Scenes from a civics test:
- My sister is mistaken for a translator. Some weeks earlier, at our biometrics appointment, we both left the race box blank. The agent playing gatekeeper uncapped his pen and made her white and me Indian1.
- "Sorry I'm running a bit late; I had some problems with my database." Gray INS man is shuffling papers2. I swear there are no lights on in this shoebox office; between his beard and his sweater-vest and the drizzle out the window I feel like I'm looking through tissue paper. He begins a rambling story about the tech department which I calculate is meant to gauge my English. "The guy said it was 'fubar'; I don't even know what that means. It's like they have their own language." I've never really thought about "FUBAR", but I'm pretty good at acronyms. "The last part is probably 'Beyond All Reason'," I offer, helpfully3.
- When asked whether I have ever committed a crime for which I have not been arrested, I am busy reading the spines of the binders on the bookshelf. One says, "Deniability Training".
- The only decorative item in the room is a book-sized print of the twin towers, which is not hung but set on top of a filing cabinet and propped up against the wall. It bears the Homeland Security seal and the instructions, in an italicized Helvetica, "Never Forget". The frame looks dollar-store; the whole thing reminds me fiercely of Africa—to the point that the gray light warms, the keyboard becomes a ledger, that I begin to imagine the tick-tick of a ceiling fan and the bleat of baby goats. I cannot even begin to say why.
- You have to write them one sentence. I misspelled "Columbus"4. I'm serious.
1. Mere details to my brother, whom a year before that the INS rendered female.
2. "USCIS" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
3. Actually, "Beyond all Recognition"—the term is a Vietnam War survivor, its cute little phonemes stand-ins for years of sordid detail.
4. "When is Col-UM-bus day?", repeats Gray Man. "Oh, right."
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