Annie had been in the US since she was a year old and never thought about her immigration status. Her parents had taken care of all that. If anyone asked her, she said that she and her family were all citizens. They had all – her parents, her sisters and brother, and she – came to the US right after the Second World War, from New Zealand, where her parents and older sisters landed as refugees from Hungary during the war. They were the lucky ones; the most of the rest of their families died in concentration camps. But when she was growing up in southern California, she didn’t feel lucky. Her father died before she was four, and her mother remarried a man with an evil temper. Her sisters fled home as soon as they could, and Annie and her brother Stephen endured beatings with their heads down, trying to be invisible.
When she was sixteen, had left school, and was ready to get a job in the ballpoint pen factory where her mother worked, she went to the Social Security office for her Social Security number. She hadn’t brought any documents with her since she didn’t know she needed them. When it was her turn to approach the window, the clerk laughed and called out to her fellow workers to get a load of this girl who thought she could get a number without any proof of identity. Annie hurried out of the office, her face red with shame. She asked her mother for documents that night, and was surprised when her mother sat down to talk with her. Her mother never had time to talk, what with her work at the factory and housework, and trying to keep the children out of her husband’s sight. She gave Annie a card with Annie’s picture as a baby pasted on it, and Annie’s name, with the words “Lawful Permanent Resident” printed at the top of the card.
“I thought we were citizens,” Annie said. “Aren’t we?” Her mother’s hands shook as she tied up the old paper folder with the rest of the family’s immigration documents. “We never did anything about it,” she said. “After your father died, I didn’t know how to go about it, and your stepfather, well….he didn’t want me to spend any money or time on paperwork. Just don’t lose that paper, Annie. He won’t like it. It’s all we have to show that you are legal here.”
Annie got her social security number and started work, but didn’t stay long on the assembly line. She was bright and quick, and the manager promoted her to front office secretary. She was designing advertising for the company by the time she was 18. She lived at home and gave her earnings to her mother; if she hadn’t done so, her stepfather would not have been happy. Both Annie and her mother knew what that would mean. And the extra money meant that Annie’s brother could finish high school without having to drop out to work full-tine.
Annie made friends, girls who worked in the shops and small companies in Santa Monica’s business district, and they often lay on the beach, swam sometimes, and talked and drank cokes until it was time to go home to their housework and dinners. Annie left her purse on the beach blanket when she swam; one day her purse was stolen, and with it, her permanent resident card. She didn’t tell her mother, since she saw no need to worry her. And besides, she already had her social security number. Her mother died of cancer when Annie was 19; right after the funeral, Annie and Stephen packed their few clothes and fled their stepfather’s house. Stephen lived with a high school friend’s family, and Annie rented an apartment near the beach. She made enough money to provide the basics for herself and Stephen, but it was nearly half of what the men in the ad department made. When she asked her boss to increase her pay to equal that of her peers, he laughed out loud. Women don’t make that kind of money, he said.
Annie quit the job immediately. She later marveled at her own gumption, when she was older and more cautious. She opened her own graphic design company the next day, working from home, going in person to many of Santa Monica’s retail shops to promote her ad design services. She didn’t make enough for her rent and food, and for Stephen’s clothes and pocket money, in the first few months, so she worked at night as a waitress in a 24-hour pancake house. But within six months, she had enough money to rent an office and hire a secretary. In a year, she hired another designer, then a salesman. In two years, she was able to pay for Stephen’s college and buy a house of her own. She was 23 years old and the head of her own successful advertising firm.
Stephen graduated from college and came to work in the firm. Annie loved sharing the firm with him; she could ease up a bit, take some time for herself, maybe meet someone and get married. She got back in touch with high school friends, and went to the newly-fashionable square and contra dances and to the beach again. She joined a Christian church and helped with the singles ministry, arranging dances and hiking outings. She met Gary on a hike in the Agoura Hills. He was outgoing, talkative, and confident, not exactly good looking, but alert and quick enough to make up for it. She didn’t know what he saw in her, and was flattered by his interest. No one had ever been interested in her before. He was a salesman for a car parts company, a few years older than she.
After they married and he came to live in her house, he pressed her to sell out her interest in the firm to her brother, and to use the money to open a car parts company with him. She was not interested in car parts, but she wanted to please her husband. They opened the company, with plans to market directly to car manufacturers, but instead of making money, they lost it. There was a major recession in the early 1980s, and American car makers sharply cut back production. They lost her house to foreclosure, and pawned her jewelry for enough money to rent an apartment. She took a job as a teller in a bank, and Gary went back to selling car parts. They were frosty with each other; she didn’t like to blame him, but she was bitter about selling her firm. She tried to hide the extent of their money troubles from her brother, and she vowed she would not ask Stephen for money or ask for a job at the firm. She was touchy about being the older sister who had everything under control; she was the one who helped Stephen. She didn’t want it to be the other way around.
