The Power of the Green Card: They Did What for a Green Card!

By Grant Kennedy

The book chronicles the green card journeys of ten individuals. It recounts their experiences as most of them went from being law-abiding citizens in their home lands to living in America as fugitives, who are commonly referred to as illegal aliens. In the book, they are given fictionalized names that capture characteristics of their personalities or their struggles or where they came from.
The purpose of the book is to give American-born citizens a glimpse into the challenges and triumphs of the immigrants’ world, which is completely foreign to most Americans. Despite what some may believe, only a small fraction of the estimated 11.3 million illegal aliens in the United States have committed any crime, other than being an illegal alien. The vast majority are law-abiding people who are just seeking a better life for themselves and their families.
Though some may deny it, the American economy benefits from these immigrants’ willingness to do work that most Americans do not want to do, and the fact that they are paid very low wages and work without benefits helps American small businesses to compete and thrive in this new economy.
Their faith, intelligence, ingenuity, and courage often result in extraordinary achievement, making America a land where the impossible can become possible. Their experiences often become inspiration for their offspring to actualize their own goals and dreams, helping to maintain America’s standing as the greatest country in the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524557638

Grant Kennedy

Grant Kennedy is an immigrant from Jamaica who has been living in the United States since December 1976. Unlike the immigrants he writes about in this book, he came to America legally, with a green card. But as someone from the immigrant community, he was privy to and was always very intrigued by the stories of hardship and courage of those around him who came to the United States illegally. He was also concerned about how such intelligent, hard-working and inspiring people did not have a voice in the debates about them. And how the US immigration system has been intentionally lax with its enforcement efforts while the US underground economy flourished from the illegal aliens’ ingenuity and cheap, slave-like labor, (which have trickled up to benefit the “real economy”). But now that some ultra nationalist politicians are making illegal immigration issue part of their agenda, it seems that the immigration service is now forced to be over-reaching with its enforcement efforts, which have caused great angst and very difficult conditions in the immigrants’ communities. However, despite the difficult conditions, the immigrants will keep coming by any means necessary-- no matter what walls are erected on the borders. Because, in spite of the hardships immigrants face, America is still the most welcoming country and a place where they can have a chance to rise above their circumstances, pursue their dreams, and actualize their God-given potential. Mr. Kennedy is a CPA. He currently lives in Westchester County, New York, with his wife. They have three young adult sons and one grandson. His purpose in writing this book is to give the American reader a glimpse into what immigrants go through to become part of the American experience that so many take for granted.

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Copyright © 2016 by Grant Kennedy.

Library of Congress Control Number:     2016918517

ISBN:                Hardcover                  978-1-5245-5765-2

                          Softcover                     978-1-5245-5764-5

                          eBook                          978-1-5245-5763-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Rev. date: 05/17/2018

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1     My Green Card Journey

Chapter 2     The Green Card Journey of My Wife, Gayle: In Her Words

Chapter 3     Mr. Winner’s Green Card Journey

Chapter 4     Mr. What-It-Takes’ Green Card Journey

Chapter 5     Mr. Can-Do-It-All’s Green Card Journey

Chapter 6     Ms. Persevere’s Green Card Journey

Chapter 7     Ms. Nigeria’s Green Card Journey

Chapter 8     Queenie’s (The Congo Queen) Green Card Journey

Chapter 9     Ms. Poland’s (The Polka Queen) Green Card Journey

Chapter 10   The Bronx Prince’s Green Card Journey

Chapter 11   Ms. Faithful’s Green Card Journey

Chapter 12   Ms. Go-Getter’s Green Card Journey

About the Author

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

F IRST, I MUST thank God for his goodness and mercies and for giving me the ability to write this book. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I could write a book. But I have proven time and time again that with God, all things are possible, and, as Philippians 4:13 says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. For me, these words were fuel that reignited my flame when doubts and fears crept into my thoughts about my ability to write this book.

Next, I want to thank my late mother, Mavis McGhie, for the sacrifices that she made to give me and my siblings the opportunities she never had and for her courage to be the first in her family to leave the shores of Jamaica to find opportunities for her five kids, whom she had to support alone, without their father. Mom, I know that you are now up in heaven looking down and beaming with pride to see that your bumpy-head son is now a published author.

Thanks must also go to my late grandmother, Mary Kennedy, for sacrificing her golden grandma years to raise me, my four siblings, and our ten cousins, so that our parents could go off to earn a living to support us. My uncles, Tyrell, Felix, and Leo; and my aunts, Estella, Ira, and Nalda also deserve special mention for sacrificing and pooling their resources to help raise us.

