Do you have your papers?

Do you have your papers?

Written on 6/9/2015

Happened on 6/5/2015

Last week Thursday, while I was in Tamatave (a big port city up the coast), I was stopped by the immigration police.

True to form, when stopped at first, I was immediately sassy. To be fair, the law enforcement has cat called and creeped before. Also, the group of official looking individuals (in blue bottoms and white tops) looked like any casual group of higher ups taking a stroll through Tamatave after their lunch break. There was one male officer and a group of females were walking a few feet behind him.

He started walking toward us, chest up, and speaking what I only heard as a creepy cat call in French. He just kept following us and saying things in French. Because I don't know French very well, I only understood that he wanted to stop to talk to us and I assumed he was just being a creep. I replied in the only French I know, "Je suis American. Je ne parle pas Francais, azafady." (I am American. I don't speak french. Sorry).

That was a response he wasn't happy with apparently and he started speaking in intense Malagasy saying we shouldn't speak to him that way and that he was immigration police looking for our papers....woooooooops.

Of course I immediately apologized and said we had just been "talked to" (aka whistled at) by a group of security guards near by and thought it was happening again because we don't know French. He seemed to understand my confusion, and my Malagasy (or at least he thought I was flirting with him and laughed off my initial sass).

He asked for our paperwork, but my friend and I didn't have it. We typically only carry around our paperwork at night because that's when the immigration people are usually out and have stopped us before. I explained to him that we have already lived here for a year and have never been stopped during the day so we left our paperwork at the hotel because we know there are many pickpocketers in Tamatave and didn't want our very important paperwork stolen.

He seemed to understand and said it was no problem but next time we should really carry around our papers because we could be put in jail for not having them (although as long as we had our phones we could call Peace Corps Madagascar's security officer and be okay).

Then he continued to ask me if I was married, had children, had a boyfriend, had a gasy boyfriend, how old I was, if I wanted a boyfriend.........

So wait, did he ever really need my papers?

ANYWAYS, After the incident, a new volunteer who was with us (and had his paperwork) said, "Wow, that really makes me understand how stupid Arizona's laws on immigration are!" At first, I had to think about it (it's been a while since I've been in the loop on American politics), but stopping someone for looking like an immigrant really is an insulting law. It really got me thinking.

In America, if we were there as immigrants, would we be expected to have our paperwork at all times? How frustrating would it be to constantly be stopped by the police for appearing to be an immigrant. Especially considering the diverse population of America, it could basically come down to stopping anyone who isn't white. Which is basically the definition of systematic racism considering even white people can be immigrants... in fact, there are people of every race who were born in America, and many whose families have lived there for generations and who are immigrants.

These are all facts I new before being stopped and asked if I had my paperwork... but it put a fresh perspective on what its like to be an immigrant (or apparently to look like an immigrant) in America or any other country with oddly unwelcoming immigration laws.

Beyond other things, systematic racism is an aggressively oppressive problem in America and should be considered in the making of every law. An important part of making an equal, welcoming, law system would be having a governmental body that more accurately represents the diversity of genders, races, ethnicities, religions, sexualities... in America.

JUST SAYING.