All of us, supplicating entrance into this world of aesthetic perfection, unblemished functionality and immaculately well-hidden horrors.

Every time I re-enter the country, I stare at the paper sign pointing at the line for non-residents (“ALL Visitors, This Way”).

Then I look at the electronic board saying “Residents Here” and, finally, the one that says “U.S. Citizens,” and I secretly hope that next time I will at least get promoted to the “Residents” line.

At least I wouldn’t have to wait this long, kicking my suitcase every time the line moves an inch. Discreetly peering at people’s passports to find out where they are from, how much more or much less developed they are. How badly they need to cross this border, how much must be at stake for them.

The line at airport immigration holds a communist core in a sense, effacing class unless you were born in America. Everyone there, whether a drug mule from Colombia or a mink-clad snob from Lyon, has to wait. There are no distinctions within this cattle of foreigners on their way to tinsel land. At least, not until you are the next in line and it’s your turn to go through judgment day. Have you been good enough to be able to come onto American soil?

You endure the jet leg, the traveling fatigue, the anxiety and you hold on tight to your entry forms. “Are you bringing any perishable items, fuel, mouth disease, foot disease fire arms, crack/cocaine in your luggage?”

You wonder if the person who came to pick you up is already there, if you will understand the officer’s English, if he will understand yours. If he will let you in.

You need a shower, you need to shave. You need a bed.

An Asian woman approaches me and says, “Francisco, Francisco …” She hands me a sweaty, folded piece of paper that says “I am a Vietnamese woman. I don’t speak a word of English. I need to get to San Francisco. Please help.”

I use gestures to tell her to stay in line. I think of asking her if she understands Spanish, French or Portuguese. Or even German. But quickly realize my wishful thinking is stupidity.

The woman looks 70 but her passport says date of birth: 1953. She is my mother’s age. But my mother still wears mini-skirts and go go boots. This woman, an evident offspring of social misery, seems to apologize for her own presence there, for stealing air from others for her to breathe. Her face crackled, sun-dried. In her finger, a wedding band, faded. Her desperation so tightly kept in a bundle inside of her, too well-conditioned not to explode.

I wonder if she is visiting a daughter who may have escaped misery earlier than her — maybe a wedding. Perhaps she lives here and just never learned the language. Maybe she is a drug mule. What is evident is that she is lost, and that she is begging to be let in.

Like me. And like the mink-clad lady from Lyon behind me. No matter how much she sticks her nose up in the air, how many Louis Vuittons her husband is hauling for her, her presence in line reveals the same plea. The chance to walk around the flawless streets of America, feeling cosmopolitan and worldly. And safe, and unbothered, and filmic. Sheltered and away.

“Canadian Citizens! Move this way!” says an officer. The Canadians, quasi-Americans, got promoted.

I play in my head a short list of countries I possibly wish I were from. And think about how if you are not American, or at least Canadian, you are just foreign. No specificity.

All of us, supplicating entrance into this world of aesthetic perfection, unblemished functionality and immaculately well-hidden horrors, like “world music” — just a big generalization stripped off of peculiarity and character. You are world music.

It’s my turn now. I am used to the drill. Left finger first, right finger second. Or is it the opposite? Then, the photograph. How cynical is my smile allowed to be? Who will look at these images? An obese Midwestern agent, laughing at people’s nose sizes as he bites his toasted sub? Or nobody. Nobody at all. Unless you are a bad boy. Then, you don’t get to come in next time around.

“Milwaukee … ah, I dated this girl once in Milwaukee,” the officer tells me.

“I see.”

“Lots of beer in Milwaukee …”

“Yeah …”

“So what do you study?”

“Film.”

“Oh … do you get to meet a lot of girls doing that then?”

“Uh … no.”

“Oh, that sucks,” he says.

I wonder how gay can my answer be without undermining my being allowed to come into the great land of America.

“Well, it depends on what you are interested in,” I say.

“Oh,” he says, dumbfounded, but quasi-apologetic.

He gives me back my passport, my visa, stamps some forms and says, “Well, good luck with that.”

With “that.” I am not sure if “that” means studying film, getting back “home” or being a queer. But the tone in his voice, almost fearful, seems to just want to speed up the process and stop having to make conversation with someone who does not partake in the love for girls and beer that he does. Someone foreign in every possible way. Like God and man, king and peasant, sergeant and civilian.

American and not-American.

As this white, straight and American male (how lucky can you get!) make trivial conversation about Waukesha chicks and booze, dozens of people in line wait for their chance to be allowed into the gates of heaven. Some saved up money their entire lives for this. To see Mickey Mouse, to see Spamelot, to see their children, to flee hunger, to wash dishes. To see clean streets and red, plastic-looking apples. Ice cube machines and sad people sipping watery coffee in comfy chairs. To see giant-sized soda cups held by giant-sized people driving their giant-sized vehicles. And to wish this is where they belonged.

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