American Aussie
by
Roger Bond
Copyright 2011 by Roger Bond
Smashwords Edition
American Aussie. © 2011 Roger Bond. All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
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ISBN 978-1-4524-6122-9
Chapter 3 – Let's Get It Started!
Chapter 4 – Medical Examination
Chapter 7 – Nails Bitten Down To Stubs
Chapter 10 – Time To Get a Job
Chapter 12 – Interview Time, Again
Thankyou my Li'l Darling, I couldn't have done it without you.
You Little Beauty
Finally, we landed. Still the fun of going through immigration to go, but at least we were here. The United States of America.
After almost thirty hours of continuous travel, including a six hour stop at Heathrow and three hours in transit in Singapore, the trip from Perth, Western Australia to New York's JFK airport was certainly no walk in the park. Whilst the flights had taken a fair while, no doubt, the relief of landing was primarily due to the culmination of a two and a half year journey. I mean process…well ordeal would be more accurate. Make that completely accurate.
Watching an early episode of Neighbours (an Australian soap-opera) one night at dinner with my wife, Bella, one of the main characters said something about a lottery he had entered. He’d then be able to go and live and work in America as a permanent resident, as his desire was to be with his girlfriend who was moving to the US and they didn’t want to be apart. Fair enough, then I thought, wait on, I’ve heard something about this.
Without thinking too much about what I was about to ask, I consulted my wife, “What do you think about going and living in America?”.
“Yeah sure”, she agreed, “but you have to look into it all and find out about everything.”
“Yep, no worries!” I say excitedly like a naïve child with no concept of the idea that I have. This marvelous idea of mine, has since formed a personal motto that, “nothing is ever easy”. Not, nothing worth doing, just nothing, is ever easy.
We had previously travelled to the US for a month on our honeymoon, visiting Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York, really enjoying our time everywhere. For those who haven’t been to the center of the world (yes, it is), whilst Europe is fascinating in its beautiful historic architecture and heart-touching art, Asia being breathtakingly enticing in its incomparable variety of eastern delicacies and modern cityscapes, there is no place I’ve ever felt more comfortable, than in the land of the Old Glory. I do believe though, ten hours a day, over thirty plus years of a steady diet of American TV and many hundreds of movies, may have had a touch to do with my sentiments…
By the way, I should mention now that our honeymoon was prior to 9/11, whereas our application for permanent residency was subsequent.
After determining that the US was the place to be, my wife and I decided that we should apply for the Diversity Visa (DV) Lottery, more commonly known as the green card lottery. This lottery, that is conducted yearly by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), is open to people worldwide. We had applied twice prior and yes, the third time was a charm for us. After completing the online forms and submitting digital photos of ourselves, we hoped and prayed for an envelope to arrive.
Incidentally, this was the first year the USCIS allowed digital photos to be taken and used with an online form submission – previously the requirement was to print the numerous forms and photos, then send the whole package via the postal service to the processing center in Kentucky.
What made the application process more harrowing, was the lack of communication allowed to follow-up your submission. Basically if you win you’re notified, if you don’t win, then you just wonder whether your submission was completed correctly, if the photos were the specified size and whether even the postman did his job right – either in the US or Australia. Once you’re tired of wondering about these things and for that matter minor details as to whether or not the sun will rise the next day, you just have to (eventually) accept it wasn’t your time – yet.
So this waiting and wishing happened twice for us – submissions are due in October and the drawing starts in about March of the following year. We heard absolutely nothing for each of these two prior submissions. Actually, if you haven’t received anything by the following September, then that’s it really. This allows you to then apply for the next year. That’s a lot of expected visits to the mailbox and having your hopes dashed, I can tell you. Not fun. Well the anticipation is, but the reality after just finding the power bill, is no fun at all. Luckily I tend to be an optimist, or perhaps just on the sane side side of crazy/hopeful?
So once again, this time with the latest submission in the lottery being done online, my daily routine continued. This consisted of firstly arriving home from work and opening the mailbox (praying that the nosy neighbor doesn’t come out to greet me) or was it to be Pandora’s Box, the Lost Ark or even Aladdin’s Lamp (I hoped). Would this box that would contain all my wishes for the future that I'd been quietly praying for every night, finally, reveal treasures within?
Started out just like a regular day, bus ride into the city was the usual, nothing out of the ordinary had happened at work. Even the weather was the same as it had been all week, but this time I'd finally received an envelope! A big, beautiful, heavy, white, letter-sized envelope, with the seal of the United States of America in the top left hand corner.
Let me tell you, the tears welled in my eyes with the prospect of things to come – a future that would not involve the be-dreaded drudge to the unholiest of places (the office) – was within my grasp.
Firstly, a call to my wife at her work telling her my hopes for the contents of the day’s mail. As we'd received an envelope each, I was reluctant to open mine yet, as I wanted to do them together. Maybe I was a little scared too, that it would be bad news...
