Nationality is lost in translation

The other day, I went down to Migraciones in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to get my visa, which… The other day, I went down to Migraciones in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to get my visa, which affirms I’m a resident of la Republica. Finally, the English lessons I’ve been teaching for $5 per hour are legal. I no longer risk an ironic deportation from Latin America to the United States.

Now that I’m legal enough to come forward, this column begins a series titled “The Immigrant Experience.” It tells about my trials and triumphs, as an immigrant here in Buenos Aires. Today’s topic: ancestry.

I arrived at Migraciones late because the directions said, “It’s next to the giant Sheraton.” But nearby forest fires covered Buenos Aires with a cloud of smoke, so everything more than a hundred feet away turned invisible. It was even thicker than Argentina’s usual haze from cigarette smoke. Because of the smoke, I couldn’t see if there was a huge statue or not, but I was pretty satisfied anyway that Migraciones was sort of on an island.

They had me stand in a long line to photocopy my passport. Surveying the rainbow of my fellows from Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and just about every other country, I felt the promise that la Republica holds made tangible for immigrants like us. We’ll face low wages, union violence, smoke clouds, smoking crowds, racism and the world’s highest rate of pedestrian traffic casualties, but none of us will ever have to see fat people or less-than-beautiful women ever again. For this, we photocopy.

In line, a tall man broke ranks and approached me. He asked hopefully, in crude Spanish, “You speak Russian, no?”

We immigrants hate it when people think they’re sure where we come from just by looking at us. For Hispanics in the United States, that place is Mexico. For me in Argentina, that place is Eastern Europe. Even more so than Russians like the man in line, Argentines are sure that I’m Eastern European.

I never talk about ancestries. I think other people talk about them, though I’m not sure, because, for me, hearing someone say they are “one eighth Basque and