Immigration Papers by Jennifer M. Ortega
May 30, 2010
The Arizona Law SB 1070 requiring anyone to show their immigration papers if stopped by police. Well, what if you don’t have any because you were born in the U.S.?
I often leave my apartment in Greenwich Village to go on my morning walk or to the deli to pick up some juice. I leave with twenty bucks in my pocket, my iphone, and keys to my apartment. My exercise clothes don’t have pockets, so I stuff the money into my bra, clip my phone to my pants and carry my keys. I usually don’t take my drivers license when I do these activates. Usually leaving my I.D. I can’t buy liquor, get into a secured building, or risk being found in the Hudson River and buried in potters field because no one can identify my decomposed body. It’s a risk I choose to take. However, lately I’ve become a perturbed if I do not take my I.D. I might be shipped to a deportation center and or harassed in general by the police. I know this really kind of outlandish to be thinking coming from a MAP (Mexican-American Princess) like myself, but it’s what crosses my mind now when I prepare to leave my home.
Like I’ve said in previous postings I am brown, as brown as they come. I love being a brown beauty, but it doesn’t stop me from being identified as “other”. For example if I hangout with my niece and nephews in the park, I usually am taken to their nanny. Last year when I escorted my mother-in-law to a cocktail party at Pretty Brook Tennis Club in Princeton where her parents were founding members, a friend of hers Mr. Buck (who owns the Philadelphia Phillies) asked me “how long, have you worked for Ms. McGraw?” I politely answered, “I do not work for Ms. McGraw, she is my mother-in-law”. He said “Oh yes, that’s right I went to your wedding”. I was somewhat daunted but felt sorry for him because he didn’t remember me and embarrassed himself by asking me if I was the hired help.
Three weeks ago I lost my wallet with my ID and credit cards. I had to go to meeting in Irvington, NY. I decided to take the train, when I could have taken our car on the twenty-six minute drive from Manhattan because I didn’t have my license. This was a true precautionary tactic, because I just didn’t want to have to explain to an officer why I didn’t have my license. Fortunately, I live in New York, but still, I carried my passport with me on the train just in case I got asked to show my papers.
What a surprise! Someone nicely mailed back my wallet to me, of course, after I ordered my replacement license online. What a relief, I could drive again without feeling paranoid when I saw a cop. I can’t tell you how freeing it was, to be free again. Now, when I leave my apartment I take my license because you never know who will ask you for your immigration papers.
