Today is Part III of the visa series, teaching you how to apply for the K-1 visa, if you are crazy enough to do it.
At this point, you should have received your NOA1 and NOA2, notifying you that your I-129F application was approved. Make sure you keep both of those notifications because you will need copies of them later.
At this point, it takes a few weeks for your application to be forwarded to your fiance's local consulate. In Eli's case, it took about 3 weeks. Then, when the consulate receives and processes the application, they send the foreign fiance a notification with an interview date. Party!
But really, that just brings you to Big Step #2.
At this point, if you are not living with your fiance, it's time to ship him/her certain documents that he/she will need to bring to the interview. Here's what both of you will need to do/get for the foreign fiance:
--a copy of the NOA2
--filled out DS-230 (just the top) --2 copies of a filled out DS-156 (which you do online and print) --filled out DS-156K --filled out DS-157 --filled out FS-257A (this is the Portuguese/English version) --filled out Sworn Statement
--2 passport-sized photos --letters of good conduct from local authorities (see your local consulate for request forms)
--original birth certificate and a copy --original death or marriage certificates and a copy of each --original military service document and a copy
--receipt from $131 standard US visa fee (in Brazil, you must pay ONLY at Citibank)
--sealed medical examination* (see list of doctors in Brazil here) --filled out I-134 and supporting documents (proof of citizenship/residency, last tax return, letter from employer, recent pay stubs)**
--foreign fiance's passport
*When you go for your medical exam, which can only be done at US embassy-approved doctors, you will have to have a chest X-ray, an HIV test, a physical, and any vaccinations you may need. The doctor will give you a sealed envelope with the results. HOWEVER, once you get to the US, you will need the vaccination information again, so try to get an extra copy of it from the doctor, if he'll give it to you.
**There's a poverty cut-off for income, but if you've been living abroad like me and can't make it, all you need is a co-sponsor to fill out his/her own I-134 and provide documentation, as long as he/she promises to provide financial support for your fiance.
The most time consuming parts are the medical exam (in Brazil, you are sent to outside labs for the tests and then have to schedule an appointment with the doctor), waiting for the letters of good conduct to come out (in Rio, one took a week and the other took two weeks), and putting together the enormous pile of paperwork.
But once you're done, all you have to do is sit and wait for your interview!
I love meat. Though I'm a picky eater, I've always loved steak and hamburgers, and when I lived in Argentina, I ate red meat almost every day (how could you not?). I never really thought about where it comes from or questioned how it got on my plate, and used to view vegetarians with skepticism and vegans with disdain.
My dad, in the meantime, has been a vegetarian for a long time--originally, he says, for health reasons. I would see him order the vegetarian option on airplanes, or scour the menu for something without meat at restaurants, and shrug. Sucks to be you, I'd think.
Then, my cousin, who is something of a vacuum when it comes to food, read The Omnivore's Dilemma, and stopped eating anything that isn't organic (including meat and chicken) and anything with corn syrup (candy, soda, anything produced in the US). This, for him, being a food machine, was a very big deal. Unbelievably, the former eat-now-think-later carnivore has stuck to his healthy diet. I read the book too, but I couldn't believe my cousin took it to heart.
Over the past few months, though, something changed. A few days before I left Brazil, Eli and I went to our favorite churrascaria, and I could barely eat the meat. The steak was especially rare, and my stomach turned at the sight of the blood oozing from the meat. I was oddly grossed out, even though I used to love nothing more than a salty slice of picanha. I flipped my meat button to red, "Nao, obrigado," and hit the salad bar.
A few weeks later, I had a little "30 Days" marathon, and the episode below really got to me.
So I decided to stop eating red meat, and get my protein from fish, poultry, and beans instead. At first, I thought it would be hard, especially in the summer during barbecue season. But surprisingly, it hasn't been. Once and awhile I'll gaze longingly at Eli's filet mignon or wonder if I'll be able to resist eating my mom's brisket, but ever since I've started in June, I've stuck with it. There is no way I will ever be able to become a full-fledged vegetarian, and giving up corn syrup is out of the question (I'm a Coke addict--Diet Coke, that is). Being that I eat a lot of unhealthy food when I'm stateside, I decided I might as well take one beneficial step in the right direction, Let's just hope I'm not in Buenos Aires any time soon.
