The Honor of Your Presence Is Requested
at The Green Card Party of
Ratanaporn “Pam” Sritangratanakul
Saturday, May Twenty-Eighth
Half Past Three in the Afternoon
5 W 95th Street, New York, NY
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Curie and her immigrant-hopeful friends had long forgotten the sensation of linear time. No one recalled the exact moment they left linearity, but according to Yang Yang, the horizon was breached years ago during the Great Flood, when a giant cat swallowed them whole. Huddled in the belly of the divine feline, they heard mothers and children wail as a tempest ravaged their worlds. Then—ack-ack-ACK—the cat heaved, and they hurtled through the cosmos, tumbling onto the tarmac of JFK International Airport by way of a wet hairball. Enmeshed in the matted manifolds of space-time, they spun in circles, in Möbius strips, in Klein bottles, clawing through self-intersecting, mysteriously curved tendrils with no way to discern their exact orientation. Only by burning offerings to The Green Card Deity could they hope to one day escape the hairball and absolve their survivor’s guilt.
Yang Yang was probably wrong, though. Forced to appeal and resubmit his visa application in perpetuity, he had spiraled out of reality, all because The Algorithm had deemed it impossible for him to possess a first name identical to his last. But the rest of them did pray often to their gods. They envied those in America who stepped causally from point A to B, and who sketched five- and ten-year plans on vision boards, never doubting the legitimacy of their existence.
While Yang Yang awaited a lawyer and a psychiatrist to pull him out of the nether dimension, Curie’s remaining friends in present time were gathered on the Upper West Side to celebrate the momentous event of Pam’s return to linearity. Pam was Curie’s first friend in America. They met on the first day of International Student Orientation at New York University, bonding over their Southeast Asian heritage and shared love of durians. Three years ago, Pam married her college sweetheart, Jason, a second-generation Taiwanese American from New Jersey. She was finally granted a Green Card last month.
Tradition dictates that one should only consume green foods at a Green Card Party, and Pam, having inherited her family’s superstitious nature, reminded everyone that today was most definitely not the day to break with tradition. And Simon, I know weed is legal, but it’s still not on my list of approved green foods, she reminded Jason’s best friend in particular. Not risking nearly being deported for drug trafficking again! Pam evoked the unfortunate episode last year when she was mistakenly tagged as a criminal-at-large by The Algorithm and arrested as such due to insufficient images of Thai faces being fed into The Algorithm’s training dataset.
Curie arrived late as usual, but Pam wasn’t bothered this time. Her guests were loyal friends who had shouldered her meltdowns throughout her years in America—she was just glad they showed up. She placed Curie’s box of homemade green-velvet cupcakes on her dining table next to a pitcher of green tea, a Pandan cake, avocado salad, roasted asparagus, and pesto chicken pasta.
“And now, let us begin our feast!” Pam declared to the group of five. She popped the champagne bottle in her hands, the effervescent exodus of long-suppressed wine manifesting her joy.
“Shit—we forgot George Washington!” Curie scraped some cash from the bottom of her backpack and handed it to Pam. “Can’t have a Green Card Party without an obligatory Founding Father.”
Pam threw the stack of green dollar bills into the air, as one usually did to mark the commencement of a Party. And in accordance with tradition, her guests chanted, “No taxation without representation!”
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“Curie, how is your court case coming along?” Jason asked after the initial congratulations subsided. “We saw the latest news.”
Curie was being sued by the nation of Kuntilanak, a small, resource-rich country in the South China Sea. Her ancestors had resided there for twenty generations, during which they intermarried with the indigenous Datak people; caught grouper and crabs in mangrove forests; traded handicrafts with Arab merchants, Sultans, and Dutch colonizers; and planted seedlings that grew into giant Bornean ironwood trees, a few of which became timber for the family home where she was born and raised in her first eighteen years. Eleven months ago, she published an online post criticizing racist policies of the Kuntilanak government. As an academic celebrity in her home country (the first Fulbright Foreign Scholar that Kuntilanak had ever produced), her outspokenness angered the ruling party, who then sued her for hate speech. Two weeks ago, the President officially cursed Curie on prime-time Kuntilanak television. You ungrateful scholar who devours the hand that feeds you, turns your back to your motherland like a traitor, corrupts your own people with the depraved ideas of the Far West—I put a curse on you and slam our doors to your face! A posse of local shamans standing behind him on the broadcast had murmured in agreement. Kuntilanak had reversed its position on sending scholars abroad in recent years, embracing protectionist policies.
“My lawyer and I think I should pay the fine they demand and stay in New York for a while instead of going back for a trial. I won’t have a future in Kuntilanak for at least the next decade, probably.”
The room fell silent; they understood that Curie’s heart would not recover from this. The pain of possibly never returning home, the lifelong guilt of having made a conscious choice to abandon one’s home… but the path home led to probable imprisonment and loss of freedom. It was an impossible situation.
