“If I ever go to Pakistan, they will kill me, right?” This was the masoomana sawaal (innocent question) my Chicago coworkers and classmates would often ask me with utmost sincerity and partiality. I would initially get flabbergasted by this fearsome rhetorical question, but would put on my much obligated poker face and reply with utmost sincerity, “No. they would worship you because you’re a foreigner, an exotic bird among self-hating birdwatchers who are literally willing to make a Faustian bargain – sell their souls to you if you can take them back to Chicago with you.” This reply would shock them in return.
However, over time I have been asked this masoomana sawaal with so much trepidation it would irritate me. I was left unable to defy it with my poker face and would simply shrug my shoulders and say, “Why don’t you go ahead and go there to find out? If you come back in one piece then voilà, if not then you would know. Every mortal being has to die one day, right?” then I would calmly and silently walk away, leaving them perplexed.
While Americans live in fear of Pakistanis post-9/11 now more than ever, President Donald Trump has vowed to cleanse the national soil of immigrants (read invaders) to make the country great again. My fellow Karachiites, on the other hand, are so desperate to leave Pakistan “jis mein kuch nahi rakkha” (which has nothing left) and go to America to pursue whatever their idea of the ‘American dream’ is at any cost and come what may. I have been told by my fellow Karachiite brothers that they are willing to sleep on the bathroom floor in the US and leave their comfy beds and homes here in Karachi to pursue dollars and goris (white girls) who will fall on them magically from trees without any effort.
Let me clue you in, my esteemed and humble readers, that the grass is not always greener on the US soil. And I can say that with utmost confidence because I have lived in the Windy City, Chicago, for eight painstakingly pulsating and financially trailblazing years.
My parents and I were sponsored back in early 2000s by one of my five uncles who live in the US. My parents were lucky enough to get the green cards in 2006, but I had to endure two more years of strict scrutiny by the American Embassy in Islamabad. They weren’t completely silent during this period though, as there were brief phone calls from our capital city in between, asking the same annoying question every time, “Have you travelled outside Pakistan in last two/three/six/12 months, Syed?”
It came to a point that I and the poor phone operator lady had developed a monotonous routine of her boringly asking, “Have you?” to me replying with similar disdain, resorting just to a “no” to her hanging up immediately without saying anything else.
I would never forget the another rhetorical masoomana sawaal that US immigration officer fired back at me in 2003 at the window of Islamabad’s US Embassy. He asked me and my father in a hilariously accented inept Urdu with his blonde eyebrows raised as if it was his middle finger flipping us off, “tumhara kisi dehshatgard tanzeem shay tahalluqq tohh nahi hay?” (You don’t have any connection with a terrorist organization, do you?). The innocent question enraged my mother to say, “what if he has?” to which the equally irritated officer replied, “Aahap shayy naheee phouuchha maine!” (I didn’t ask you!). My worried father pinched me on the shoulder at that point and I reassured the humble officer that I don’t, to which he seemed momentarily relieved. Not to mention the thorough – and I mean thorough in every sense of the word – medical examination done by the US-appointed medical practitioners of my whole body. Yes, you read that right! My whole body, not sparing anything after the interview debacle at the embassy.
Finally, in 2008, the call came and I flew to Chicago in April that year. Right off the bat, I had to endure living in a studio apartment with my parents, without any privacy. It was actually a basement of a four-storey building – pre-occupied by Pakistanis and Indians, all desis – adjacent to the prestigious “Devon Street”, a Mecca of sorts for the desi-American community with Pakistani, Indian, and Saudi restaurants, boutiques, salons, and such.
You would think that you feel at home with so many desis in a foreign land. You are dead wrong my esteemed readers. Why? Because you see, the Pakistanis living in Chicago detest you. They do not want another fellow Pakistani to dare enter their precious dreamland. They are rightfully and deservedly living on US soil and earning dollars. How dare you try to invade their seamless, picture-perfect life? You got no business here. They would let you know of that disgust – they let you know that you are unwelcomed – with their passive-aggressive behavior and judgmental taunts. They irritate and annoy you to the point that you find yourself disconnecting them and toning them out of your mind so you can retain your sanity.
Finding a job was not that easy either. My first job, which my father got me, was with a small-scale printing press owned by a Karachiite at Devon Street, who suddenly let me go after 12 days of excruciating labor. I had to print thousands of pocket diary pages of Holiday Inn hotel. Then my father got me a job at a local Dunkin’ Donuts franchise, full of desi sounds and fury, signifying only judgmental annoyance and wholesome taunting about my tall height. After eight painfully bothersome months, I finally broke free of those unwelcoming desis at Dunkin’ and got a job at Target store at Evanston, Illinois, one job I somehow managed to hold for six years.
Initially, for the first two years, I was in the night shift and had to take classes at the not-so-prestigious Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) in the morning. I realized that commute to the campus and work was not convenient if you solely rely on Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) buses, which would not show up on time or would not show up at all when it is snowing or raining. I bought a bicycle upon my mother’s insistence from Target and I would ride it to campus and work even during frost-bitingly cold and harsh snowy weather or rains. You can understand my predicament. I am sure you get the idea about how difficult it would have been for me.
At Target, I could not even call in sick, as if I do, they would threaten to fire me. With all the living expenses, I could not possibly let that happen. I had to endure eight-hour shift standing on my numb feet even in 103-degree cold fever. Despite all this hard work, I was barely able to make $7,000 per year from that demanding job. Thankfully, my father was also working at a shoe store and paying a hefty sum of $850 monthly rent, otherwise, it would have befallen on my tired and overwhelmed shoulders too. I still had to pay $300 internet bill and $15 per day for Devon Street’s tasteless desi food.
Education was not totally free either. I did not get financial aid for my first two semesters because it was customary back then for the legal immigrant students to have stayed in the US for at least one year to qualify for the financial assistance. The tuition per semester at NEIU skyrocketed to $8,800 per semester by my graduation in May 2013, and I ended up paying a hefty amount from my pocket over the course of seven-year BA Communications, Media & Theater program.
According to Reuters, Trump has now proposed a new travel ban for Muslim countries that could very much include Pakistan along with Afghanistan due to security concerns. So, my humble and esteemed readers, your dreams of legally entering the US on student or travel visa could very much be in jeopardy, as Trump very much sees you as a legit security threat.
If you ask me, I’m not entirely surprised by this drastic step taken by the Orange Man, as even after legally getting the much-sought-after blue passport, the righteous and totally not racist Transportation Administration Authority (TSA) officials at the O’Hare Airport would always take me to a windowless room to investigate like a criminal every time I come back from vacationing in Karachi and reenter Chicago. While technically I am a US citizen, they still see me as a brown, Muslim-named, Pakistani security threat to their nation and goris.
Trump does not want you to invade the red-blue-white American soil with your extremist, disgusting brown feet, unless you have $5 million at your disposal with which you can buy the now much-sought-after ‘Gold Card’ that can grant you permanent residency, no questions asked.
Final thoughts
Believe you me, my humble and esteemed readers, this opinion piece is by no means written to, God forbid, discourage you from pursuing the American dream, dollars, life of luxury, and goris. By all means, go ahead and consult your local immigration consultant today to secure your future. Say goodbye to street crimes, gas and electricity load shedding, inflation, mounting utility bills, taxes, scarcely diminishing employment prospects, and broken roads of Karachi and fly your troubles away in the prestigious land of Uncle Sam and the bald eagle. But do keep the difficulties I have taken the liberty of informing you in mind, phir na kehna bataya nahi (don't say you weren't warned).