I've been following the Zanger abduction case closely, ever since the news broke that his daughter was murdered. The incredible thing is, it has gone from bad to worse, in every sense.
A little background: Sascha Zanger, an Austrian, has been fighting to get his children back for two years, ever since his mentally disturbed ex-wife kidnapped them and took them to Brazil. She disappeared, and in her absence, a judge gave custody of the children to their aunt. The aunt, who lives in a favela, failed to care for them properly, abusing them and depriving them of food. Then, the aunt and her daughter beat Zanger's four year-old to death. Zanger went to Brazil to bring his son and his daughter's body home.
It was reported that Zanger decided to sue his Hague lawyer, Ricardo Zamariola, who is also David Goldman's lawyer, for failing to uphold his contract and for allegedly telling him the children were in good hands. But Zamariola turned around and slapped Zanger with a slander suit, claiming he had never said the children were in good hands--that was the Conselho Tutelar, the Brazilian equivalent of Child Services, that erroneously informed him. Meanwhile, the OAB's Human Rights Comission (Brazil's bar association), has announced its support for Mr. Zanger in his fight to get his son back.
Zanger's ex-wife was hospitalized at a mental institution two weeks after her daughter's death, where she spent nine days before she was allowed to be released. However, since no relative was available to pick her up, she remained in the hospital. Her sister and niece, accused of murdering Sophie Zanger, are free until their trial, and have disappeared. They were spotted at a supermarket in the Zona Oeste, but they have fled their home after neighbors threatened to lynch them.
In another odd bit of news, the nurse responsible for reporting the case to the police when the little girl was first brought in to the hospital has been fired, for supposedly breaking the ethics code. "O engraçado nessa história é que perco o emprego, mas as assassinas dessa criança estão soltas," she told Jornal do Brasil. [The funny thing about this story is that I lost my job, but that child's murderers are free.]
On July 16, Zanger returned to Austria alone. The Brazilian court still has not granted custody of his son, Raphael, who remains with his adoptive grandmother. Sophie's body is still in the Rio morgue and Zanger has still not received permission to take it back to Austria for a proper burial. Zanger told Estadao: "Meu grande erro foi confiar na Justiça brasileira. Hoje, me culpo por
não ter tirado minhas crianças à força daqui, colocado em um carro e
ter parado só no Uruguai ou na Argentina e de lá para a Áustria. Assim
minha filha estaria viva hoje." [My big mistake was to trust the Brazilian judicial system. Today, I blame myself for not taking the children away by force, putting them in a car, and driving to Uruguay or Argentina and then taking them to Austria. That way, my daughter would still be alive.]
Unlike the half-hearted support by the American government with the Goldman case, the Austrian government has firmly stood behind Zanger and vowed to help him get his son back. It called on the EU to put pressure on Brazil and to urge the Rio court to abide by the Hague convention. But Zanger went home empty-handed, and there is no telling when or if he will get his son back.
This week, a controversy involving racism broke out in Brazil, on the heels of a much bigger and more serious racism controversy in the United States, and I thought it was worth a look at both to help put into context the problem of racism plays out in both countries.
Last week, preeminent Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct after police mistook him for an intruder. Gates was unable to open his front door, but with the help of his driver, they managed to shove it open, though to a woman driving by, it looked like they were breaking into the house. She called the police, who arrived on the scene after Gates had entered his house. The cop demanded ID from Gates, who gave him a hard time but gave him his identification nonetheless. He then taunted the police officer, and the officer arrested him.
Why is it a big deal? Both Gates and his driver are black, and the police and 911 caller are being accused of racism. Gates, in the meantime, is one of Harvard's most famous professors and one of the foremost academics on African Americans, so the incident was something like Gloria Steinem being arrested for being mistaken for a prostitute. Due to Gates' high profile status, the aftermath was especially embarrassing for the Cambridge police. Later, President Obama commented on the case, saying the police officer had acted "stupidly," and consequently getting a ton of flack for his comment.
Even though charges against Gates were dropped, the media has beat the story like a dead horse ever since it broke, and every pundit and blogger has chimed in to give their two cents. The incident has sparked a dialog about how far the US really has come in terms of equality and tolerance, showing that racial profiling is a serious issue and that racism exists even in our country's most liberal areas.
Now, on to Brazil.
