You Think I Can Come To US?
Chung has a salary now, he tells us proudly. He works for his sister-in-law in Hanoi, minding her store and shaving ice to make lassies for the tourists.
In 1971 Chung graduated from the police academy in Saigon. By 1975 he was the chief of police in a provincial town. Corrupted by the degenerate Southern regime and their American masters, he was sent to a ‘re-education’ camp to learn about the superiority of communism, and has effectively been blacklisted ever since.
Not surprisingly, thirty years later his greatest dream is to emigrate to the US. When he learns that we are from New York, he runs to the back of the store and fetches a copy of a joint US-Vietnamese government press release from three weeks ago.
“You think I can come to US?”
Reading the release, it seems that the latest development in the rapprochement between Vietnam and the US is a new program under which former enemies of the state can emigrate to the US.
The language of the press release is diplomatic, legal, technical, confusing even to a native English-speaker. Candidates must have spent (a) three years in a re-education camp OR (b) two years in a re-education camp AND were trained by the US in the US or one of its territories OR (c) one year in a re-education camp AND were directly employed by the US.
There’s no mention of the war, no suggestion of wrongdoing or ill-treatment. It’s an offer of compensation without admission of liability.
Chung looks at me expectantly. I should play dumb and walk away, but I want to help. And while the content is alien to me, the form is very familiar.
Anyone who has immigrated to the US has seen language like this before. I have had, successively, a J1, an H1B (a category of visa open only to people with postgraduate qualifications in certain technical fields OR fashion models), an H4, an H1B (continuation), a second H1B, an extension of the second H1B pending adjudication of my E1B petition (seven qualifying criteria I seem to recall, of which the candidate must meet at least four), an adjustment of status to permanent residency, and as of February, seven and a half years after arriving in the US, a greencard.
I am English-speaking, highly educated, and able to afford one of the best immigration attorneys in the US. What chance has Chung?
“You think I can come to US?”
I ask him how long he spent in the camp.
“Two years. I have certificate.”
A certificate. I picture a graduation ceremony. The inmates gaily throw their caps into the air for the photographers.
“And were you trained by the US?”
“Yes, in Vietnam. See? Not (a), (a) no good, (b), Chung (b).”
He puts on his reading glasses and points to the second paragraph. I ask him some more questions to be sure, but I am worried.
In the precise, cold language of the press release, Chung hasn’t suffered enough OR for the right reasons. He spent two years in a camp, was trained by US personnel but in Vietnam, and was never directly employed by the US.
As Bill Clinton might say, it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘its’ is. Does the phrase ‘or its territories’ refer to Puerto Rico, Guam, and the other colonial possessions of the US? Or was Vietnam in the first few months of 1972 in some sense a territory of the US?
I doubt it.
Chung hasn’t enough command of English grammar to understand the significance of the word ‘its’ - he reads the phrase as ‘or other territories’, which would clearly include Vietnam. I wonder if there is an official Vietnamese translation of the release, or if the governments have agreed not to provide one so as to cut down on the number of applicants.
“You think I can come to US?”
Disappoint him or lie? I want to be angry with him for putting me in this position, but it’s my fault; I should never have suggested that I knew anything about this.
“Maybe. I don’t know. You need to call the US embassy. Maybe yes.”
Chung beams. If you can see past the rotten teeth that all his countrymen seem to share, he has a beautiful smile.