Photo by Raúl Nájera on Unsplash
Here I stand in the fluorescent-lit corridor of bureaucracy in Miami airport, facing an immigration officer who could easily double as a drill sergeant. As he inspects my passport with the precision of a surgeon, I wonder if I've unwittingly stumbled onto the set of a military-themed reality show.
“Why are you staying in ‘Merica?” he asks.
“I’m not.”
“You’re in the United States of America, son. So, I’ll ask you again. What are you doing in America?”
“I have a layover on my way to Argentina.”
“A layover on the way to where?”
“Argentina.”
“Ar-gen-tina.”
“Yes.”
“You have a layover here on the way to Argentina?”
“That’s what I said.”
“And exactly what do you plan on doing in America on your way to Argentina?”
“Nothing. If there were a flight where I wouldn’t have to step foot in this country, I would have taken it.”
The immigration officer is so taken aback that he hands back my passport and lets me catch my plane.
I was twelve years old when I heard this story from my father, but it didn’t come as a surprise. People who had never left Canada or the United States often credited Jesus for my parent’s survival in godforsaken countries. Instead of fearing the country of Africa (as many of these people referred to it) and those cocaine-ridden death traps below Mexico (again, not my words), I was wary of the USA.
My parents had slept in Latin American ghettos and avoided death by luck dozens of times, but when I asked my mother where she had been most afraid in her life, the answer was New Orleans.
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