Subject: CLINTON IN COSTA RICA
From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 6 May 1997 21:42:04 -0600 (CST)

CLINTON IN COSTA RICA:    A SOLITARY BOYCOTT
Richard Stern, Ph.D.

SAN JOSE;  Wednesday,  May 7th:

My President is coming to visit, but I will not be at the airport, waving
the flag.

When President Clinton´s plane touches down here in San José, Costa Rica
this evening, I will boycott the  event. My absence will undoubtedly go
quite unnoticed, but it is about as much as I can do.

I have lived  here for the last 9 years, working in various  programs
related to prevention of  AIDS, human rights etc. I am a legal resident
here, but I am also a US citizen. 
 My close ties back home are with friends and  family in San Diego, the Midwest,
and Baltimore.

For six of my years here, I have been sharing most of my time with Victor,
a Costa Rican factory worker.   I don´t define our relationship as  "lover"
or even "significant other." I  don´t like labels, and our relationship
continues  to change and evolve withthe years.

 I have always spoken with Victor about my desire to share with him my
closest friends and family back home, as well as my country itself, and all
the memories and possibilities   that it offers.  Victor earns very little
as a factory worker, less than
$300 monthly, but I have offered to pay theplane fare for a visit to the US
during one of our vacations.  Other expenses would be minimal since we could
stay with family and friends.

But every year Victor has gone to the US Embassy here in San Jose to try to
get a  tourist visa to be able to accompany me on my annual trip home. And
every year, his visa application has been turned down.  The
policy in this embassy is that you have to have a substantial bank account,
and/or be the owner of a   business,and be "married with children," in order
to guarantee that you will return, that you will not try to  become an
illegal alien.

It is of no importance to those who issue the visas that I have written a
letter indicating that I will be traveling with Victor and that we have no
interest in staying in the United States. The only factors they take into
account are personal wealth and marital status.  But he is single and poor.

Rich and heterosexual. Like a parent begining to educate its child, our
government starts the socialization  process the minute a foreigner lines to
get up a visa.

Suggestions have been offered from friends here and back home, but each one
involves a lie of some sort.  I could deposit $10,000 in Victor´s bank
account (if I had it) and the Consular officials might accept that.  Or I 
could put my home here in his name, to see if that would get him a visa.  Or
Victor could find a North American woman willing to marry him as a  "human
rights" favor. Victor´s first lesson would certainly be, "if you lie in the
right way, you can get certain things from the US government."  In any case,
this means of getting  a visa  has never appealed to me or to Victor

What I don´t understand is why there is no avenue for due process.  I am a
U.S. citizen living abroad,  involved in a relationship of importance to me
with an honest, hardworking Costa Rican citizen, and I am asking for
permission for this person to spend two weeks with me in my  country,
sharing the world from  which I came.  Why  am I (or Victor)  not  entitled
to due process, to sit with an official and explain our purpose and
have the decision made on the  merits of the situation?

(Richard Stern is the Health Coordinator of the Costa Rican gay/lesbian
Association Triangulo Rosa.
Tel/fax: 506-223-3964: Apartado  366-2200 Coronado, Costa Rica.  This
article can be reprinted or reposted.)