a journey of transformation
This is the story of my real 90 day fiancé: the timeline, the legal and financial hurdles, the joy, the frustrations, and the reality of our new lives together as a young couple dealing not only with the weight of an inane immigration system but the difficulties of cross-cultural relationships as well.
Another admission: this is the first bell hooks work I’ve read cover to cover (I’m a terrible Oberlin grad, lol!) Anyway…I chose this book out of intrigue with the first sentence of the back cover description: “The word ‘love’ is most often defined as a noun, yet…we would all love better if we used it…
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WAIT–What’s a 90 Day Fiancé? If anyone has watched the TLC show, they have some notion of what a 90 day fiancé is. Except, if you’ve watched the show and know nothing else, your idea would be very skewed, melodramatic, and scripted since the way those couples were portrayed–their relationships and finances–wouldn’t pass the sniff test…
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October 14, 2015 The best way I could write this was as a letter to my husband: Dear Efrem, One year. It’s been one long year, and yet it’s only been one year. One year since you stepped foot in the United States. One year since we got the privilege of beginning our lifelong journey together.…
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Day 308: Aug. 17—Green Card In Production We finally had gotten back to having work and school schedules that lined up with each other, meaning we would get to spend mornings and evenings together rather than the tumultuousness of him dropping the car off to me mid-afternoon, his taking the bus to work, him working…
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August 7, 2015: EAD Part 3 Today was supposed to be a good day. I had a morning meeting that would potentially have promising results, we had a great afternoon lunch, and we had plans to go bar hopping in our neighborhood with friends and our puppy on his new, very helpful, no-pull leash. We even managed…
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July 9, 2015 So early Monday morning (like 2 am) I get an email from USCIS “On June 29, 2015, we terminated your Form I765, APPLICATION FOR EMPLOYMENT AUTHORIZATION, Receipt Number XXXXXXX, because the applicant or petitioner received a status or benefit through other means.” I was so exhausted, but I had to get up and try…
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May 1, 2015 Efrem called back to immigration and finally got through and conferenced me in so I could listen. But nothing they said was what we wanted to hear. We told them we had moved, that we had changed our address, and that we had not received the EAD card yet. He said they…
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April 28, 2015 All I can recommend is that you DO NOT move while you’re in the middle of this process. Just don’t do it. Because USCIS apparently can’t handle a simple change of address. They say the can, they even have this nice, tidy online form that you can fill in and submit without having to…
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