On Sunday, comedian Danilo Gentili from the comedy show CQC posted the following comment on his Twitter:
"Agora no TeleCine King Kong, um macaco q depois q
vai p/ cidade e fica famoso pega 1 loira. Quem ele acha q é? Jogador de
futebol."
[King Kong is on TeleCine. It's about a monkey that goes to the city, gets famous and then hooks up with a blonde girl. Who does he think he is? A soccer player.]
A little context: in Brazil, the term "macaco" (monkey) is one of the most common racist terms, used to describe black Brazilians (incidentally, Brazilians always accuse Argentines of using this term to describe Brazilians, even though monkey is "mono" in Spanish. But I digress).
People responded by accusing Danilo of racism, and he lashed out, claiming his followers were the racist ones by interpreting the joke like they did, and then taking a picture of himself in a cage, adding the caption: "Obrigado pessoal. Vocês conseguiram me prender igual um macaco por denúncias de racismo." (Thanks guys. You managed to cage me like a monkey because of racism accusations.)
On Monday, he published a rambling post on his blog (aptly titled "A Racist Post"), defending himself and explaining why he felt he has the right to make racist jokes. He claims that race doesn't exist, but admitted "blacks suffer the most out of any race in Brazil." In an act far stupider than his original tweet, he rambled on defending racism, comparing human races to dog breeds and proclaiming that political correctness is the real culprit in Brazil, not racism. Most of the comments were in his favor, and a poll online shows that 76% of those polled believe the joke wasn't racist. But a few commenters pointed out just how nonsensical the whole thing was, and bloggers pounced, saying that comedians should be held responsible for the actions, especially when their young audiences are highly suspectible to bad influences.
Then, Folha announced that the Sao Paulo federal prosecutor is investigating the incident to determine whether Danilo committed a race crime, since racial discrimination is illegal in Brazil. The newspaper quoted the president of Afrobras, a Brazilian non-profit that fights racism as saying, "Isso foi indevido, inoportuno, de mau gosto e desrespeitoso.
Desrespeitou todos os negros brasileiros e também a democracia.
Democracia é você agir com responsabilidade." (This was unncecessary, wrong, in bad taste, and disrespectful. He insulted all black Brazilians and he insulted democracy. Democracy means acting responsibly.")
Instead of conceding defeat and apologizing, Danilo forged ahead, making snarky comments on his Twitter, joking he'd sue TeleCine and the director of King Kong, and that he'd sue a commenter for making a joke about rednecks. Other Twitter celebrities weighed in, making light of the whole situation and even making subtle racist jokes (a coisa ta preta, Elcio Coronato wrote in a play on words.)
So what does one incident have anything to do with another?
One thing I noticed they have in common is that a lot of people think it's not worth talking about. Some Americans are complaining that "Gatesgate" is over and nobody wants to hear about it, while some Brazilians are saying that the incident with Danilo was blown out of proportion. There's sentiment in both countries to deny that there's a problem and to ignore it. We have much bigger problems, both argue.
But the main difference between the two incidents is that in the American case, the majority of those talking about the case believe it was a racist incident, while in the Brazilian case, the majority believe it was not. While in the US, everything is black and white, in Brazil, everything is a murky blur. Americans define themselves in very specific boxes (black, white, Hispanic, Asian), while Brazilians prefer to think of themselves as Brazilians rather than defining themselves by race. Many Brazilians believe that those who point out and make racial divisions are the real racists, not those who would like to believe everyone has equal rights, and the equal chance to be made fun of. One of the common threads in the reactions to the incident was that politicians supporting racial quotas are the real racists in Brazil, not someone making a joke at the expense of blacks.
While the US struggles with racism after a civil war and a civil rights movement, Brazil likes to purport itself as a racial democracy where the color of one's skin doesn't matter, though that is not in fact the case. Many Americans tend to be much more definitive in what they believe (racists vs. PC people), while Brazilians dislike conflict and don't like to take a stand on controversial issues. As a result, the Gates incident stirred up a lot of tension, while the Danilo incident had people buzzing to play down the seriousness of the affair.
Both incidents have started a dialog about race and racism in the US and Brazil, but what remains to be seen is if anything constructive will come out of either of them.
Over the past two years, I've sent quite a few things to Cuteoverload, though they've never posted anything I've sent. Since most of the photos I've taken are already in the archives here, I decided to post the other Brazilian photos I've found deserving of CuteOverload fame.
