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I’m one of those travelers who went to South America for a 3 month adventure and didn’t come home.  I met and fell in love with Monito, the man who would become my husband, when I visited Cusco, Peru, and my return flight to New York left without me on it.  I decided not to go home to work deadlines, bills, and stress, and opted instead to try Monito’s lifestyle for a while, the life of an artesan traveling around South America. Eventually, two years later, I was itching to come home, and missing the faces and voices of loved ones, and certain creature comforts after living out of a backpack on the road for such a long time.  Monito agreed to check out life in the U.S. for a while, and we planned to work and save money so we could travel to other parts of the world in the future. I’d assumed getting a permanent residential visa to the U.S. for Monito would be simple considering that he’s married to a U.S. citizen, a matter of filling out forms and a short wait period.  But in the post-September 11th world, nothing about obtaining a visa is easy, especially when you combine the red tape and bureaucracies of both Peru and the United States.  From beginning to end, it took 4 months to get the visa, but there was nothing simple or linear about this process.  Along the way we learned our marriage was not legal in the eyes of the Peruvian authorities, and had to remedy that, we encountered all of the hassles of bureaucracy at its very worst, and we were forced to make a trip to Brazil for some additional documentation. We felt like we were lost in a swamp most of the time, flailing along, transacting with inhuman robots.  One day when I called the U.S. Embassy in Lima asking to speak to someone in INS with a question about the requirements I was informed, "I suggest that in the future you remember to refer to the Department of Homeland Security, it's no longer INS."

The U.S. Embassy in Lima, Peru.

Before you can even bring your visa application to the U.S. Embassy, you have to first get your marriage license and birth certificate authenticated by RENIEC (Registro Nacional de Identidad y Estado Civil) and later by the Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores.  Each office confirms the signatures of the previous, so RENIEC was supposed to confirm the signature on our marriage license, and the Ministerior de Relaciones Exteriores would confirm the RENIEC official’s signature. Monito and I received a rude shock when we went to legalize our marriage license with the required stamp and seal, only to find out that the Mayor of Machupicchu pueblo who married us in a civil ceremony was not registered with Peru’s national authorities. 

You have to wait on line for several hours to drop off and pick up your certificates at the RENIEC main office in central Lima. This same office is responsible for issuing Peru’s national identity cards and authenticating all kinds of documents, including birth, death, marriage certificates, school transcripts, and working papers. After an untold number of phone calls between us in Lima and the Mayor’s office in Machupicchu, we went back, dropped off our documents, and returned 3 days later and waited on line again only to find out that the Mayor still hadn’t faxed his signature card to RENIEC. We were beside ourselves. Only after we threatened to go to the press and file official complaints with the Peruvian government, the Mayor’s office took action. They found it more convenient to mail us new marriage licenses with someone else’s signature rather than registering the Mayor with RENIEC, I know not why.

But we dutifully carried these new certificates off to RENIEC, taking our place in the long lines, coming back 3 days later and queing up again, fully expecting to finally pick up our approved certificates.  When we were told that this new certificate was rejected too, I lost it.  By this point, we’d spent so many days back and forth, so many hours of our lives on line at RENIEC, even the guards at this impersonal edifice knew us.  As it 
turned out, my crocodile tears did more for us than the idiots at the municipality of Machupicchu ever did.  RENIEC decided to go ahead and approve the new signature on our marriage license, so they stamped and sealed our document, and then we went off to the Ministerior de Relaciones Exteriores which was smooth sailing by comparison.
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All of this was before we ever set foot in the U.S. Embassy!  What they ask for initially is deceptively simple, at least for some. -  A $110 application fee, copies of the marriage and birth certificates, and a simple biographical application, which includes an address and work history.  Here’s where we went wrong.  We were 100% truthful, and listed every place Monito has ever lived.  That’s 10 countries in the last 15 years. A week later, the embassy sent us a more comprehensive application of all the things we’d have to bring to our “personal interview” 6 weeks later - my tax returns for the last 3 years, evidence of financial support for Monito, an expensive medical exam for Monito including chest x-rays to prove he doesn’t have TB and immunizations, and worst of all, his police records from every place he lived for longer than 12 months since he was 16 years old. In addition to Peru, the country of his birth, that included Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil. Monito’s family had advised us at the outset to go see a transmitador for professional help with the visa application, but I scorned that suggestion as something for people who don’t know how to read instructions. Stupid me! Had we sought some advice at the outset from people who know, we could have learned how to play this game.  But I still had faith at that point that the system can work in your favor if you are thorough and patient. Monito and I went off to the embassies for Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil in Lima, and learned that if he wanted to get his police record, he’d have to actually go to each country, because police records are personal.  However, because he was in these countries illegally having overstayed his tourist visa in each case, we were told that the security force had no way to search their data base for him because he was not officially registered in their system.  We figured the fact that he was illegal was his exoneration from the requirement.

