Part 1/2
By Shay Overstone
January 2021 I wrote my overarching to-do list for the year. Something I could come back to if I became overwhelmed with projects and possibilities. At the top: Apply for citizenship of the United States of America.
I moved to America with my off-on, on-off boyfriend. He asked me if I wanted to live in New York with him. It was a pretty simple decision to me. Choosing between my hometown, Perth Western Australia -one of the most isolated cities in the world- or New York – the hub of culture itself. I told my family and within months my boyfriend and I were wide eyed and afternoon drunk wandering around the Lower East Side and Dimes Square. Living in a tiny room, with a random family in a building behind ChinaTown.
In between filing immigration papers, paying enormous fees, and meeting with lawyers, I rode around a Spring Manhattan on the red Schwinn I’d purchased for $50 from a student in Spanish Harlem. At night, when I couldn’t sleep, I’d ride up the greenway along the east river, delirious from all the lights joining as my vision blurred with dreams that had become realities. The bakery around the corner from the house I grew up in felt as far away as the moon from the deepest parts of the New York subway tunnels.
Life kept moving, years passed, I finally held a green card. A somatic feeling that those bearing the burdens of visas and immigration understand. It’s unusual to build a life somewhere, knowing at any point, a stranger in a cold gray building could take it all away and send you back from where you came.
In my new city, I felt noticed and it made me uncomfortable. Walking along the street in Brooklyn, men would harass me, others would say sexually explicit things. I was always aware of possible repercussions at having no family nearby, no health insurance and earning a living working a minimum wage job. As much as I would like to believe I have the freedom and right, as a woman, to present as I please, there are moments in life when the weight of the risk can be too great. Unavoidable reality enters the chat. I responded to this new found anxiety by wearing baggy, shapeless clothes at all times, avoiding eye contact and keeping my head down. The woman in me shifted.
I’ve been a student at Temple since Spring 2020 transferring with a completed Associates Degree from Borough Manhattan Community College. When the pandemic hit, the cafe I was working at reduced staff by 80%. I was out of a job, scrambling to make ends meet, drowning in papers and exams. All of a sudden I longed for the isolated city and soft salty sands that had raised me. Stipulations of my green card meant I couldn’t leave the country longer than six months without having it revoked. With the Australian borders as tight as they’ve been, the possibility of losing the life I had built in America was too significant. For the time being, I was stuck in the United States. I had to become a citizen of this beautiful, twisted country, though how long the process would take me I wasn’t sure. It cost $750 to become a citizen of America and I hoped with all my heart the government took Discover.
As I filled out the citizenship form, I was taken aback by the questions on the forefront of immigrations mind. Had I ever been a sex worker? Did I have a criminal background? Had I ever been arrested? When looking to learn the values of a country, the immigration process will clarify. In a place where over half of its states have a minimum wage below ten dollars, marijuana is legal yet some are sitting in prison with life sentences for carrying the flower and women are fighting for the right to govern their own bodies- my gut churned at the audacity of the American government. I landed on the question of whether I would bear arms for the country if necessary- with the options being ‘yes’ or ‘no’, there was definitely a correct answer. It was quite bizarre making open-ended promises to the American government in this way. I sat with my own privilege, as someone who had not been forced into war, or fled a country in turmoil, filling out the immigration form was quite straightforward for me.
Although I felt like an alien in many ways, I am a white woman attempting to obtain citizenship in the United States of America. I do not leave my house with the question of whether I will return in the evening, my skin color offers an undeniable security. It’s 2022 and as a woman, I know not to ride the train past 11:00pm or wander through certain neighborhoods alone but as a white woman, I know if i was to be murdered, the crime would likely be investigated. If I was to be stopped by police, my perfect English and skin color are indisputable factors impacting the outcome. In the process of becoming a citizen, I was accepting the grotesque history of this country and potentially entering into systems that have and continue to oppress. My thoughts were heavy and unsettled. What was I indirectly agreeing to?
I had experienced a period of housing insecurity living in New York, so when the form requested I input the past five years of residences, my eyes almost got stuck in the back of my head having rolled them so hard. It was difficult to return to these memories of such frightening moments in my life. I had been a woman, alone, on the other side of the world, unsure of where I may be sleeping in two or three days. Trying to complete my papers and finish assignments so I didn’t butcher my GPA. Spending $5 on zucchini and broccoli at the market, suppressing my appetite with cigarettes here and there.
I was also required to provide the past five years of employment, another tedious task. I’d left numerous places for horrible working conditions, barely there pay or abuse from management. At a cafe in Philly, I asked my manager if I could sit down, if it wasn’t busy, while I ate on my fifteen minute break. At first, he insinuated I was lazy because I wanted to sit down while I ate. When I didn’t budge, he told me that legally, he was actually not required to allow me a break and he was right. Many times throughout my life in America, I had been forced to face the fact that justice was only permitted to those who could afford it. It has been nine years since I arrived here. Through these years I have experienced social upheaval, varying variants, democracy questioned, broken hearts and purpose found. As I finished up my walk down memory lane, I arrived at the end of the form in disbelief. Is this my life? Will I become an American citizen? My alien daze coming to an end. It felt as if I’d entered the country a little girl and through poverty, willpower and sheer delirium, been raised into a woman. I sat at my desk, Discover card in hand, the approved symbol beamed from my laptop and gleamed in my eyes. A plane flew through the winter sky outside my bedroom window. Would my application be approved? All there was left to do now was wait.