She was all nervous on the phone, I could tell in her voice, “yeah, so, I’m busy, I’ll see you when I get home, bye”, she affirms in her oh-so romantic way of dealing with me tone.
“Okay, see-ya soon” I try perkily. I waited patiently, yet somewhat nervously for Bella to arrive home.
My envelope was sitting there on the kitchen counter, with me staring directly at it, in my mind thinking “please, please, please,…” imagining the contents.
Two hours later, I’m in a cat-like, wide-eyed state of anticipation, literally on the edge of my seat, staring into infinity, when I am snapped out of it by the garage door's familiar whirring sound of the automated opener springing into action! Yay, she's home at last!
“Hurry up - let's take a photo first, then we'll open them!” I say pointing at the camera setup ready for a photo of the two of us holding the envelopes with big smiles. Flash!
Then we’re straight into tearing them open - the first line reads, “Congratulations! You have been selected in the DV…”. You little beauty. We kiss and hug each other ever so tightly. The emotion completely consumes me, just as good news always does.
Forms, Forms...
Within the following few minutes of opening the envelope though, we find out that the process isn’t going to be that simple. No like, OK grab the passports, pack some clothes we’re out the door, bye! Yes, my dear boy, not even close.
More forms to fill out. Many more than in the initial application, all in duplicate. The thing with US Government forms is, whilst involved, they do however provide a helpful guide as to how long the form is expected to complete (the “burden” as it’s described). Though with this process, I didn't want to take any chances of even the slightest spelling mistake, so the time component was only a very rough guide. Better be safe than sorry.
We spread all the forms out, over our cold marble dining room table, completely covering it, together with files of other pertinent information we'd accumulated in anticipation of their request for supporting evidence.
Luckily my early career involved clerical work and I considered myself very well organized, so that most of what is being asked of us in these new forms, I'd already documented, or so I thought...
Seriously, this whole process really demands organization of your entire life. My thoughts of being organized were slightly foolish – although I can now bestow upon myself at least one title, that of an OFA or Organizing-Filing-Architect. This applies to ensuring hard copies are in order, scanning them and syncing these electronic files and folders across all my devices – the Apple Mac, iPhone, iPad through the iCloud (I know, right?).
When it comes to computers, everybody knows how the computer age has made things better (well that is to say for the most part, I think we can agree on). Besides using less paper, one scenario that has reduced, is the number of incidents where people are mistaken as often, as now there is a quick and efficient way to check a bountiful load of information – at the touch of a button. Actually, with voice recognition now, it's even easier than that. I'm sure that in the olden days, apart from hearsay in a small town, search time to confirm and cross-reference information for any discrepancies, in the mountains of paper records filed away at the department's headquarters in the big-smoke, would previously have been a never-ending process, or otherwise they'd just give-up and “take your word for it”. So nowadays, basically lying on any form is out of the question. I'm sure immigrating through Ellis Island 120 years ago was not quite as thorough as the process is today.
Unfortunately, however, a lot of problems in the modern age will come down to data-entry. A human error when entering data inefficiently, turns into a phone call with a customer service officer on the other end stating “...well the computer says you have three children from Mars, so I’m sorry….blah, blah, blah, is there anything more I can help you with today?” – “help”, please…Unless “help” is now defined as having your calendar for the next month being subsequently filled with follow-up emails and calls, then no, there has been ZERO, “help” - Mutha*!...
When filling out these forms, please ensure, the attention is in the details. Write clearly and precisely – no chicken scratchings or hieroglyphics.
After dinner, with our adrenaline still pumping from the envelope opening gala, with a strong desire to complete the forms quickly so we can send them back asap, we decide that before we start entering in the piles of information, to give Bella’s parents a call. First reason being to tell them the good news and secondly to let them know we’ll be contacting our New Jersey cousins (to be specific my mother-in-law's cousins). Why contact the cousins? – well in particular the form has a field asking for a US contact address (not specifically stated as required as such on the form, the field may be left blank, but one of those things like you just feel will be better if you have one). Fortunately for us, we had one and we were going to use it.
We actually stayed with the cousins on our honeymoon five years prior. Other family members on my wife’s side had also made the pilgrimage, so the extended family were not at all worried by two prospective visitors from Down Under.
On our honeymoon, we had stayed for over a week at our Auntie’s (or Zia, the Italian translation as we so affectionately know her) house. Zia lives on the second floor of a three story building with her son, Tony, and his wife in their home on the top floor, with each floor being a self-contained unit (known as a multi-family home in the US).
When we stayed with Zia after our wedding, she was 89 (recently we had a celebration for her 100th birthday). One of the best and wisest people I have ever met. Herself an immigrant at the age of 19, survived through the depression. She can never say enough about Franklin D Roosevelt and I can’t hear enough. High time we saw more policies and strength like his.