She and Gary soon fought every day about money. She didn’t want to spend money on anything that wasn’t necessary for keeping themselves and their two little girls, Sonia and Micaela, fed, housed, and clothed, but Gary insisted that he had to look the part of a prosperous salesman if he was to be successful. He needed a late model car, good clothes, and a nice watch. Their bills piled up, and creditor calls came every day. One day as they were screaming at each other, with their two-year-old also screaming in terror at her parents’ fight, she ran out the door to work at the bank, and came back that night with $2000 she had taken from the till. She hoped that he would say that he couldn’t take it, that they would do anything else rather than steal, but he didn’t. He took the money.
Of course the bank discovered the theft, and she was arrested and sentenced to a year in jail. She said later that the separation from her daughters was the hardest thing she ever endured in her life, worse than the beatings at home when she was a child, worse than the imprisonment itself. She served six months, and when she came out, Gary was gone. She never saw him again. The girls were with her brother and his wife, and they cried when Annie took them away with her. She didn’t know where she was going, but she couldn’t stay and face her brother’s pity and her friends’ gossip. She had her old car and $500 in cash from a prisoners’ help fund and she drove north to Seattle, to get as far away as she could. She knew no one there, and that is the way she wanted it.
She stayed in a Salvation Army shelter for a few months with the girls, and found a job selling encyclopedias and magazines door to door. She was always an excellent saleswoman, and had soon had enough to rent an apartment just north of the city, where she heard the schools were best. She found a job selling cemetery lots, then a better job selling jewelry in “house parties”. She moved on to setting up craft fairs in small towns, and then onto the internet in the early 2000s, where she sold jewelry, perfume, craft supplies, and framed oil paintings. She bought a house in a quiet suburb, and sent the girls to college. She found a lawyer and divorced Gary, and married again at age 45. With her husband Craig, she had another daughter, Rachel, at age 46, and became a grandmother at 50 to Sonia’s first child. Craig had a small handyman business, and with Annie’s income they had enough. They took time to travel with Rachel and developed passions for bridge and for dancing.
By the time Rachel went away to college, when Annie was 64 and thinking of retiring, she knew she had to do something about her immigration status. She had no way of proving she was in the country legally, no way to register for Social Security. Money would be very tight when she started to wind down her business. Craig was already retired, at age 69, and had developed some worrisome heart problems; Annie wanted to spend more time with him, take him to his doctor appointments, and take care of him. She spent a day on the internet researching immigration lawyers, reading their websites and checking lawyer rating listings. She found one she liked, and made an appointment. She was afraid of what she might learn; Craig went with her to the appointment for moral support.
The lawyer asked questions, and learned how Annie entered the country, and about the bank embezzlement. She recommended a request for Annie’s complete immigration records and the criminal records; it would take about six months or more for the immigration records. Annie agreed with the strategy and the lawyer made the requests. Five months later, the lawyer called; the records were in. Annie had entered the country legally and was a permanent resident, and now she had proof. But the crime made her deportable; if she applied to renew her permanent resident card, she would be placed in deportation proceedings. She might be sent back to New Zealand, where she knew no one, unless she won a case for cancellation of deportation in court.
But there is an option, the lawyer said. It may lead to deportation proceedings, but you will have a defense. You can apply now for citizenship; the requirement for citizenship is that you prove good moral character for five years before the date of application for citizenship, and that the crime occurred before November 1990. It is a gamble, with the risk that the immigration service will not apply the law correctly and put you in deportation proceedings anyway. If that happens, we will go to court to require the judge to give you your citizenship. It’s the only way for you to prove your legal status. It will mean additional legal fees if that happens. Do you want to go forward?
Annie took a week to think about it. What if the lawyer was wrong and there was no relief from deportation? If the law was clear that she was eligible for citizenship, why would the immigration service put her into deportation proceedings? If they did, would the judge agree with the lawyer? If the immigration service could find that she wasn’t eligible, wouldn’t the judge find the same thing? She prayed. She relived her shame about committing the theft. She had told no one about it except Craig, not even her daughters. Her brother and his wife never had revealed it to anyone, and she had dropped all of her southern California connections. If she did not get her citizenship, and had to fight for it in court, her daughters would have to know. Her friends and her church community would know. She thought that it wasn’t worth the huge risk, and that she would just live without Social Security. She had never left the country, and never would, to avoid the probability of arrest at the airport when she returned.