Curie sensed she had dampened the mood. She also did not want to think about her outstanding legal bills. Eager to divert attention back to Pam’s big day, she moved to the living-room sofa, setting her eyes on the slideshow of images on the television screen that documented Pam’s memories in America.
“Won’t you tell us all about The Process, Pam?”
Pam lit up for the moment she had been waiting for: the opportunity to finally reveal the secrets of The enigmatic Algorithm who controlled multiple Processes that dictated the fates of both citizens and non-citizens, one of which was The Green Card Marriage Process that Pam was sharing today.
“Cassandra, open The Binder,” Pam requested of her AI assistant.
A folder appeared on the screen, displaying an endless array of files. Pam began to recount her three-year journey to prove her marriage to Jason was legitimate. Images of forms and photographs blanketed the screen one by one, reminding Curie of story time in her kindergarten days when shadows of traditional Kuntilanak puppets danced across the classroom walls. The Process started from Jason’s initial proposal (it was fortuitous that a friend had captured multiple photos of the surprise event) to waiting for Jason’s promotion so he had evidence of sufficient finances to support them both to opening multiple joint accounts and credit cards to inviting close friends and family to testify under oath of their authentic love for each other. Then there was a full-day medical examination where a middle-aged physician interrogated her dietary and sexual habits, asked her to strip naked for a full-body exam, leered at her childbearing hips—You sure you’re not just coming to America so your kids will have US passports?—and joked about her ethnicity—You Viet? Thai? Cambodian? I saw a ping-pong show in Phuket once. I’m sure you know what that is, huh? Where the women shoot the ping-pong balls outta their vaginas? Y’all sure have some talents! An overenthusiastic nurse took Pam to a corner to measure her weight—Honey, you Chinese girls need to eat more; you’re underweight!—and gleefully drew blood from her veins—Oh, you’re actually Thai? Oh my, I’ve never drawn blood from a Thai before! Such a rare opportunity! Lucky me! We’re going to have a great time, honey!
“Just keep quiet and don’t talk back, or they could somehow interpret it as evidence of being anti-American,” Pam made sure to add. Therapy had helped her come to terms with her deal with the devil: a few hours of sexual harassment for a lifetime of security. There remained a simmering self-hatred at her inability to speak up and defend her dignity, but she concealed it effortlessly as she spoke.
“Oh, and definitely don’t mention it if you have any chronic illnesses,” Pam continued.
The group nodded in acknowledgment. The “Public Charge” clause—they knew all about it by now. Any sign of weakness, any indication of needing long-term financial or medical support from America, and you were automatically rejected by The Algorithm. Pam shared her handwritten letter to the US government: I sincerely promise I will not require any federal or state benefits nor am I dependent on the hard-earned money of USA taxpayers.
Wei, a Columbia political-science graduate student from Hong Kong, took out his phone to take a snapshot. Pam assured him, “Don’t worry, Wei. I’ll send all my slides to the group later tonight.”
Pam was barely halfway through her story. As the group served themselves some green desserts, Pam enlightened them on one of the most important parts of The Process: The Interview. The Interview was a three-day interrogation affair designed to detect and break down anyone who held even the slightest thought of committing Green Card Marriage fraud. No question about the history and beliefs of each applicant (and their spouse) was left unasked. One section that proved particularly challenging for Pam was discussing the marital history of her parents. They had been divorced since Pam was a child, and she was raised by her grandmother.
How can you sit here and honestly tell me you believe in marriage, under oath, when your parents are divorced? the officer had demanded. They obviously didn’t give a damn about the sanctity of marriage.
Pam had prepared for this scenario, but she was still shocked to hear her inner fears spoken out loud.
How can you be sure it doesn’t run in the family? There must be some residual trauma from your parents’ divorce that you’re bringing into your marriage with your spouse. Or perhaps you’re cynical about it all, sneered the officer.
My parents’ relationship made it even clearer to me that my marriage with Jason is real love, Pam had responded firmly.
Jason, charming ol’ Jason—his parents own restaurant franchises in Jersey! Are you sure you’re not in it for the money? How much is he making a month in his new role?
The group groaned at the officer’s vicious line of questioning. Jason reached out for Pam’s hand. Pam, who despised sympathy, took this opportunity to advise the group that this was exactly why one should always have one’s documents in order, stored in The trusty Binder.
“See, this folder here has all the text messages, photos, and videos one would need to show that I really didn’t care about Jason’s family money. Always bring receipts, my friends!”
Curie, curious about the type of photos that would disprove the officer’s claims, browsed the images on the touch screen. A photograph of Pam and Jason naked, having sex in the missionary position on the very living-room sofa they were now all sitting on, appeared on the screen.
“Oh my god—I’m so sorry—accident,” Curie blurted out, looking down at her plate.
Jason stood up to reassure the group now collectively avoiding his gaze. “We have nothing to hide from you all or from anyone, really. This is all stuff The Algorithm will figure out one way or the other.”
