I have begun to suspect my wife - by mostevilangel

[kpete]

I have begun to suspect my wife. (Updated w/ thanks)
by mostevilangel

Sat Apr 24, 2010 at 08:25:10 PM PDT

My wife is a wonderful woman. We have only been married 6 months or so, but we dated for 4 years before that. From our first date, we were best friends. We have been, since that first dinner and a movie and stroll through a bookstore afterwards, completely comfortable with each other. She has a silly, gentle sense of humor that I treasure. She accepts my many flaws without reproach or even comment. She loves to cook, keeps the house far cleaner than I ever could, and has told me in no uncertain terms that yard work is "man's work" and that I better keep the lawn mowed. She feels like a true partner, someone who has my back, shares my joys, eases my pains, makes my life more full simply by being a part of it.

But she looks so damn illegal.

Originally, she hails from Guatemala. I'm from the deep south - I tell people she's from the deep, deep, deep south. I've never had a problem with her ancestors coming from somewhere different than mine. My family loves her and has from the start.

But over the last few days, I've noticed a change. Her tan skin, her jet black hair (which she insists is just a very dark brown) - the sight of these fills me with a vague and nagging unease. Her accent, which I alwasy found adorable, catches in my ears now like briars in blue jeans. When she mixes up her j's and y's, tells me it's so jummy to cuddle with me in the morning - I feel a chill run down my spine whereas before, I would laugh and tease her. Could she be one of Them?

I mean, I know we're married. Hell, I was at the wedding - there are pictures to prove it. But papers? Where are they? I've never seen them. I poked around her desk and files and even rummaged through her purse the other day when she was jogging, but I didn't find anything to prove she's in this country lawfully.

more fun:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/4/24/860466/-I-have-begun-to-suspect-my-wife.%28Updated-wthanks%29

[zeemike]

1. Well we had the red scare in the 50s

Now the color is brown.

[shedevil69taz]

2. Don't forget the yellow scare

that started in what was it? 1941? It's sure good to know good old bigotry is alive and well in our great nation. :sarcasm:

[struggle4progress]

19. Oh, the "yellow scare" goes back to at least the Transcontinental Railroad era:

California's anti-oriental prejudice was especially infamous

Jan. 19, 1948: The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow to a 1920 California law aimed at preventing land ownership by Asian immigrants. The Alien Land Law prevented Asian immigrants from owning land in their own name. ACLU plaintiff and U.S. citizen Fred Oyama, then 16, sued after the state attempted to take eight acres his family farmed in present-day Chula Vista. Like other Japanese Americans, the Oyama family was forced into federal camps in 1942. In 1944, while the family was still interned, the state moved to seize the land. Future Secretary of State Dean Acheson joined ACLU/SC counsel Abraham Wirin in arguing Oyama's case before the Supreme Court, which upheld his ownership rights on Jan. 19, 1948. "The State has discriminated against Fred Oyama," the court wrote. "The discrimination is based solely on his parents' country of origin" ... http://www.aclu-sc.org/news_stories/view/102301/

See also
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/documents/docpages/document_page47.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act

[Quantess]

3. Please tell me this is satire.

[Maru Kitteh]

4. You can't tell? Really?

[Quantess]

5. Oh, okay. It's on the DailyKOS. I get it.

I am so used to being amazed by RW stupidity, I am not always confident that I'll know where satire begins.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

6. Poe's Law strikes again. -nt

[Quantess]

18. Thanks for inspiring me to look up "Poe's Law"

http://www.bay-of-fundie.com/archives/1825/poes-law

[pokerfan]

7. Reminded me of the South Park homeless episode....

We knew it wouldn't be long before the homeless actually started buying homes. And then we'd have no idea who was homeless and who wasn't! The people living in the house right next door to you could be homeless and you wouldn't even know! Nobody could trust anybody! That's when I started suspecting that my own wife, who I'd been living with for twenty years, was actually homeless.

[Withywindle]

8. Knife-sharp satire that hits really close to home.

My white Baltimorean park-ranger beatnik father married my Fullbright-scholar-from-Brazil mother after they'd been dating only three months, because there was an INS shotgun hanging over their heads. They had to elope to the nearest state with no mandatory waiting period (Georgia- he worked at Mesa Verde in Colorado but she was in school at University of Alabama; he took a very long train ride to make that happen). They paid some street bum $5 to be their witness and co-signer.

That was in 1968. They're still together. My mom was a public-school teacher for many years in our tiny little Appalachian town after dad got transferred to the Blue Ridge Parkway (teaching Spanish, which was her THIRD language). She finally took American citizenship in the early 90s because she wanted to vote against Bush just that much.

She escaped a right-wing dictatorship (Brazil in the 60s - there's been an excellent book written about it by Caetano Veloso, the Brazilian Bob Dylan of the time, except he actually spent time in jail for being subversive) and knows another one when she sees one.

[Swamp Rat]

9. Caetano Veloso is a nice guy and talented, but he did not really 'experience' the dictatorship

como os pobres. Ele tinha muito sorte ser rico e podia sair do Brasil com Gil, mas os pobres que foram contra a ditadura, eles 'experimentaram' o pau-de-arara. :(

[Withywindle]

10. Sim, you're right.

He didn't really experience the worst - and neither did my mom. She was a teenager in the 60s - a pretty girl from Salvador who just wanted to study and see the world. She was lucky too. She did come from money at the time--all gone now. Exile was the least of the pains that were inflicted--but still painful.

Her brothers still resent her for being lucky enough to escape. But it wasn't all luck, there was a LOT of hard work involved. (And, frankly, being lucky enough to meet a young American who wanted to marry her RIGHT NOW and defy his parents to do so. 40 years later, though, she's very glad she still has her dual citizenship.)

[Swamp Rat]

11. I'm glad your mom made it!

:):hug:O8)



Oba! :D

[Withywindle]

12. Obrigada, but damn.

We went back in summer of '04, and we were hanging out with our family, and they were full of opinions about the US election to come. And they were all like, "yup, it'll be rigged, you'll see," and we were all like, "NO, the American people hate Bush, we're canvassing our asses off, you'll see."


Ummm...:blush: yeah, they were right. That was pretty much my lowest point as a bi-national bi-ethnic American EVER.

[Swamp Rat]

13. coitada

:D

Quasi brigei com um americano no bairro Copacabana do Rio sobre Bushler... o rapaz era fascista e pro-guerra (Irak).... filho da...!

[Withywindle]

14. Ouch.

I have to admit, I didn't meet a single pro-Iraq war, pro-Bush person in all the time we spent in Salvador and Recife.

(I think that's what you mean, right? I can sort of read and understand Portuguese but I can't really write it, pardon me.)

[Swamp Rat]

15. desculpa

I'm an ass for assuming. :D

[Withywindle]

17. For assuming what? No apology necessary.

I WISH I was fluent in Portuguese. But when I was a child, my mom was working on her English and my dad spoke nothing else, so that's what we spoke at home.


I just feel privileged to have had a chance to visit, three times so far in my life, hoping for more.






(there's a musical-instrument shop in the Pelourinho with a sign that says 'Calheira.' That's a son of one of my mother's brothers; that's our family name. I was so proud when I saw it.)

[Withywindle]

16. Reading your post more carefully again, I get it now

You almost got in a fight with an American who backed Bull's bullshit. Now I understand. :(