Marrying American

I never thought about being a snowback—an illegal Canadian—until my money began to dwindle in 1983. I couldn't get a student visa because my massage and movement therapy school in Amherst, Massachusetts—the School for Body-Mind Centering—was too small to meet Immigration and Naturalization's definition of a "school." Yet I couldn't look for a real job because I had no social security number. So I posted "Housecleaner Available" signs everywhere and worked infrequently as a masseuse. Even when I was forced to live on a previous tenant's canned macaroni and Jell-O, I still preferred America to Canada.

In America I had the right to have feelings; in Canada I was obligated to notice other people's. In America I had the right to be different; in Canada I had to apologize if I acted without other people's approval. If I stood up for myself in Canada, turned-away faces and a tactful change of subject would let me know I should be ashamed of myself for being rude, conceited, or otherwise acting like an American.

But that summer, when my parents offered to send me a plane ticket for a family reunion in Saskatchewan, hunger overruled my sensibilities. I hitchhiked to Boston, picked up the ticket they had waiting for me, and flew to the Land of the Nice for a week of dull, nourishing food and fiendishly complex conversation. I hardly knew how to interpret the Canadian code anymore, the secret ways to probe what someone really means when they say "yes"; the thrust and parry of alternating apologies; and the many polite ways to avoid putting someone in the embarrassing position of having to say either yes or no. Once I'd gained a few pounds, I was glad to come home to the United States.

"Where do you live?" a young woman in a green uniform asked me as she examined my documents. The plane had landed in Toronto to put people and luggage through American Customs and Immigration before continuing on to Boston.

"Nova Scotia." That was easy. That was where my children lived, the ones I couldn't visit because my ex-wife and I couldn't agree on how many were mine. She said I could see two or none. I said I had to see three or none. We'd settled on none—but without speaking, since we didn't talk to each other anymore.

"What do you do for a living?"

"I own a natural foods store." Close enough. I'd sold it two years earlier.

"Where did you buy your ticket?"

"Halifax."

She looked at me thoughtfully, then went through my backpack, taking out and examining each item. She pulled out my journal and thumbed through it, reading here and there. I was terrified she'd read about the time right before I left for Canada, when I made love to Janice when she was menstruating. I knew the punishment would be to keep me in the Land of the Bland.

"Excuse me, that's my journal!"

"I have the right to search anything to determine if you're telling the truth."

"Why are you looking through my journal?" Even to my own ears I sounded plaintive and defeated.

"To see if you really live in Canada." She continued to browse. Her eyes bugged out. Uh-oh. That was Janice. She angrily slammed my journal shut. "How long has it been since you were in Boston?"

"Three years."

"This plane ticket was issued two weeks ago in Boston. You have just lied to an Immigration Officer. This is grounds for deportation."

"Well, a lawyer told me that snowbirds who live in Florida for six months out of the year don't have to—"

"Lawyers have nothing to do with it!" She threw my stuff down on the counter as if it were garbage, then said angrily, "Next please!"

I stepped away from the counter and stood there like a refugee, belongings dragging down my arms, while she processed the next person. Then I asked her timidly, "May I speak with your managing officer...