Behold the Dreamers Read Online Free

to return and build on the land; a letter from the town planning office, which he’d paid a distant uncle who worked in the office to get for him, stating that he had applied for a permit to build a house; a letter from a friend who swore under oath that Jende wasn’t going to remain in America because they were going to open a drinking spot together when he returned.
    The consular officer had been convinced.
    The next day Jende had walked out of the consular office with his visa. Yes, he was going to America. He, Jende Dikaki Jonga, son of Ikola Jonga, grandson of Dikaki Manyaka ma Jonga, was going to America! He skipped out of the embassy complex and onto the dusty streets of Yaoundé, pumping his fist and grinning so wide an Ewondo woman carrying a basket of plantains on her head stopped mid-stride to stare at him. Quel est son problème? he heard her say to a friend. He laughed. He didn’t have a problem. He was leaving Cameroon in a month! Leaving to certainly not return after three months. Who traveled to America only to return to a future of nothingness in Cameroon after a mere three months? Not young men like him, not people facing a future of poverty and despondency in their own country. No, people like him did not visit America. They got there and stayed there until they could return home as conquerors—as green card or American passport bearing conquerors with pockets full of dollars and photos of a happy life. Which was why on the day he boarded an Air France flight from Douala to Newark with a connection in Paris, he was certain he wouldn’t see Cameroon again until he had claimed his share of the milk, honey, and liberty flowing in the paradise-for-strivers called America.
    â€œAsylum is the best way to get papier and remain in the country,” Winston told him after he had gotten over his jet lag and spent half a day walking around Times Square in astonishment. “Either that or you marry an old white woman in Mississippi with no teeth.”
    â€œPlease, God forbid bad things,” he had replied. “Better you give me a bottle of kerosene to drink and die right now.” Asylum was the only way for him to go, he decided. Winston agreed. It could take years, he said, but it would be worthwhile.
    Winston hired a lawyer for him, a fast-talking Nigerian in Flatbush, Brooklyn, named Bubakar, who was as short as his speech was fast. Bubakar, Winston had been told, was not only a great immigration lawyer with hundreds of African clients all over the country but also an expert in the art of giving clients the best stories of persecution to gain asylum.
    â€œHow d’you think all these people who gain asylum do it?” he asked the cousins when they met with him for a free consultation. “You think they’re all really running away from something? Puh-leez. Let me tell you something. I just won asylum only last month for the daughter of the prime minister of some country in East Africa.”
    â€œReally?” Winston asked.
    â€œYes, really,” Bubakar replied, snarling. “What d’you mean, really?”
    â€œI’m just surprised. What country?”
    â€œI’d rather not mention, okay? It doesn’t really matter. My point is that this girl’s father is a prime minister, eh? She has three people wiping her ass after she shits and three more people dragging the boogers out of her nose. And here she is, saying she’s afraid for her life back home.” He scoffed. “We all do what we gotta do to become American, abi ?”
    Jende nodded.
    Winston shrugged; a friend of his in Atlanta was the one who had referred him to Bubakar and spoken highly of the man. The friend had no doubt that Bubakar was the sole reason he was still in America, why he now had a green card and was only two years away from being eligible to apply for citizenship. Still, from Winston’s downturned lips, Jende could tell his cousin was having a hard