By Heather Zwicker
I suppose when you approach the U.S. border with a Honda Civic full of stuff that doesn’t belong to you, you’re asking for special treatment. In this case, the border was Windsor-Detroit, the driver was me, the car was my partner’s, and the stuff was all of Mo’s earthly possessions, moving with her from Toronto to Edmonton. Sitting right at eye level with the border guard’s gun, I flubbed some answers – “No, it’s not my car, officer, it’s just my turn to drive. What? That box? Uh, I’m not sure exactly what’s in that box.” Before long, we were standing inside the immigration office on a sticky August day.
In front of us were a black man and a white woman. Behind us, a Chinese man with a Canadian student visa. Back near the door huddled a woman in a long skirt and kerchief surrounded by what was evidently a suspicious number of children. We’re in the holding tank of cultural diversity, I thought. But how do we fit in? I turned to my girlfriend to ask and it dawned on me: of course, we’re the lesbians.
When it was finally our turn at the front of the line, a stern-looking septuagenarian decided to start with me. “You,” he said to Mo, “stand over there.” He pointed some distance down the counter. “As for you,” he peered at my passport, “Heather. Where do you reside?”
“Edmonton,” I said. I’d heard that border guards don’t so much listen to your answers as they look for physical signs of guilt, and I concentrated on not displaying any of them: I was who I was saying I was. I willed away the bead of sweat starting to roll down my forehead and I made eye contact. My throat was a little dry.
“Uh-huh,” he said skeptically, “and what do you do there in Ed-min-tin?”
I tried to relax.
“I’m a professor,” I croaked. He said nothing, but his eyebrows headed toward his hairline while his eyes travelled down my body and back up again.
I tried to appear professorial, but the tank top and cut-offs I was wearing ruined the academic look.
“You’re a professor,” he said. For a moment he looked amused. My heart rose suddenly, then sank just as suddenly as he leaned forward and stopped smiling. “Can you prove that?” he asked.
I wasn’t sure that I could.
And this is the quintessential moment at the border: can you prove that you are who you say you are? Do you know enough about yourself to sound convincing? Do you know more than whatever is displayed on the secret passport screen behind the counter? Every life decision comes to bear, catastrophically, on the questions they ask at the border: Who are you? Who were you? And who will you be next week?
“Prove it?” I asked. The sweat started rolling down my forehead in earnest. “Uh, I could maybe, uh, give you a phone number for the—”
He interrupted, “It’s not up to me to investigate. It’s up to you to prove it. Just what kind of professor are you?” He narrowed his eyes a little.
“English,” I said, meekly.
“What area of English?” He asked.
“Postcolonial literature?” I was trying to sound hopeful.
“All right. Name me three postcolonial American writers,” he challenged.
At that, I really started to panic. “Well, that’s hard to do,” I explained, “because the field is configured really differently in the U.S. than it is north of the 49th parallel, where the Commonwealth literary tradition continues to resonate. In the U.S., on the other hand, the term ‘postcolonial’ has become virtually synonymous with ‘critical race theory’ and other forms of minority literary production and criticism. A writer is classified as one thing on this side of the border, and another on the other side.”
That should have been my get-out-of-jail-free card. I mean, seriously, who but a professor would ever talk like that? But my interlocutor was not persuaded.
“Name me three postcolonial American authors.” he demanded again.
“OK,” I said. “OK. Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson and, and, and… Walt Whitman.” Maybe this would work out after all.
“And what’s the name of the RCAF fighter pilot who wrote the poem ‘High Flight’?” he continued. It wasn’t going to work out. I stared glumly ahead, absorbing the fact that I would never, ever be permitted to leave this holding tank. He was right: I couldn’t effectively prove who I was.
Then from the dim recesses of my Grade 9 homeroom teacher’s tyranny of memorization came a lifeline: “I don’t remember the poet’s name,” I said, “but I can quote you the last two lines!”
When I did, it melted him completely. He told me he only took on the job of border guard after his retirement from being a high school English teacher. He smiled while he talked, remembering who he’d been as a younger and more idealistic person. Then he
remembered who he was now.
“Next!” He barked. U
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Heather Zwicker has lived in Honolulu, New York, San Francisco and Mzumbe, Tanzania, but she always comes back to Alberta. When not teaching literature and cultural theory at the University of Alberta, she does downward dogs, takes long walks along the North Saskatchewan River and blogs at zwickerhzwicker.blogspot.com. |
Category: Work
