by Gayl Jones
The reason Maria’s cousin got throwed in jail was because they didn’t have no detention camps in Middle America. There weren’t as many illegal aliens in Middle America as in South Texas and the Southwest and when they did find one, they didn’t know what to do with her, so they throwed her in jail. Plus, they didn’t know what kinda illegal she was. They thought she mighta been Cuban, and the State Department policy then was that Cubans was supposed to be processed into America, and they had to send for somebody from one of them states that was usedta dealing with illegal aliens, and to even import an immigration lawyer, ’cause there weren’t any in Middle America that knew anything about the immigration laws. They had a small Spanish-speaking community, but they were mostly migrant workers who worked on the farms during harvesting seasons, and most of them just migrated to other areas. But somebody just happened to ask this woman for her papers. And it was discovered that she wasn’t a citizen, nor did she have any papers to justify her being in America. Did kinda have an accent. Somebody said it was Spanish. Somebody said it was Portuguese. Somebody else said it sounded kinda Italian. They took her to a place people referred to as Little Italy, but it turned out to be Irishtown. Then one of the professors at the university said it was Spanish, cept it sounded like low-class Spanish, he couldn’t fully understand what the woman was saying. And when she spoke English, he couldn’t fully understand her English. Well, she was an illegal alien, so they couldn’t just let her go free. Somebody suggested that they put her in the women’s wing of the state asylum. That didn’t seem the thing to do ’cause she seemed pretty sane. They might be crazy peoples in the state asylum but they was all documented citizens. They did have a Texan who thought he belonged to the Republic of Texas and was a free and sovereign citizen, but even he were a documented citizen and a United States American even if he thought hisself a Texan. They thought he might understand her Spanish, though, but when she started talking it to him he started saying something about imperial Mexico and how the Texans had gained their freedom and independence. In fact, he thought he was still in Texas, till somebody told him it was Middle America. Didn’t nobody understand her Spanish or English, though, but she did seem sane. But it was illegal to be an undocumented citizen, so one of the documented citizens, one of the true Americans, suggested that she be put in jail till somebody could adjudicate what to do with her. So they put her in jail and forgot about her.
I ain’t sure what made them remember her. Maybe the jail had a new jailkeeper that decided to check her files to see what she was in for. Maybe she got the phone call that was everybody’s right to have and called somebody that spoke her brand of Spanish. Maybe she got a letter out to somebody via of someone else who was in that jail and knew the true meaning of America, or at least had their own agenda in regard to them jailers even if it wasn’t to defend the rights and freedoms of Maria’s cousin. Maybe she got the visitor that it was everybody’s right to have because they heard some rumor that there was somebody in jail that didn’t belong there, even if she were an undocumented human who happened to be jailed in Middle America. Maybe one of the other prisoners learned her brand of Spanish which I know now to be Spanish spoken with a Quechua accent and concluded that this was somebody who was no criminal and didn’t belong there. Maybe one of the other prisoners who knew something about legality or who believed that they had more of an obligation to the human community than the community of any one national, including Middle America, started asking questions. The next thing she knew she was being visited by an immigration lawyer from South Texas named Linda Chong. It surprised her that this Asian-American woman understood her brand of Spanish and even her brand of English, both spoken with what I know now to be a Quechua accent. The Asian American was a well-groomed woman that kinda reminded her of a high-class Mexican. But her name was Linda Chong and she was an Asian American, actually a Chinese American, and expert immigration guerrilla-lawyer.
She was there to prove that Maria’s cousin’s arrest was illegal. That even though she was an alien and stranger in a strange land among strange people dressed in strange clothes she still had certain inalienable human rights. She couldn’t just be kept in jail and forgotten about ’cause the citizenry didn’t have a clue.
That’s when Maria’s cousin got her first telephone call to Maria, and Maria and her baby Journal got in my truck and we drove out to Middle America. I thought Middle America would be put on trial for their inhumanity and crimes against the humanity of Maria’s cousin myself. (Maria herself always says I starts sounding like a preaching woman whenever I tells people the story of her cousin.) In fact, we couldn’t even get proof of how long they’d kept Maria’s cousin in jail or even that they’d kept her in jail. Linda Chong the expert immigration guerrilla lawyer tried every legality to get copies of the documents to prove that they had illegally kept Maria’s cousin and it seemed that the documents on the arrest of this undocumented human had disappeared. Linda Chong the expert immigration guerrilla lawyer was made to sign papers. Maria was made to sign papers and even show her bank statement. And I was made to sign an affidavit testifying that Maria was who she said she was and that Journal was her natural baby born in America. They made copies of all the papers, documents, and affidavits we signed but still did not produce any documentation on the arrest of Maria’s cousin. Years later I tried to get copies of copies of my identification and the affidavit I’d signed, and even they’d disappeared. Except for Linda Chong’s copies which somebody said weren’t legal because the seal of the Middle America wasn’t on them. And when I tried to explain to them what had happened with Maria’s cousin, that she had really been arrested and illegally detained and jailed in Middle America (since then they’ve probably made it legal, like changing the immigration laws for them Cubans), they started looking at me like I was the one giving false information. I know my papers was on file with somebody, though. But everybody claims that nobody with none of my names really signed no papers, documents, and affidavits for Maria’s cousin or anybody else, and then they starts looking at they Wanted posters to see whether I’m naturally wanted in any of the Natural United States or even other states in the natural Americas.
