Marrying Marys Merry Month of May

I was told that there has been a significant rise of marriage registrations in the last two years, that the line for IR applicants at the Immigration Office is littered with May-to-November supplicants. Nothing wrong with this fact, but these days, with the heightened awareness on matters pertaining to immigration after the passage of the bill that will soon federalize the procedures of Mel Grey’s office, interest on the subject, official and otherwise, has become front page material.

As has been the case of many newsworthy items I have followed, I take the view from the human level, up close and personal. Of course, it would be easier to lump all the marrying Marys on island together and make general abstractions. Or, stick with the legal nuances that may either enlighten or obfuscate provisions of immigration law, a neat trick perfected by practitioners of the legal profession when they choose which tack to apply depending on which side of the bench is providing butter for the their bread. Or, better still, track the obvious attraction to the variations of the name “Maria,” ever astounding in its mystery, as it has been an appellation in the Western tradition to a revered mother, an awestruck disciple, and a very endearing and faithful prostitute. Indeed, among the Irma la dulce and the Pretty Woman that populate the evening shadows of our shores, choice of the name abounds.

Puerto Rican Diego of the plastered smile and romantic eyes is still singing a line of the famous song: “Maria, I’ve just met a girl named Maria, and suddenly the name will never be the same to me.” Last year, he tutored Mary in English so that she could improve her prospects of snagging a husband. After an off-island trip in May, Diego returned to find his student in the custody of the CNMI’s Correctional facility.

Mary hails from Shenyang, northeast of Beijing. At 24, she was happily married with a baby girl when her husband got killed in a motorcycle accident. As was the custom, she returned to her family where two brothers, customarily already favored, had hogged the family resources. Mary took resources she could lay her hands on (translate: borrowed heavily) and followed an employment line that ended on Saipan. Entrance fee: $7,500 plus travel expenses.

Mary thought she signed a three-year contract. Her employer let her go after a year. She lodged a labor complaint. Devoid of security, she found it in the arms of an extroverted Cantonese businessman who also had a yen for gaming tables. Mary waited on tables, tolerated her lao gong’s vices, and birthed herself an American-passported boy. When her old man’s business collapsed, she traveled with him to Guangzhou where she discovered that he already had a two-child family and a ta lao po (primal spouse) who treated her with utmost disdain and contempt. Mary found friends in her old man’s taxi-driving best friend and his wife.

Seeing a dead end to her situation, Mary packed her son and took him to her family in Shenyang. Her sister, an organist at a local Christian Church, decided to raise the son; Mary had enough funds saved for four years’ support. Mary returned to Saipan where a niece ‘hired’ her to manage her karaoke club. She was bent to improve her prospects.

Crossing into 40, Mary kept her eyes on available husbands. She dated a Correction officer who turned out to have never finalized his divorce. Mary was wooed by a federal employee who double-timed her with another significant other. When Mary dropped him, he had the temerity to testify at her hearing, claiming that given the setup he observed of Mary’s business, that she was running a house of prostitution. Duh!

Mary’s niece was Diego’s barber. He consented to tutoring Mary on her English, spending an hour three afternoons a week at her club. Diego introduced Mary to his unmarried brother and a colleague in North Carolina who were both prospects.

Diego was married to a young Xiamen girl who herself had a colored entry into the CNMI. She had come to the island under a program that was to polish her English and prepare her for a professional license. The sponsoring institution turned out unprepared to offer the services they had promised; some would actually characterize Marie’s group as being conned like innocent ewes. Marie and two companions, out of 10, sought Diego’s assistance to which he gladly complied, to be moved to the local community college where they eventually graduated with distinction, and in due time, properly licensed.

A romance blossomed, and a year later, love-struck Diego and young Marrie married. He took Marie to Chicago to meet his family; he envisioned a life together even with the age difference, though he made it clear that she can leave when she deemed it time. They started talking about buying a house, so he began thinking long-haul. Unbeknown to Diego, Marie applied for an immigrant visa on her own, so the next time they were to travel in anticipation of Diego’s Dad’s advanced age, Marie’s application was refused.

The tyranny of the green card, a sore item in the Diego-Marie household, became a taunting mantra of Marie’s friends: “He does not love you, he is keeping you captive by not getting you a green card!” Diego had not been careful with his IRS papers and he needed three years worth to make the application. He had just gotten his third year taxes paid and alerted his lawyer to proceed with the application. It turned out to be too late.

Diego got Mary to get out of the business altogether. He took her on his off-hours to prospective buyers of the establishment. Two things happened: Marie’s friends convinced her that Diego was having an affair with Mary. “I do not bed people I help!” he thundered. “You bedded me,” she retorted. The wife of Mary’s Guandong friend called about coming to Saipan for employment, vowing to do anything and pay all costs. Mary did the not-uncommon magic of fraudulent papers. The FBI’s hysteria on human trafficking, Falun Gong’s particular moralism, and Guma Ezperanza’s ongoing crusade on abused women got Mary to the monkey house.

Marie walked out on Diego; she found someone else who did her immigrant papers. Mary sits at a Federal penitentiary in California. Diego has remained Mary’s lao shi (teacher). Diego is steadfast in his conviction that his and Marie’s was a love story. The more skeptical of his colleagues have tried hard to dissuade him of this illusion but he looks at all the lovely and lively marrying Marys in the merry month of May who abound in Saipan, and his plastered smile stays, his romantic eyes beam, and he lifts a Glenfiddich jigger to toast the May-to-November crowd and says: May your tribe prosper!