Even after living in Rio for two years, when I think of Brazil fondly, with saudades, I also think of Salvador. I'm not sure I could live there, but of all the cities in Brazil I've been to that I really want to go back to, Salvador is at the top of the list. I love Latin American cities with a strong African influence (hence my love for the Caribbean), and this city just breathes Africa.
Passeando em Nova Iorque com o Eliseu, reparei duas coisas: é certo que os brasileiros é o grupo de turistas que está crescendo mais na cidade, mas quase nada aqui está disponível em português. Por isso, resolvi abrir um espaço no meu blog para dar dicas para brasileiros passeando em Nova Iorque, do mesmo jeito que dava dicas para gringos no Rio. Sempre é bom levar guia, mas aqui vou tentar proporcionar vocês com dicas especiais. Se tiver uma pergunta específica, mandem para mim e respondo no próximo post.
Quanto dinheiro devo levar?
Na cidade, quase todo lugar aceita cartão de crédito (até táxi aceita). Quando puder, é melhor usar cartão, porque pode conseguir melhor taxa de câmbio do que com dinheiro trocado. Agora que o dólar está flutando entre 1.8 e 1.9 reais, é mais econômico usar cartão do que trocar dinheiro, já que tem que pagar uma taxa na casa de câmbio. Sempre é bom ter troco para gorjetas e compras pequenas (como cachorro quente, estilo nova-iorquino!), mas os outros gastos fácilmente podem ser feitos com cartão.
Falando nisso, o sistema de gorjetas é um pouco diferente aqui. Sempre tem que dar para porteiro, seja no aeroporto ou no hotel, de pelo menos US$1. Nos restaurantes, tem que dar uma gorjeta de entre 15 e 20% da conta total (que inclui uma taxa da cidade de 8% que é obrigado pagar). Em bar ou boate, tem que dar gorjeta sempre que compra bebida, de pelo menos US$1 por bebida. Finalmente, tem que dar gorjeta para motorista de táxi de 10 a 20% do custo total.
Como pode ver tudo?
É muito difícil ver tudo que tem aqui em uma ou duas semanas. Mas tem dois produtos que pode comprar que dão acesso aos ponto turísticos principais na cidade de Nova Iorque.
Primeiro, tem New York CityPass, que o Eliseu e eu compramos. Custa US$79 por adulto e $59 por criança, poupando $60 por adulto (se pagasse cada ponto separadamente). Consiste em um livreto de ingressos, e tira um em cada lugar. Este ingresso dá acesso ao prédio do Empire State, ao Museu da História Natural, ao Museu Guggenheim, ao Museu de Arte Moderna, ao Museu Metropolitano de Arte, The Cloisters, e a um passeio em barco OU a Estátua da Liberdade com a Ilha Ellis. Pode comprar online ou na hora em qualquer um dos oito locais (melhor comprar no Guggenheim, por exemplo, do que no Empire State, que tem fila muito longa). Também inclui descontos para outras atrações. O bom deste tipo de ingresso é que você pode pular a fila enorme para as pessoas comprando ingresso na hora, e poupa muito tempo em vez de ficar esperando. Supostamente, tem que usar o ingresso dentro de 9 dias, começando no primeiro dia que usar o Pass, mas quando fomos, ninguém escreveu a data nem ligava. Se não se interessar muito em todos os lugares do CityPass e não quer pagar tudo, pode comprar ingresso para o Empire State e a Estátua na Internet para não ter que enfrentar a fila.
O outro ingresso é o New York Pass, que dá acesso a 50 pontos turísticos que normalmente custam US$600 em total. Também deixa você pular a fila, e inclui descontos e um guia completo da NYC de graça. Só que esta opção é bem mais cara: $90.40 por pessoa por 2 dias, $131.40 por 3 dias, e $307.90 por 7 dias. Funciona como cartão de crédito (é um smart card), e anota onde você visita. O problema com isto é que você tem que usar em dias consecutivos, e tem que fazer muita coisa dentro de pouco tempo, que pode ser bastante cansativo. O bom é que inclui o custo de todos os pontos turísticos e pode escolher quais são mais interessantes. Pode comprar na Internet e receber o ingresso por correio, o comprar por Internet e pegar em Times Square quando chegar.
A próxima vez, veremos: Onde posso achar informação de graça?Quais são as melhores lojas?