We’ll institute a complaint on false detention, said Linda Chong. Then she starts talking about illegal detention, illegal arrest, malicious arrest, malicious detention, vindictive arrest, vindication detention, reprisal arrest, reprisal detention, false arrest and detention without excuse in law, arresting with malicious or vindictive intent or as a reprisal, produces complaint forms addressed to government officials, members of Congress, members of international human rights organizations, mentions abuse of process and abuse of power, criminal abuse of process, obstruction of justice, dilatory and unlawful peremptory actions to delay charges and complaints against themselves (sometimes I’m not sure if she’s talking about Maria’s cousin or another case she’s working on against other Middle Americans), conspiracy and breach of political ethics and protocol, withholding of evidence, including the documentation of the original arrest of Maria’s cousin, perjury, malice in law, coopting of the political system to do their dirty work against an undocumented alien that they didn’t have a clue about (this ain’t exactly her language, but it’s mine when I retells this story), suppression of Maria’s cousin’s free speech, intimidation, use of the political and legal system to even try to intimidate her, Linda Chong, expert immigration attorney and guerrilla lawyer. Then she starts reading various statutes, some is immigration statutes and others is from the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Woman, the Divine Rights of Man and Woman, or whatever them other declarations of the rights of humanity, citizens and noncitizens. She also quotes from various ethical, moralistic, humanistic, and religious and spiritual codes of ethics, and even unwritten divine codes of ethics. I don’t know if she a Buddhist, but seem like she were even reading something from the Buddhist Bible. She even recited they own Golden Rule. And even reading from a draft docume
nt called “Laws of Electra” or “The Electra Laws.” I know she was using all them legal terms with those people, though, and a lot of them was looking at her like they ain’t never seen a Chinese woman neither or a Chinese-American woman speaking Middle American and wanting to know whether she herself a documented citizen. I want to see all the documents. I want photocopies of all the documentation. What’s your name?
I didn’t arrest her, ma’am. I’m just an ordinary officer of Middle America and the southern commonwealth. There’s just no documentation. There’s simply no documentation. You’ll have to speak to Detective Brad Doy or the social worker, Joby Herrington. Is that her name? Herr something. I think it’s Herrington. I’m just a low man on the totem pole. He’s shitting you, I said. They’re shitting us. You can’t detain a person and not have documents on them. That is obstruction of justice, just like you said, Lawyer Chong. They is shitting us. They is playing us for fools. I knows I am a fool, but I’m still a American. And the thing about being a American is that you gets to choose who plays you for a fool. Them that votes does it every election. And them that don’t vote does it every time they watches television, or a movie, or listens to the radio, or reads a newspaper or magazine or tabloid or listens to whoever they listens to. I’m a fool and I have played for fools, but I’m an American, and I gets to choose who plays me for a fool, and I chooses for these people not to play me for no play. They is playing us for fools.
The officer looked at me like he was trying to figure out whether I was indeed some kinda fool and furthermore one of the fools, played for a fool, or not fools at all persons of colored persuasion you-know-what-we-really-call-them on one of their Wanted posters. Then he was looking at me like my very presence was against the law, or oughta be against the law. He was tolerating Linda Chong ’cause she at least looked like a professional woman and them-modern-minority-except-they’s-a-majority-in-China-remember-all-them-human-rights-violation-they-puts-prisoners-to-work-Asians-has-at-least-made-contributions-that-we-know-of-here-in-Middle-America-to-the-world. He might prefer to see her in a kimono or thong bikini. Course I ain’t know what he really thinking. But I do know when somebody looking at you like they thinks you’s against the law and just your very being in the world.
He’s shitting us, I repeated. Chong!
That’s obscene communications ma’am, he said. That’s against the law here in Middle America.
Jesus, María y José, said Maria.
You’re obscene communicationing us, I started to say. I mean he wasn’t using the language of obscenity, but wasn’t his meaning obscene? And they was lying. They was playing us for fools. Or maybe they hadn’t kept documents on Maria’s cousin. Maybe because they didn’t know what to do with her because of her being an illegal and undocumented alien, they hadn’t kept documents on her. Maybe they thought she wasn’t even human, because an illegal and undocumented alien of the nonwhite persuasion, so they didn’t have to document detaining her. She wasn’t even human and wasn’t even supposed to have any rights that they were bound to respect. They could just throw her in jail. Wasn’t no American anyway. Not people like themselves. I tried to remember what Andy had said to Kingfish and started to tell them that they was boozling us. Maybe they wouldn’t know what I meant by boozling and so they wouldn’t consider that Obscene Communications, even though they, or peoples like them, had had Andy to say that to Kingfish. That didn’t mean that they recognized boozling as part of the English language, though.
She can work with me in my doll factory, said Maria. She can work with me in my doll factory. I’ve got a doll factory. I make my own dolls. I’m not rich, but I’m a woman of resources.
