Facebook and Immigration.

My first essay published in The Current is an encounter I had over the summer.

This is immigration. No more Ellis Island. No obvious estrangement. Possibly wait months or years to save money. Endure lines and frustration at an embassy where young State Department servants learn to block out the stories in order to see the statistics. Win a lottery for a residence permit and make a Facebook update. Take the last gaze at a familiar country, at home, for the foreseeable future.

With the final click on Facebook and one’s past can be erased. Put behind. Out of mind. Off the web. Forgotten. Deleted. A blank CV. A migrant with a one-way ticket. A new Act I at age 25, with a love of Oprah.

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  1. apkohn posted this