Showing posts with label Panama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Panama. Show all posts

Thursday, 11 August 2011

In US, one lesbian 'illegal' immigrant is stuck in legal limbo

Veronica
Source: AlmadaPatch

By Nancy Lopez

Let's call her Veronica. I met with her at an Alameda coffeehouse near the Island apartment she has rented with her girlfriend for the last two years.

Her orange hoodie highlighted her dark skin. She spoke softly — her voice wary, calm and resigned. Around her arms were beaded bracelets.

Under a brown fedora, Veronica’s hair is cut close to her scalp; she recently donated her hair in honor of a friend with cancer. At 5-foot-7 and with an athletic build, it's not surprising that Veronica played soccer and volleyball in college.

But unlike most of her friends who graduated and went on to work at “regular jobs," Veronica has worked under the table as a nanny for the last five years, ever since she left college in 2005, two courses shy of a degree.

When Veronica's student visa lapsed six years ago, she got a job babysitting. Since then, she has built up a loyal clientele. Now she works regularly for four families.
“I’ve always been a natural with kids,” Veronica said. “They’re drawn to me and I’m drawn to them.”

“I can, as normally as possible, support myself."
Veronica measures her words when she speaks. She aims, she says, to always “mean what I say and say what I mean.”

Straight talk can be a challenge, though: there are many aspects of her life she has a difficult time explaining. The details of her legal situation are complicated and painful to talk about.
“I don’t have a way of starting or growing a career. I don’t pay taxes. I don’t pay into retirement funds. I’m not moving forward in terms of what socially you’re expected to do,” Veronica said.

Wednesday, 27 April 2011

Former star Cameroonian gay football player scores US asylum

Gaston (fourth from left) and former team colleagues
Source: Seattle Gay News

by Shaun Knittel

Gaston Dissake, 29, has never known life without soccer. For as long as he can remember, the soccer field has been where he found freedom.

Unfortunately for Gaston, an openly Gay man in the oppressive African nation of Cameroon, freedom stopped whenever he left the field. After years of police beatings, attacks from former teammates, and threats on his life, Gaston fled to seek asylum in the U.S., which eventually led him to Seattle and gave him a taste of the civil freedom that he only previously got on the field.

Gaston's story is one of a man who risked all so that he could be free to be himself. He is ready to embrace a Gay community he only read about or saw on TV. Above all, he wants desperately to get back into soccer.

In his home of Cameroon, a country of west-central Africa with over 18 million citizens, association football (soccer) dominates the male culture. Amateur football clubs abound, organized along ethnic lines or under corporate sponsors. The Cameroon national football team has been one of the most successful in the world since its strong showing in the 1990 FIFA World Cup. Within that world, Gaston Dissake was a star.

Gaston and I talked over coffee on a rainy afternoon in a café in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. He is polite and soft-spoken, and communicates well, despite his limited knowledge of English. He has a great smile and his face lights up when he talks about his favorite sport.
'I was a well-known soccer player and coach in my country,' he told Seattle Gay News. 'I've played many other sports - tennis, basketball - but soccer has always been my life.'
Gaston told me that, after many years of professional play and minor-league coaching, he became a free agent, playing for teams that needed a player for tournaments. He traveled throughout the African continent, Eastern Europe, and Asia.

In 2003, he explained, 'My life changed forever.'

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