Zia told me to think of her as my American grandma – and I do, as my grandma (Australian) is easily one of the most wise and kind people I have had the pleasure of knowing. Unfortunately my grandma passed from cancer at the age of 93. Still, she remained very quick-minded and healthy up to about six months before passing (I believe the exercise from playing golf for many years certainly helped her fitness – plus she was a non-smoker, whereas her youngest sister was married to a smoker and died at 85 and her second younger sister smoked until she died at 83). Certainly, I consider myself very fortunate to have met these two strong women.
Meeting the NJ family was great for me and particularly my wife as she was able to meet relatives she had previously only talked with on the phone. Some of the most friendly and welcoming people I’ve ever had the pleasure in meeting and feel humbled to call them friends. Zia had actually been Down Under to visit her Australian relatives – in particular her brother’s daughter, my mother-in-law who herself immigrated directly from Italy to Australia. The US cousins always seem to find it funny the Italian immigrants to Australia are known as Italian-Australians, as I guess they’re more familiar with the term Italian-Americans. I’m fifth generation Australian, with an Irish/English/French heritage (a mongrel) and I really enjoy the Italian culture, from food to art to sport to cars, they are a very passionate people. Meeting my wife, her parents and family is something I’m eternally grateful for. Our children will be brought up to know this part of their heritage too – as I do cook a sensational Spaghetti Bolognese…
We call Tony in NJ to discuss our matter at hand. We hadn’t really corresponded more than Christmas cards, perhaps a phone call or letter here and there, since the honeymoon, but as with any friend whenever you catch up, you know who they are and they know you. The feelings and the moment is always there to be picked-up from where you left it last time.
“Hi Tony, how are you? It’s Roger from Australia.”, (he has a very generous cousin Roger in Canada too) I say slightly nervously.
“Hi Roger!”, Tony says in his always happy tone.
I then go into our plans so far and what we’re hoping to do and he‘s like “Wow!-Really?” in a congratulatory, yet appreciably concerned manner. He’s of course agreeable to our request to have his contact address listed on the form and asks us to keep him informed of the progress.
We write down our answers on scratch paper before filling out the form, as requesting a new form could easily take an eternity to receive, so better not to take the risk.
Tirelessly we then complete the forms making sure the small-caps are legible and the numerals are all clear. The few forms outline something like at total of 35 minutes to complete (ha!). We took our time and so after about 4 hours making sure the i’s were dotted and the t’s crossed, we were ready for the next phase.
Let's Get It Started!
After mailing the forms, now almost a year later, we've heard nothing. We wait patiently for that all important notification letter.
The letter we are so anxiously awaiting is the one to let us know of an appointment for a meeting/interview with the US Consulate. The package we received in March, completed and returned, included an all important “Alien (Case) Number” to be included with all correspondence. Our forms were returned in April. We were advised in the package they sent in March that the processing time does take awhile and to await the interview date. We then waited and waited - and waited some more. You almost need to have the mind-set that, it doesn't really matter if they don't receive it or if something went wrong...really you just have to be patient, really patient. Like waiting for that special, extremely rare item you've spent the last week watching on eBay and finally won at the very last second, to arrive via USPS. Multiplied by a thousand.
You can check online for when your case number is being “called” at the USCIS website. I did this on a regular basis (if you consider hourly regular) for almost eight months at least. They didn’t really start to even issue the case numbers until September, so almost a year had actually passed since we first applied (can anyone say “bureaucracy”?).
Telling my parents was something I had been delaying as they are slightly judgmental (I’m in a fit of laughter on the ground at my own under-statement, but then again, a lot of parents are this way unfortunately, maybe it stems from love…) and I didn’t want to advise them of anything until I had that Diversity Visa squarely in the palm of my hand.
As we had no insight as to how to progress after sending the forms back (other than waiting patiently) we hadn’t even started preparing things around the house. Maybe we had given a small thought here and there as to what we might pack to take with us if we were successful, but not really giving too much concern as to any particular steps we should've been taking. We were thinking of where we could stay, considering accommodations and areas, all the new things we could experience.
Immigrating in the old days would have been a serious pain without the blessing of the Internet. Google maps – Thank you. Even just Google as a search engine...magic. Then there's everyone who has ever created a website with useful information. Particularly forums for expats who share their experiences to help the uninformed (or naïve). I realize that some of these sites are filled with ads, there are others that are complete scams to be aware of, that promise to expedite your green-card processing for exorbitant fees, but I believe generally people are good-natured and want to help by passing on the information. Just take some sites with a grain of salt here and there.
Furthermore, when a change as big as moving to another country comes into play, with so many factors to take into consideration, I was still concurrently living my day-to-day life. All the Birthdays, Christmas, Christenings, Weddings, having friends over for dinner, going to work, exercising, reading books, watching TV, paying bills, etc are all business as usual.
Then one day I arrive home from work, checking the mail on the way in and there’s an Express USPS (United States Postal Service) envelope addressed to us. The return address is listed as Tony’s, so I figure he’s sent on to us something he’s received in the mail from USCIS, as he is listed as our contact address.