At the film festival, I met a Spaniard named Gorka. This retired rock star was a riot. Not just because he was better looking than the movie stars he would assist on the red carpets as PR, but because he had an equal passion for spirituality and moderation as he had for extremities and living life to the fullest. Gorka would work all day with me as a volunteer, disappear for three hours, and then come back for a night shift. When I asked where he had been, Gorka would just shrug: “The Playboy Mansion.”
There was another Spaniard, also from the Basque country, who ran press for the film festival. Her name was Miren, and she was a joyous woman who couldn’t believe that people didn’t smoke more cigarettes in California. Miren was a consummate professional and her work was outstanding. If she ever lost her cool, it was because you weren’t doing your job.
Miren, Gorka, and I spent the entire two weeks of the festival hanging out. We became fast friends. I dropped them off at the airport and really hated saying good-bye to them. They invited me to visit them in Spain. Now that I had papers, I was seriously considering it. The only problem was that after spending my life savings on stupid gala tickets, I was broke.
After the film festival, Liesel and Steve called me unexpectedly. They always kept in close touch with me, and knew that I was disappointed I couldn’t go visit my new friends in Spain. That was when they gave me the surprise of my life.
“We always felt bad that you couldn’t go to Prague with the forensics team,” explained Liesel.
“It also sucks that you were never able to travel outside of the country,” added Steve.
“So we saved up enough frequent flyer miles for you to go to Spain and visit your friends,” Liesel finally blurted out.
I was speechless. Ironic, given all our speech history together. After all the crushing debt and free volunteer work, Liesel and Steve were giving me a free trip to Europe. I was an emotional mess. But more important, I was going to mothaf*ckin’ Spain!
As you may recall, I arrived in Madrid and was detained by immigration authorities for not having a special visa to enter Spain as an Ecuadorian citizen. That is why I was placed in a jail inside the airport awaiting deportation.
Flabbergasted, I asked the immigration official on the other side of the metal bars if I could please make a phone call. He explained there was a public phone behind me, and that he sells calling cards at noon and at 6:00 p.m. every day. Since it was now noon, he could sell me one.
“Yes, please,” I begged.
I exchanged what little money I had in my pocket for a calling card and rushed over to the pay phone, only to discover that there was a line of people waiting to use it. No matter how tough a gangbanger I’d pretended to be in middle school, I had never been inside a jail before. Sadly, the scene was exactly as they depicted on American television: a lot of desperate men waiting for their turn to call or eagerly anticipating for someone to call them. There was one other thing that was exactly like all the American prison shows I had seen up to that point: everybody in this European jail was Black. They all spoke Spanish, but they were all clearly of African descent. There were Afro-Cubans, Afro-Venezuelans, Afro-Colombians, and Afro-Panamanians. Like me, they were mostly from Latin America. Unlike me, they were all of darker pigmentation. This hit me like a ton of bricks. I had hoped that racism was an American invention like my light-skinned, privileged family in Ecuador always asserted. But here in front of my very eyes was proof that it didn’t matter where you lived in the world; being Black was a detriment to your peaceful existence.
It was finally my turn to use the pay phone and I called Miren, who in turn was worried sick. She said she had waited outside the airport but I never came out. I explained my situation.
“You needed a special visa? Joder!”
Miren said she would call a friend of hers at the Spanish Consulate in Los Angeles to resolve this problem of the special visa, but that I should call the airline to get a refund for my flight. Miren was always so cool under pressure. I hung up with her and dialed Continental Airlines. I told the customer service representative of my plight, and she felt horrible for me. She said she would get me a brand-new—
“Hello? Hello!”
The line went dead. My calling card had run out of money, and just as I was about to get my entire flight refunded. Shit! I ran over to the jail bars and begged the immigration official for another calling card. The official casually looked up at the clock on the wall. It was now 12:20 p.m.
“As I mentioned, I only sell calling cards at noon and at six p.m.,” he said calmly before going back to his newspaper.
At first I thought he was joking. But after he ignored my next two pleas for a calling card, I realized he was dead serious. He was not going to sell me a calling card. Defeated, I walked back to the bench by the pay phone and sat down. I was nervous. I didn’t know what would happen to me.
There were a lot of nature posters, like tropical birds and serene waterfalls, hung up around the jail. The posters were from all over Latin America. They were clearly there to make the temporary residents of the jail feel more at home. I’m sad to report that there was a poster from Ecuador, and that it did, in fact, make me feel more at home. It’s sad that I had to go all the way to Spain and get deported before I could start missing Ecuador. It was a poster of a tropical parrot in the Galápagos Islands—a place most poor Ecuadorians could never afford to visit. It was now 5:50 p.m. and I had been in captivity for over seven hours. I was losing my mind. I walked over to the steel bars and asked the immigration official if he would now please sell me a calling card. Instead of looking at me, he casually glanced up at the wall, and since it was still a few minutes before 6 p.m., he went back to the paperwork on his desk. Just like in the movies, I hung on to the bars like a criminal with no possibility for parole. It must have been a very sad sight. When the clock finally hit 6:00 p.m., the official looked over at me and said something that made my blood boil. This motherf*cker said…
“How can I help you?”
