My Immigration Problem
Boston Outsider / Humor
When I was in the fourth grade, there was a frequently televised public service announcement for the Immigration & Naturalization Service that ended with the words, “All aliens must report before January 1st.” After seeing the announcement several times, I decided to stake out the government building that housed the local I.N.S. office.
I loitered outside the place every weekday after school to spy on the facility’s visitors. I saw women dressed entirely in black, men with drooping moustaches, whole families in big fur hats, and old Chinese fellows with pigtails and long beards. But I didn’t witness one creature with antennae or tentacles, or any nine-foot guys with huge crania, or even a mutant chimp like the one on “Lost in Space.” What was going on? After a month or so, my father finally straightened me out.
“An ‘alien’ is just a foreign person,” my Dad said. “Like your grandmother upstairs.”
My maternal grandmother in the second floor apartment of our house was indeed foreign. She used to douse herself with vinegar before backyard cookouts to repel mosquitoes. When a stray feline encroached upon our front porch, my grandmother showed a superhuman talent for cat-flinging. She said that she could interpret dreams. And she often spoke a strange language with my mother.
Now I learned that my beloved Nonna was an alien. And realizing that my Ma understood my grandmother’s lingo, I thought about another term: “mother ship.” So, from what I gathered, extraterrestrials were disguised as “old country” people, and human mothers were their earthly quislings.
But why didn’t Uncle Martin on “My Favorite Martian” speak with an accent? Was he from a different part of space, or was he just a sneaky bastard? There was much to ponder concerning aliens.
After some Greeks opened a restaurant in our neighborhood, I got the idea for my first short story, “I Married a Stuffed Grape Leaf from Another World,” which I showed to my teacher, Miss McGillicuddy. She and the school psychologist both loved it!
