ingrained opinion that America=arrogance, waste, conspicuous consumption and insularity that most non-Americans hold.

The main reason I will not become an American citizen any time soon is because of the US Immigration Service.

Does any native-born American have any real idea how rude, inefficient, degrading, chronically underfunded and understaffed the INS is? I suppose if they did you'd hear fewer stories about how awful the DMV is. The DMV is a cupcake picnic compared to immigration.

I've been meaning to write a post about my experiences, but quite honestly even years after the event I am still so angry at the way I was treated that I can only throw down a couple of 'gems' by way of bullet-points. Spit them out as it were:

• The Los Angeles INS (Immigration & Naturalization Service) opens at 6am, the line starts forming at what, 4am? I live over two hours away. If you arrive at 6am and get to the back of the queue, chances are you won't get in because they have already seen their quota for the day.

• My fingerprints expired 3 (three) times during my 'adjustment of status'. The third time I had them done I had a small cut on one finger, which rendered my fingerprints 'invalid', but they failed to notify me of this, and closed my case.

• I had to get 'parole' each time I went back to the UK and wished to re-enter the United States, so that I could keep my green card application ongoing. The second time I applied for 'parole' they sent it to me with page 7 unsigned. Stamped, but unsigned. When I arrived at Atlanta airport they allowed me to carry on to LAX but took my passport from me and promised it would be returned. After hours or frenzied phonecalls, misdirected transfers and hang-ups I had to drive down to LA one month later, and stand in line at 5am to get it back.

• When they take your photo at the INS there is a big sign that states 'if you blink you will be charged $10'. There are also posters everywhere in the INS building alerting people to overpopulation in the United States. As if they're trying to say, 'no breeding on the premises you filthy immigrant breeders'.
  

• When I received my notice of receipt of application, the only piece of paper I was to get from the INS for a couple of years, my 'alien number' had been transposed by whatever muppet had filled in the form. For the next 4 and half years I had to explain at every work permit application, parole hearing, and fingerprinting, that I was not in fact Kim Phan from Vietnam.

• Each INS official has a sign next to him/her that states 'we will not answer questions'. If you blurt out 'but am I even in the right line?', they will keep their heads down and gently tap the sign with their pen.
  

• When I finally had my green card interview, four years later, the INS official said 'you guys don't have any kids?' (we gave you enough time, dammit). When we shook our heads he said 'Pets?' He then asked me to verify my phone number, that we filed our taxes jointly, then he apologized and said my fingerprints had expired (no joke) and my application would be held up until I got them redone. I was more amazed that he'd apologized than the fact that my fingerprints had expired again.
  

• About three weeks after we went down to LA for the eleventy-billionth time to appeal that our case should not be closed, that my fingerprints were in fact valid, that I was not in fact, Kim Phan, my green card with arrived stealth-like anti-climax in the mail.
  

A green card when issued, is good for 10 years. Mine is due for renewal in a couple of years, which means I should probably get in line right about now. So you see, I will not be upping the ante and applying for citizenship any time soon. Well, not until you can check your application status online anyway.

I realize that getting an immigrant application in Southern California probably means I witnessed the worst side to the INS, and that hopefully people in North Dakota, Michigan and Washington are sailing through the requisite hoops with smiles all round. I would also like to say that for the record, the first time I re-entered the US with my Green Card, the immigration official at LAX smiled at me and said 'welcome back Ma'am'.

My point, to this diatribe, is that there is a general misconception in this country that it is somehow easy to immigrate here. That you just stroll across the border, or sneak across, and then a couple of months later fill in the papers and you're in. The truth is that it is so amazingly difficult, but that the States has a border with a country where people would happily stand on their heads for five years if it meant the chance of a work permit here. These same people are met with incompetence, hostility, rudeness and contempt. Their first introduction to the bureaucracy in the country is the INS. What a terrifying thought.
I would have liked to have voted in this week's primaries, but I won't be doing so any time soon.