I must also give props to some wonderful colleagues and friends whose encouragement and support emboldened me with the belief that I could pull off this project. Special thanks go out to Paul Johnson for providing some of the intriguing stories that are included in the book and for his nonstop support. Many thanks also go out to Karen Bramble for using her editing skills to correct some of my writing mishaps. Likewise, my sincere appreciation goes out to all the individuals whose stories are depicted in the book for sharing such a difficult part of their lives with me for the project. Their stories of courage and resilience have inspired me to challenge myself more now than I did before, and I hope many of those who will read this book will also be inspired to move with purpose and tenacity toward their God-given destiny.

My two sons, Sam and Dave, deserve special shout-outs for being the most wonderful children any parents could ever have and for continually making me and my wife beam with pride for their achievements.

Last, but certainly not least, I must thank my lovely wife of twenty-six years, Gayle, for being the base for my foundation, the anchor that keeps me steady, and the engine that propels me to go farther and for loving and supporting me whether I am up, down, or in between.

INTRODUCTION

W ITH ALL THE issues and problems surrounding illegal immigration in the United States today, everyone seems to have a voice in the debates except for the estimated 11.3 million illegal immigrants that are now living in the United States. Because they are afraid of being exposed and deported to their homelands, they exist here, contributing to the American way of life without representation, and, for many of them, under extremely difficult circumstances.

The purpose of this book is to give the rest of America an awareness of these people’s stories, with the hope of letting them hear some of the voices of the people who are the subject of so much debate. Their roads from illegal status often end with the prize of a green card or the fate of being caught, imprisoned, and deported to their homelands. Some have even lived and died here without getting green cards. However, the journey to any of these ends is often fraught with extreme difficulties, tragedies, and for the lucky ones, triumph in overcoming the obstacle and living the American Dream by obtaining the coveted green card.

Migration to the United States started with the Pilgrims and Columbus when he and other Europeans wanted to discover more lands for their monarchs. So the voyage of Columbus in the latter 1400s set the stage for the mass migration of Europeans to the Americas, and from then on people migrated to this land, which was inhabited first by the Native American Indians—who had no immigration policy. Interestingly, except for the Native American Indians, the entire populace of early America—namely, the Europeans—began settlement in America illegally. This says that illegal immigration has always been a part of the American experience, but now the illegal immigrants are not just Europeans but people from all over the world. However, somehow, most of the faces we see as illegal immigrants are people of color, and it makes one wonder if this has anything to do with the inhumane way we seek to address this situation now.

I am not advocating for the breakdown of immigration laws, but I hope that as the current debates rage on, a sense of civility toward immigrants will permeate the discussions and that sensible immigration legislation will be enacted to address the problem. Draconian measures of stopping people, demanding IDs, and deporting family members who, except for the fact that they don’t have documents, are essentially Americans in every sense of the word, is not a common-sense solution to this problem. Breaking up families so senselessly does not foster the ideals of America; rather it is the realization of the American nightmare for many family members who remain in America to fight to maintain an existence as residents of a permanent underclass, with little or nothing in the way of tools or family structure to elevate them from that underclass existence.

The American landscape today has many families where the head of the household is a family member who is an illegal alien. Many have children who were born here and are therefore American citizens. But when the heads of their household are deported, these children are left without a stable family infrastructure and oftentimes become a direct burden to the state, either through the penal system or through the social welfare system.

The American Dream Act appears to be one of the more sensible proposals talked about to address the issue. However, as the debates rage on, let’s not lose sight of the fact that each and every one of these people has a story. Many of these stories end up being inspiring classic American Dream stories, but unfortunately, too many are American Nightmare stories that we rarely hear about.

Whether these stories depict tales of American dreams or American nightmares, the accounts presented in this book are fictionalized versions of real-life stories that were told by the people themselves. In the interest of privacy, I have assigned fictional names to them. My hope is that by telling these individuals’ stories, I will help readers see them not just as illegal immigrants—an American problem—but as people with lives that are part of the American experience. And with that said, I hope that, even in a small way, I can help to begin to frame the debates for common-sense legislation to address the problem.

As immigrants ourselves, my wife and I felt compelled to start this book with our own green card stories, although our stories may not be as colorful and interesting as others’ stories, as we ourselves did not come here illegally. While my entry to the United States was the product of my mother coming to America legally through a domestic work program in 1967, my wife’s legal entry into the United States was made possible by her mother, who came to the United States on a temporary visa and overstayed; as a result, she had to live in America as an illegal immigrant until she was able to get sponsorship through her son, who was born on American soil while she was here illegally.