Craig told her, “I know about the crime, and I still love you. I think girls will too. And any friends who don’t love you once they know aren’t worth having anyway.” It did help to know that, and to have his support, but it was she herself who could not forgive herself. Then Craig said, “Annie, we need your Social Security. Do it for us.” She called the lawyer and went forward with her citizenship application. Three months later she got notice of her citizenship interview at the immigration service. In preparation, the lawyer had her prepare a declaration about her life, and her remorse about the crime. Her brother wrote a moving letter about what a fine person she was, the hardship she had endured, and the aberration that the crime had been. She told her daughters about the crime; not one turned away from her. They each wrote letters of support for her. Her prayer circle at church pledged to pay for the immigration examiner who would hear her case, and to meet together to pray at the time she would have her interview.
Annie studied the one hundred citizenship questions and memorized the answers. Name one reason the colonists came to the US, she read. The study guide gave five, and she memorized them all: Freedom. Political liberty. Religious freedom. Economic opportunity. Escape persecution. She was studying for her freedom; she felt, freedom from shame and fear.
On the day of the citizenship appointment, she woke with fear that settled in her stomach. She couldn’t eat. Craig reminded her that the prayer circle would be praying during the entire interview, and that strengthened her enough to get dressed and into the car. Craig drove, and they got to the immigration building an hour before their appointment. The lawyer came. Craig held Annie’s hand. He couldn’t go with her into the interview, and she nearly cried as she and the lawyer walked from the waiting room into the examination room.
The examiner was a harassed and weary-looking woman of about Annie’s age; she said her name was Officer Taylor, and told Annie not to sit down but to raise her right hand and swear to tell the truth. Annie swore. Officer Taylor read aloud some of the questions on the application, and Annie answered. Have you ever been a prostitute? Have you ever failed to pay federal or state taxes? Have you been a member of the Communist Party? Have you ever lied to obtain an immigration benefit? Have you ever been arrested? Yes, Annie said, I have. Tell me what happened, Officer Taylor said.
The lawyer had told Annie to state the facts, and she did. “I took money from a bank while I was employed there, in 1985. I went to jail for it. I was in jail for six months.” The lawyer handed Officer Taylor a packet of documents, with the certified court records, and the letters of support, along with Annie’s declaration of the facts. Officer Taylor took them without comment, and then asked Annie seven of the civics questions. Annie got all of them right. Annie then read a sentence in English, and wrote a sentence in English. “You passed the civics and English test,” Officer Taylor said. “If you’ve ever been arrested I can’t approve your application until a supervisor signs off on it. We’ll let you know. That’s all for today.” How long will it take to let me know, Annie asked. As long as it takes, Officer Taylor said.
In the waiting room, Annie asked the lawyer, “What do you think?” The lawyer said Annie had to wait; Officer Taylor was fair and experienced. In a month or two, Annie would get the decision. Annie waited a month with increasing fear; she was sure that the longer the immigration service took to decide on her case, the greater the likelihood that her application would be denied and she would be placed in deportation proceedings. She called the lawyer, who said that she had not yet received the decision. “See if you can forget about the application, forget that you are waiting,” the lawyer said. “Then when the decision comes, you will think it’s been a short time.” Hah! Annie thought. Forget that everything is at stake, forget that I could be deported and never see my family again? Forget that I might be exiled in a foreign land? I can’t forget! She told Craig that she never should have done this, that it was the second biggest mistake of her life to apply for citizenship. Then, when it was almost a month after her interview, she got a thin envelope in the mail from US Citizenship and Naturalization Service. She asked Craig to open it, and she sat down with her head in her hands, to await the news. He opened the envelope, and was silent for a moment. Then he said, “It is for another appointment….let’s see….it’s for the naturalization ceremony. Annie, you got your citizenship!”
Annie, dressed in her best, went to the ceremony with Craig, her three daughters, her four grandchildren, and the entire prayer circle, in October 2011. They each held US flags, and all of them cried when Annie went up the stairs to the podium to get her citizenship certificate. She was one of 50 new citizens that day, from 27 different countries. When her 6 year old grandson asked her, “Nana, what is citizenship?” she laughed and told him, “Freedom, Tyler, freedom from fear.”
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