I bet you are, said the officer, looking at her like he thought doll factory meant something other than a doll factory, you know, like a doll factory were a metaphor for a hoochie factory, like that Hollywood madam.
Now you know I’m looking at Maria, ’cause her English sound good. She got the accent of the Southwest in it, the accent of South Texas, and her own Mexico, but sound good. You would think she been in America speaking the American English longer than any of us Johnsons, except those of us who were born in Indiana and the ones that fought up in Canada on the side of the English during the Revolutionary War ’cause they promised they would free them. I think they called theyselves Lord Dunmore’s Revolutionary Blacks. Of course they wasn’t considered revolutionary heroes by them that fought the English on the other side in the Americas and didn’t promise freedom to nobody but the peoples exactly like theyselves, though the blacks that fought to help free the colonists from the British was played for fools, thinking that if they helped win that war they’d win their freedom in America. What I’m saying is that Maria sound like she know English better than us Johnsons except for the Indiana and the Canadian Johnsons.
And she showed them one of her dolls, which kinda looked like a Aztec god.
Shango! I says.
I know my client’s rights, said Linda Chong. ’Cept she said it in lawyer’s language and started talking about democratic principles. And there’s certain things she wouldn’t talk to them about at all. I know she was a real lawyer, and a specialist in immigration, and one of them guerrilla lawyers, ’cause them guerrilla lawyers always has certain things, certain strategies that they don’t talk about at all.
Then a man appeared. The officer was looking at him like he wasn’t sure who he was. He started talking about rights and immigration law and seem more like a specialist in immigration law than Linda Chong. I thought maybe he might be one of them Haitians when I first seen him but he talked with more a American than a Haitian accent. I’d heard, though, that there was Haitian lawyers among Ray’s guerrilla lawyers. Then I thought he was some sort of private investigator. He was there for our benefit and I figured he must be one of Linda Chong’s associates, because Linda Chong gave Maria, Maria’s cousin, Journal, and me a card that said Linda Chong Associates, Immigration Law, however it didn’t identify her as a guerrilla lawyer, ’cause guerrilla lawyers can’t identify themselves as guerrilla lawyers, you’s just got to know they is guerrilla lawyers and can’t be coopted. The officer started looking like a kinglet. And then he just looked at the man who a independent man of Linda, that’s why I assumed him to be a Haitian or some person of Linda with they own country before he spoke with the accents of America with contempt.
And then there was a lot of men running around looking like wild men, looking excited, but they still maintains there were documents and maintained that it was within their legal rights according to the what seemed like newly right there and then formed codes and statutes of Middle America and southern commonwealth legalism, though they wouldn’t admit to what they had done. Then they looked like they had called in reinforcements.
Shango!
Speak to me in a civil tone, the officer said, surrounded by his reinforcements, some officers looking like hisself and others in plain clothes.
Shango!
Tone sounded civil to me and extraordinary diction. I still thought maybe he must be one of them Haitians or a man of Linda from some independent country other than America, though he spoke with the accents of America. And a associate of Linda Chong’s, although he didn’t give me no card saying that he were a Linda Chong associate. The officer just looked at him with hostility.
I waited to be introduced to this man of Linda who seemed to have his own independent country. But Linda Chong didn’t make no introductions. She took out some kinda portfolio, and then she and the man of Linda who seemed to have his own independent country started talking.
Shango!
The officer just looked evil and then him and his cohorts huddled. They was men and women polices and I guess there must’ve been some social workers amongst them. One of the women looked like a huge Fraülein I’d seen in a German movie. Another one was diminutive. There were not only whites, I gots to be truthful, but people of the colored persuasion among them. I believe, though, that they only went and go
t people of the colored persuasion when they saw that the people there to rescue Maria’s cousin include people of the colored persuasion, and so they also wanted to prove that they also had people of the colored persuasion among they cohorts, to try to furthermore prove that they were the typical and stereotypical Middle Americans of the southern commonwealth that we presumed them to be and made sure that we saw they had someone-you-should-hope-to-resemble-at-least-they-can’t-say-that-we’re-racist-with-this-more-than-token-defenders-of-Middle-American-and-the-southern-commonwealth persons of the colored persuasion to help them tell their version of the story about Maria’s cousin and how rather than being jailed against her will she willingly went to jail in Middle America of the southern commonwealth rather than return to her poor old can’t drink the water you better bring bottled Mexico with all them wild Mexican bandits, drug smugglers, and corrupt police and government officials. Control the border! Contact the president of Mexico and force him to control the border! Build a wall along the border of Mexico just like the wall in China which is the only manmade wall on earth that can be seen from the moon! Clean up them barrios along the border! The Rio Grande is shallow only four feet deep there’s too many Mexicans crossing over they must think it’s the Jordan! We needs more federal agent immigration patrols and border patrol chieftains from Brownsville to Tijuana! Control the border! Control the border! Control the border! Control the border! We ain’t got no border here in Middle America of the southern commonwealth, but like every true American we knows that even our borderless border has got to be controlled! Then I pictures them strutting like John Travolta in that movie, strutting around the police station. They don’t sing the same song of the Travolta movie, though, they modifies it: