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Brown in America

My big fat fingerprinting

By: Santosh :+: Under: Brown in America, Immigration
On: ⋅ February 13, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment
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There was plenty of windex, fo shizzle.

It all started with an innocuous looking envelope in the mail from USCIS. In the envelope was a place and a time and a not so veiled threat to “be there or else …”. There comes a time in every immigrant’s life in the US and A, when they’re fingerprinted. There are two ways of looking at this:
1. “Oh cool! I will soon be getting permanent resident card, more popularly known as the green card. Even though it says permanent it’s only good for 10 years after which I’ve to get fingerprinted again if I’m not a citizen by then.”
2. “Bloody hell! They will be taking my fingerprints like police back in India takes fingerprints for criminals. Vaat nonsense.”

Whichever way you look at it, it’s got to be done, or like my appointment letter said, ” … or else …. “.

My appointment was at 9am and I’ll freely admit I’m no morning person. But for once I skipped being on Indian Standard Time and showed up at 8:20am, a full 40 minutes early! Somewhere a desi uncle shook his head in utter disappointment. I thought I was early but the guy in front of me had already arrived for his appointment which was not until 12noon. The dour-faced guard calmly asked him to come back closer to time and let me in, but not without the usual battery of security questions.

The waiting room, full of aspiring or current immigrants, in different stages and circumstances of immigration, is quite a spectacle. Hey, I even saw a couple of desis, one middle aged moustached guy and a lady in her late 20s/early 30s. “Desis acknowledging other desis in Amrika” deserves a dedicated post or maybe even a website for itself, so I’ll summarize. I smiled and nodded at both, in acknowledgement. The desi uncle returned a stare that could burn a hole though me. The lady on the other hand, turned her head. I’m not sure how it works. If a desi guy smiles at you (even in acknowledgement), he is surely trying to patofy you. Or maybe it’s just my ugly mug. Anyway, in my experience on any given day if you acknowledge a cross section of desis, and 25% of them return the favor, you’re doing good.

After filling out a form and waiting for no longer than 10 minutes past my appointment time, my token number was called. They ushered me into a room where multiple people were being photographed and fingerprinted. Yipee, photo time!! I’ve come to the conclusion that all government cameras in Amrika are racist. Either that or as I mentioned previously it is all probably my ugly mug. In my 8+ years in this country, I’ve never had the pleasure of having a single government issued photo id that remotely resembled the person I stare at in the mirror.
USCIS official: “Sir, that is how your photo will look on your PR card.”
***thinking to myself ***: “Eyes not shut. check. Not cross eyed. check.”
To her: “Yea that looks great.”
I’ve come to accept things as they are and as long as my eyes aren’t shut or crossed in the photograph proof, I’ve learnt to ok them.

And then it was fingerprinting time. Paper towels were windexed, fingers were scrubbed and repeatedly held onto a scanner, initially all at once, then one by one, there was no permutation and combination of fingers left unexplored. 5 excruciating minutes (felt longer than that) later, I was done. Oh wait, one set of prints has to be redone. Windex, scrub, scan, there all done! The staff was polite and friendly, a distant cry from the immigration officials you encounter in American consulates in India.

When I stepped out it was 9:26am, 68 degrees Farenheit on a beautiful spring morning in Jacksonville, Florida, which in these last 8+ years has slowly become the place I consider home, maybe a home away from home, but home never the less. My fingers reeked from all the Windex. But surely all that windex should take care of any psoriasis and poison ivy. Thus begins the eternal wait for the green card, which by the way, is actually a credit card like entity that is indeed green in color.

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