Pam agreed. “In fact, I showed this exact photo to the officer when he asked me when was the last time Jason and I had sex. And I specifically chose this one because missionary is pretty believable for a couple who’s been together for like eight years. If I chose a more risqué photo, like handcuffs and shit, that might signal I’m staging it or trying too hard, you know? But I didn’t want it to be so vanilla that I got accused of not taking our very sacred sexual relationship seriously, so that’s why we’re doing it in the living room. Also, this was one day after my period and right after I got home from my Boston trip, which Jason helped to back me up on during his portion of The Interview, so it made sense that we couldn’t wait for the bedroom.”
Curie felt as if Van Gogh himself had granted her an audience, explaining why and how he had painted his masterful self-portrait of his severed, bandaged ear. Pam’s insights were certainly thought-provoking. These were examples she would need to remember now that she most likely needed a Green Card.
“But how did you even take that photo in the first place?” Wei asked.
“We couldn’t have done it without Cassandra!” Pam exclaimed. “Our guardian angel.”
The group gazed at the emerald-green, spherical, blinking device that had accompanied Pam and Jason through the last four years of their relationship. Some of them made mental notes to purchase their own AI assistants very soon.
Through rigorous preparation and the help of a lawyer, Pam and Jason eventually passed The Interview. What followed was a two-year trial period where they continued to prove their authentic relationship to The Algorithm. Every fight, every reconciliation, every weekday-night movie and takeout session was recorded by Cassandra, who, with Pam’s guidance, then curated a quarterly highlights reel to present to The Algorithm. To officially end the trial period and graduate into permanent Green Card status, Jason testified in court of his continued, growing love for Pam.
“You see, from a legal perspective, it ultimately has nothing to do with my right to stay in America and everything to do with Jason’s right to love a foreigner,” Pam stated, both hands revealing her grief as they now tightly grasped her skirt. Or perhaps, they yearned to embrace the rest of her body, to remind Pam she was indeed still physically here in this country, this dimension, this present time. “He had to present his case to the court and to The Algorithm on why he couldn’t find a compatible American spouse, on what made me so extraordinary that he could literally love me and only me.”
Pam’s eyes watered as the group gathered around her to speak words of comfort, assuring her she deserved stay in America.
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The doorbell rang. The delivery person had finally arrived.
An overpowering aroma of blue cheese, rotten eggs, and wet socks filled Pam’s apartment. Curie tore apart the newspaper wrapping to reveal three spiky, oblong-shaped, pickle-green fruits that resembled dragon eggs—durians from Thailand by way of Jackson Heights, Queens. They were a final surprise for her best friend.
She presented one to Pam, who gasped and cradled it in her arms, a mother seizing her long-lost child. “You know how I feel about Thai durians, Pam—Kuntilanak ones are superior! But today’s your day, so we had to bring you durians from your motherland.”
The group cheered at the advent of the pungent culinary delight. Pam shed another tear, touched by the care she felt from her friends. Wei and Curie cracked the durian husks into quarters and distributed them to the group. They dug into the golden-yellow pieces of custard-like pulp with their bare hands, greedily licking the luscious, creamy threads of flesh off their fingers.
They did not mind the revolting odor at all—even the Asian Americans among them had gotten used to it by now due to repeated exposure. To them, it smelled of sweet, heavenly dessert, revered and treasured food of their gods, their people. They delighted in the fact that there were still foods from their cultures that were yet untouched and overlooked by mainstream America. Partaking in a communion of vomit-inducing, stinky food was their sacred ritual, one that communicated a level of solidarity and trust that insipid social niceties never could. Tasting the same bittersweet aroma of durian fruit on their tongues was their final frontier of intimacy, one where surveillance cameras and tracking devices and Processes could never trespass.
Afternoon turned into twilight, and light-hearted talk transitioned into dinner plans.
“Wei, isn’t there a new Sichuan restaurant around the corner of 105th and Columbus? I hear it’s always fully booked,” Jason mentioned.
Wei nodded his head with a tinge of melancholy.
“Yea, there’s a famous dish I’ve been wanting to try called ‘Buddha Cries Tears of Bittersweet Regret.’ Apparently, it’s the only dish in America using twenty different varieties of Sichuan peppercorns. Legend says this dish was named after some Sichuan monks in olden times who were meditating and abstaining from worldly pleasures—you know, typical monk stuff—but the smell of roasted peppercorns nearby was so strong it made them sneeze uncontrollably. Then they went crazy and hunted for the dish, devouring it in seconds, and it was so spicy and oily and utterly delicious that it reminded them of their childhoods before they joined the monastery. Then they all started bawling because they knew they couldn’t go back to pre-monk life since they had all lost their hometowns due to war. And when they remembered they had just broken their vow of abstinence and were so mentally weak they couldn’t even resist the first sign of temptation, they cried even more.”
The group laughed at the ridiculousness of this tall tale. They decided to try their luck and stroll to this new spot, eager for a meal so mind-numbingly spicy it would erase all memory of home.
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