CHAPTER 1

My Green Card Journey

M Y GREEN CARD story really began in 1967, when my mother, for economic reasons, applied to come to the United States from Jamaica to work under the domestic work program. This was a necessary survival step for her because she had five children to support by herself with only a primary school education. So, as you might be wondering and asking, where was the father? Well, he had earlier left my mother with all five kids, migrated to the Bahamas, and he never looked back to inquire about how we were doing. So, with my mother’s entry into the United States, my dream of immigrating to America was born; the expectation was that, once she was settled in America, she would eventually send for us to come and live with her.

As expected, after about five years of living and working in America, my mother did settle in. She proceeded to submit applications for my siblings and me to come live with her. At that time, the application process took about a year, so in November 1976, we were notified by the US embassy in Kingston, Jamaica, to come in for an interview the following month.

Oh, what a happy time that was! It felt like we had won a lottery jackpot. The thought of moving to America—from Pickiyan Valley in the Red Hills section of St. Andrew, Jamaica, to live in New York—was indeed winning a lottery. We were moving from extreme poverty to a place where we thought that poverty did not exist. Pickiyan Valley was as bad as it sounds, with rocky, jagged dirt roads, a mixture of fairly modest houses, and far too many substandard ones.

That day came on Tuesday, December 7, 1976. I, along with my siblings, went to the US embassy for the interview, which was not as bad as we thought. Fortunately, one of my brothers, my only sister, and I were presented with our visas—our ticket to happiness and the good life that we dreamed of.

My mom came down to Jamaica for the Christmas holidays and booked our flight to return with her to New York on Wednesday, December 29. It was such a relief to be leaving Jamaica at the time. It was around election time, near the end of the PNP’s first term in office, and the country was demoralized by extreme violence because of the tense political climate. I had a genuine fear of being a victim, even though I was not involved in politics; just being at the wrong place at the wrong time or wearing the wrong colors in the wrong political area could get you killed. I could not wait to get on the plane and leave the shores of Jamaica.

Just going to the airport for the first time—not to see someone off but taking off on a flight for the first time and waving good-bye to uncles and cousins who came to see us off at the airport—was a magical moment for me. While I was a bit nervous about flying, the excitement of going to America overshadowed my fear, and I knew that once I prayed, God would allow us to have a safe flight. So once I boarded the plane, I prayed a sincere, silent prayer, which gave me the comfort and confidence that we would have a safe flight. The flight was for the most part uneventful, but we did have some slight turbulence, which was a bit scary. But whenever we experienced turbulence, I recited Psalm 23 in my mind, and the turbulence seemed to immediately dissipate.

The flight took off from Norman Manley Airport in Kingston at about 10:00 a.m. and was scheduled to arrive in New York around 2:30 p.m. I remember the flight coming in over the New York skyline as the plane was descending for touchdown at Kennedy Airport. The view of the New York City skyscrapers was awesome and exciting for me. Remember: I was a little country boy coming from Jamaica, where the tallest buildings I had seen were no more than ten stories tall, so this was exciting stuff for me! We eventually landed safely and queued up to go through US Customs, which took forever!

My brother and I had the big brown envelopes with our visa documents that we had gotten from the US embassy in Kingston. The envelopes were sealed, and we were told not to unseal them; they were to be presented to customs sealed. We were warned that if the envelopes were unsealed, we would not be allowed to enter the United States. You guessed it! We guarded those envelopes with our lives; we were not going to jeopardize our chances of entering America.

When our turn came at the customs desk, we presented them with our big, sealed, brown envelopes. Officials unsealed them and then asked us some questions, which we answered eloquently and politely in our thick Jamaican accent. "Yes, sarr! No, sarr! And then they presented us with our tickets to the good life: the green card!

It was a plastic, laminated card with my name, alien number, and picture on it. Mine had the ugliest picture of me that I had ever taken. I had big, thick, leopard-patterned glasses on and a neatly combed, crooked Afro. But I cherished and protected the card carefully because it was my ticket to live in America permanently. I guarded it so carefully I even broke the rule about carrying it at all times with me. Instead of carrying the real card in my wallet, I made a copy and carried that in my wallet and left the real card at home in a locked suitcase. I just was not going to take the chance of losing my wallet with my cherished green card.

Okay, I