For American dream, immigrants cope with green card visa, red tape.

José Diaz and his wife Yudys came to America at different times in their lives. But both found the immigration process to be taxing and expensive.
On October 14, 1968, three-year old José Diaz along with his parents, brother and sister left the Dominican Republic to immigrate to the United States.
Diaz’s grandparents came to the United States in the early 1920s. Once they settled in New York, they built a supermarket business and now the rest of their family was joining them in their venture. “I remember being in the airport and I had a little suit on with ‘high water’ pants. I was growing out of them. That was the best we had. I grew up in a family of farmers, so we were all poor over there,” Diaz recalled.
As Diaz grew older, and even until this day, people would often confuse his ethnicity.
“A lot of people confuse me for being Mexican, Egyptian, or even Iraqi because of my facial features and because I dress differently. Some Americans like to pick on me by imitating my accent and the way I talk. I know I have a heavy accent.”
Diaz admits that while instances of stereotyping and racial profiling have been few for him, he knows that it happens to a lot of other Hispanic people—something that his wife, Yudys, knows all too well.
“Some people, are rude and act like they’re high class and I’m not. My accent is terrible and when I talk, a person will go, ‘Say again! Say again!’ and throw their hands up. I don’t worry, because I say, ‘I came here, I speak Spanish very well and I speak English, so I know both languages. To know both languages is really good these days,” said Yudys.
Yudys, came to America from Cuba in 2005 to be with José. The two first “met” through pictures.
As Diaz worked as an interpreter for Yudys’ step-grandmother, he saw a 5×7 photo of Yudys. “She was lovely in those pictures. We ended up talking over the phone and I spent one dollar and 63 cents per minute to talk to her. So, it got expensive. I had to sell my car just to pay the phone bill,” Diaz shared.
They sent each other pictures and letters to keep in touch. But soon, Diaz traveled to meet her in Cuba. To get to the island, Diaz traveled to his native Dominican Republic as it was illegal for an American to travel straight into Cuba and vice versa. One week later, he asked her to marry him. But the immigration process is an expensive one—something that most Americans fail to realize according to Diaz.
“I had to send her more than one thousand dollars for some paperwork. There’s all that red tape through this government and her government. She had to do an interview at the Swiss Embassy as the Swiss there work as a mediator between America and Cuba for the interviews. They asked a lot of questions to see if our relationship was real,” said Diaz.
Diaz had to also file for a K-1 Fiancée Visa. To get the visa, an American citizen must prove that they have the intention of getting married and petition with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. Once the petition is approved, the American citizen and the immigrant have to marry within in 90 days.
The more than 145 pictures that Diaz sent to her came in handy as they served as evidence of their relationship. “I had so many pictures. They looked and said, ‘Congratulations.’ But some people have to go to the Embassy two or three times to get approved,” Yudys explained.
Then it was on to the next phase. After the interview was completed, Yudys had to have a physical in Cuba, which cost more than four hundred dollars (U.S.) “The government over there is really abusive and we went through a lot just to have a stamp to say that everything’s okay and for them to say, ‘You’re fine and healthy.’ But when you come down here to America, you have to go through all of that again through their government just to make sure that paperwork from another country is not a lie,” Diaz shared.
José and Yudys are now married living legally in North Carolina with one son and another baby on the way. José is employed as a maintenance worker and Yudys works as a seamstress.But with the government getting tougher on illegal immigration, Diaz wants people to remember that all immigrants aren’t illegal. He said, “We came here legally. Everyone is not illegal and every Hispanic is not Mexican. People need to be more educated about other cultures. “Some people will think someone is Mexican when he’s actually Pakistani or they will think someone is Mexican when he’s actually Spanish. People need to overcome stereotypes by not doing or saying what they see on T.V. or saying what peer pressures tell them to. People just need to talk and educate themselves.”

[source: Carolina Peace Maker]