Everyone else seemed to know to arrive early to get on line since people were attended to in the order of arrival.  We played Go Fish with one of the children for the next 3 hours while we waited.  When we were finally called to window 12, we handed over our documents to the only medium friendly person we met during the entire process, a Limeñan woman who asked us questions through the thick glass about where we met and married.  She asked us for photos, and we handed over some, which she rubber banded together, but our wedding album didn’t fit through the slot in the glass, so she passed on a viewing.  She told us that Monito’s police records from Colombia and Venezuela weren’t required, but the vice consul who’d be interviewing us would have to decide about Brazil.

We went back to our bench to wait, and soon we were called to door 15 by someone with a hideous gringo accent in Spanish. I’d been watching people go up to that door all morning, emerging in various emotional states ranging from elation to desolation. I watched a little girl with her ear pressed to the door while you could hear her mother inside saying, “No sea malo,” (a popular expression when you don’t like someone’s response to something, which means “Don’t be bad.”) and she emerged in tears. 

The moment of truth. Monito and I entered door 15 together, and the vice consul sat behind yet another thick pane of glass.  He had the head guy in charge attitude.  He asked initially if Monito spoke English, and I said, “My Spanish is better than his English, so let’s do Spanish.” He then proceeded to speak in English almost the entire time for what was supposed to be Monito’s interview for his visa.  He obviously could speak Spanish when he wanted to, it’s a requirement that consular officers are bilingual, he just preferred to deal with me, the fellow American. He never made eye contact with us because he was busy looking at his computer screen.  It was very disconcerting, but it soon became clear why.

First he asked Monito in his ridiculously bad gringo accent in Spanish where and when we met. Monito recited the facts. Demonstrating his arrogance and impatience, he switched right back to English, and asked what I was doing in Cusco, and then followed up by asking me for the dates when Monito lived in Brazil, all the while playing with his computer.  Without looking at me, he delivered the devastating news that he would not give Monito his visa because the Department of the State (via his computer screen) was telling him the Brazilian police records are available and are required.
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Alarmed that our future plans and designs on arriving in the U.S. by summertime were disintegrating before my eyes, I argued with the consul in English while poor Monito just sat there unaware of what was being determined about his own future. I tried to explain to the consul that we’d been to the Brazilian Embassy, and he was asking us to do the impossible because no records are generated for immigrants living in a country without a visa.  I offered to show him Monito’s old passport to demonstrate Monito had never been deported (normally when you’re deported you receive a large red stamp in your passport), but he declined.  In all of my best efforts at reasoning, I made no headway with consul. He said, “The fact that you’re telling me that he was illegal is no excuse. If anything, it’s more troubling.” “Actually, he entered as a tourist and overstayed his visa, something people do all the time. But the point is that it means that he was there without a residential visa and therefore, the police have no manner to search for his records, he does not EXIST in Brazil.” “Just because it’s difficult to get the records doesn’t mean it’s impossible.  My computer is telling me the records are available.” At that point, I finally got a hold of myself, and I said, “Okay, my husband needs to understand what’s being required of him. Vamos a hablar en español.”  But it was me, not the consul, who gave Monito a brief run down of what had just transpired. Finally, the consul said one thing to Monito in Spanish:  “So, your application here says you’re going to Paterson, New Jersey? It seems like all the Peruvians are going to Paterson.  There’s quite a large Peruvian community there.”  Quite the social anthropologist, the jerk! I teared up at one point during the interview when I explained to Monito, “We’re not getting the visa, we have to go to Brazil.”  I put my head on his shoulder and I whispered, “I just want to go home.”  At the end of our interview, he passed back the rest of our photos still rubber banded together through the slot in the glass window that he’d never so much as glanced at.  He gave us a literal pink slip which showed we’d been rejected for the visa, which also said we could come back any day at 10am once we had the police record from Brazil. Monito scolded me when we left, and said never cry because it means they win.  “That’s what they want,” he said, “to break us down. Your tears are gold to them.”

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The worst part for me was going back home to Monito’s family and having to hear them say, “I told you it wasn’t so easy.”  When we relayed our negative experience, cousin Rosa commented, “See, that’s how the gringos are.” (A dig at me, because I’m a gingo too, right?) Monito’s family in Lima who we’d been staying with while we dealt with the visa were somewhat hostile to us, ostensibly because the idea of their hippie artesan nephew/cousin getting a visa to the U.S. - something they all wanted in hopes of reuniting with other family members in New York and New Jersey - before any of them was an offense. 

Rosa told us the story of how her sister struggled to get visas for her children to join their parents in the states because the U.S. consular officer raised doubts that the children were fathered by her husband when they analyzed photos.  They asked for Baptism certificates, more photos, military records etc. before the application was finally approved.  Then we were treated to a rehashed version of the sad story of Monito’s younger brother Aquiles who paid a transmitador to help him with the visa application process, and the psuedo professional absconded with Aquiles’ Peruvian passport, his national identity card, bank card, and all of his other official documents, leaving Aquiles high and dry.

