For a lot of Indian immigrants, holding a US inexperienced card symbolizes extra than simply everlasting residency — it is a passport to stability, alternative, and the fruits of lengthy, unsure years navigating America’s immigration maze.
Past job flexibility and the power to sponsor household, it additionally represents an important stepping stone towards citizenship and long-term safety, particularly for future generations. But in a digital age formed by migration, relationship, and diasporic id, this coveted doc can be being thrust into areas it doesn’t belong — just like the early levels of romance.
A 21-year-old Indian-American college scholar lately took to Reddit to voice a deeply private frustration: being lowered to her immigration standing by males from her personal group.
“I’ve gone on dates/conversed with folks from all types of backgrounds… by some means the one time I’ve ever been provided a inexperienced card as a approach to flirt has been by Punjabi guys,” she wrote. “We’ll be ten minutes right into a convo and increase — ‘you understand I might get you a inexperienced card, proper?’”
The put up, each candid and slicing, struck a nerve. “It’s not even simply awkward anymore. It feels dehumanising… It turns one thing that would have been significant into one thing transactional,” the individual stated, lamenting how even inside her group, she’s perceived by the lens of paperwork slightly than character. “It hurts extra as a result of it’s from folks I need to really feel understood by.”
Urging for mutual dignity, the individual added, “I’m not making an attempt to name anybody out. I simply want there was extra self-respect on either side. Extra id.”
The put up sparked an avalanche of responses. One person recounted an analogous development within the UK, the place “paper marriages” have been casually urged as immigration options. “I brushed it off as a one-off… didn’t realise how rampant this was till I mentioned it with a number of different buddies,” they stated.
One other commenter, recalling a job interview on an F1 visa, stated a recruiter flippantly informed them to “simply marry a citizen.” Their response: “Marriage isn’t a transaction. At the least for me.”
But not all replies dismissed the inexperienced card as irrelevant. “As a H1B who’s ready within the US for a Inexperienced card since 2006… the await greencard is 150+ years,” wrote one person. “After all it’s best to marry for love… however don’t rule something out particularly in case you are on F1 or non-immigrant standing.”
One remark tied these behaviors to broader cultural patterns. “There’s a bent [among Punjabis] to flaunt something ‘materials’ — cash, connections, immigration standing,” they stated, including that conventional dynamics typically body girls as needing to be “offered for.”
The unique poster’s story, although deeply private, opened a wider dialog about id, expectations, and the delicate methods authorized standing continues to form interpersonal dynamics among the many diaspora.