I ran over to the pay phone with what I thought was enough calling cards to last me a lifetime. I started making all kinds of calls. I reconnected with Miren, who by this point had already created a step-by-step game plan of what I had to do when I got back to Los Angeles to get my special visa from the Spanish Consulate. I then connected with Gorka, who was able to secure a new train ticket for me so that I could get to Pamplona to see him. Then I called Continental Airlines. This time, however, I could not reconnect with the lovely female customer service agent who was so incredibly understanding. Instead, I connected to a miserable male representative, who wanted nothing to do with me. I told him about my unbelievable travel experience, but he wasn’t having it.
“We were already fined five thousand dollars for letting you fly without the special visa,” he said with a tone that you reserved only for unwanted children. “We don’t owe you anything.” In fear that my calling card would run out, I quickly switched my strategy to kindness and explained that I had already spoken to a female customer service representative, and she was going to get me a brand-new—
“Hello? Hello!”
The line went dead. My calling cards had all run out of money once more. This time, I didn’t bother going back to the immigration official to get more.
I slept with my shoes on that night. I didn’t like the way one of the immigrants in the jail was looking at my sneakers, so I didn’t take them off. I also couldn’t sleep because the guy on the metal bunk bed above me wouldn’t stop crying. According to him, getting into Spain was his only hope for providing for his family. I don’t remember where the other people in our four-person cell came from, except the Russian. The Russian had a heartbreaking story. He had left his never-before-heard-of small town in Russia days before a deadly mass shooting there took over the international headlines. It was a horrific story that does not deserve to be repeated, but included a lot of small children. Because that never-before-heard-of small town was now all over the news, he was denied entrance into Spain. Like all the other immigrants, he had friends and family waiting for him with job opportunities ready to go. All were being denied these opportunities for being born in the wrong place or for being born with the wrong skin color.
The next morning, when it was time for me to be deported back to the United States, immigration enforcement was not subtle about any of it. They put me in handcuffs and mounted me on a small electrical cart that drove me up the stairs to the plane. Spanish police walked me to my seat, removed my handcuffs, and walked away as the unknowing passengers and flight attendants looked at me with terror. I’m sure they all thought I was a criminal at best, and a terrorist at worst. A good-looking terrorist, but a terrorist nevertheless. I arrived back in the United States, but I couldn’t bring myself to go home. I didn’t want to tell my parents what had happened. During my entire ordeal in Spain, I’d never once called my parents. I didn’t want to burden them with my stupidity. I went to stay with Liesel and Steve, who felt horrible about the whole special visa situation. They felt that if they hadn’t bought the ticket for me, this would have come up before I even stepped foot on the plane. But the world’s arbitrary immigration laws were not their fault. Just like it wasn’t their fault that we now lived within barricaded borders but existed in a borderless economy. I got my special visa expedited in a day from the Spanish Consulate in Los Angeles, thanks to Miren, and boarded a new flight to Spain that same day. I was able to get a new free flight thanks to Liesel. The airline customer service wouldn’t listen to a broke Latino college student, but they sure as hell jumped when a customer that did a lot of business with them called to complain. Now at the airport ready to head back to Spain, I finally decided to call my parents. Excited to hear from me, they asked me where I was.
“Are you in Madrid with Miren?”
“No,” I said.
“Oh—are you in Pamplona with Gorka?”
“Not yet.”
“Are you in San Sebastian?”
“I’m with Steve and Liesel in LA. I was deported from Spain. But don’t worry, I’m heading back now.”
My parents were speechless.
It all sounded crazy coming out of my mouth. I can’t even begin to imagine what my parents must have thought. I flew back across the Atlantic. I landed in Spain once again. When I exited the plane, I walked up to the same customs kiosk, and the same Spanish officer asked me for my immigration papers. He saw my Ecuadorian passport and quickly looked up at me—shocked to see that I was back for more. This time I dropped the special visa they required on top of my Ecuadorian passport, followed by my permanent residency card from the United States of America. I smiled. The Spanish officer begrudgingly stamped my Ecuadorian passport, which finally granted me access into Europe. I put my sunglasses back on and walked out of the Spanish airport triumphant. I looked around Madrid for the first time. It was beautiful. But I must admit, my heart ached when I saw nothing but predominantly white tourists entering the country.