Tia Julia said if only Monito didn’t have long hair and dress funny he wouldn’t have been rejected.  She pointed out that her brother made offerings at their church and he traveled to the U.S. safely with someone else’s passport.  But her cousin, on the other hand, went to the U.S. without making an offering, and he was deported at the border.  “You can’t be cheap with God,” she said.  “God doesn’t want money,” Monito said. 

“You’re missing the point,” I said. “Monito is trying to get a legal visa as a permanent resident, and he’s trying to do it his way, and no-one can impose their way of life on him.”

“Bueno,” said Tia Julia, “At least he shouldn’t have written he’s going to Paterson on his application if that’s where the consul said all the Peruvians are going, he should have written he’s going to stay at his Tio German’s.”  As it happens, Tio German lives in Jackson Heights, Queens, immigrant capital of the world!

Seeing no way out, a couple of weeks later, we found ourselves in Rio de Janeiro.  Brazil is an amazing place, - the jungle, the beaches, the mix of people, the rich culture, the bright colors, the way the people talk with their hands, - and I’m glad I had the opportunity to visit previously, because this time we didn’t go to explore or have fun.  We arrived under a lot of pressure - financial and emotional - and with a deadline to achieve what appeared to be the impossible.  In our two weeks there we spent 8 days inside buses and we visited 5 states in this enormous country; Rio in Rio de Janeiro, Recife in Pernambuco, Joao Pessoa in Paraiba, Teofolo Otoni in Minas Gerais, and Salvador in Bahia.

The reason we visited so many places is that Monito lived all over the place when he was in Brazil, and the U.S. Embassy requires police records from each and every state in which he lived in addition to a federal police record.  This requirement seemed beyond the beyond to me, but I was helpless to do anything about it. I contacted my New York State senators, but I never got a reply.

Cut to Rio de Janeiro Federal Police Department.  Naturally they said they couldn’t do anything for him if he didn’t have his cartao de extrañjheria (residential visa).  The Brazilian Federal Police confiscated Monito’s passport for a while to make sure he wasn’t illegal now.  Monito speaks Portuguese, but they still didn’t get it for a good while, but when it finally sunk in why we were there, they had a good laugh at the U.S. government, and wrote a very sarcastic letter to the “North American authorities” indicating that Monito has no federal police record in Brazil. 

While we waited for our letter, we watched the police force come in to sign out their 2 ½ foot rifles and load them with racks of bullets the size of pinky fingers.  Monito amused himself by playing his ever present quenachu (an Andean wind instrument like a flute), but was asked (commanded) “Toca despois” to stop, because he was told that the police could not concentrate.

Next we turned our attention to getting the state police records, and took a 48 hour bus ride to Joao Pessoa, complete with a flat tire and various other mechanical failures.  We sat in the back of the bus with families with small children sharing food and stories, and by the end of the ride it seemed like we’d made friends for life. Brazil is so huge a country that everyone travels by bus, and the rest stops are very well equipped with showers, cafeterias, salad bars, and restaurants at various price ranges.  The Brasileras did themselves up daily, nevermind that the bus was hot and sweaty, they were in spaghetti strap halter tops and full make up.  They even put red lip stick on their baby girls of 3 years old!

We didn’t make any friends on our next long bus ride between Salvador and Rio, however, but maybe that’s because by that time we were scratching our heads furiously and picking eggs out of each other’s hair, lice (piojos in Spanish, piolios in Portuguese) picked up somewhere in route.

In Joao Pessoa we were told they couldn’t process Monito’s request for his criminal record until he went to the federal police and applied for a document that would give him legal resident status (as opposed to tourist status) in Brazil because they only create police records for Brazilians and legal residents of Brazil.  But we needed this police document to cover the time he lived in Brazil in 1999-2000, not for now, and now he wanted to be a tourist, not a resident of Brazil.  We were going in maddening circles! 

Long story short, by hook or by crook, with charm, tears, sweat, persuasion, and luck, we prevailed, and we ended up with the 4 official police documents that we needed. And mind you, we were successful NOT because Mr. Vice Consul’s computer said it was possible, but because we convinced various officials in Brazil to do us a favor and break rules of procedure, because normally they don’t create police documents for persons who were in their country illegally.

While we were in Brazil we took lots of photos as “evidence” that we were really in Brazil to show the U.S. Embassy back in Lima.  As soon as we arrived in Lima, we went right to the embassy armed with a mountain of receipts, maps, and photos from our visit, and of course the police documents. 

But the women behind the glass window finished her transaction with us in a matter of seconds.  She barely looked at the documents that caused us so much agony. She didn’t ask for any evidence of our trip to Brazil. The only other thing she asked us for was a translation, and I was glad I’d had the foresight to translate the Portuguese to English and Spanish (you can’t leave any stone unturned with the embassy).  We just stood at the window dumbstruck that all of our work amounted to a two second interaction. The woman behind the window said Monito could return in 5 hours and pick up his visa.  We stood there.  She said, “You can go now.”

And go we did.

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