The lure of marrying an American

On Sunday, I attended a most unusual wedding. A 43-year-old California man married a 22-year-old Tibetan woman. The two had only met ten days earlier. Arranged marriages like this are typically done for immigration purposes only, but this was, by all accounts, a love marriage that happened to be arranged. The arranger was a prominent Tibetan Buddhist teacher. The woman was his niece and the man was his close disciple. The man looked just like Johnny Depp and taught meditation to juvenile offenders in Oakland. The woman was stunningly beautiful with a million dollar smile and a joyful demeanor. She was still studying at the high school level at a Tibetan refugee camp in Northern India, but spoke English with ease.

A wild, old Tibetan man officiated the ceremony with a series of prayers, mantras and well-wishes to the couple. The groom’s brother, who looked like a Madame Tussauds Wax Museum replica of Brad Pitt in his Seven Years in Tibet role, then led the couple through the exchange of vows and rings (minus the kissing the bride part, which would have been culturally inappropriate). They did cut a cake and put pieces in each other’s mouths, which was viewed with puzzled amazement by the Tibetan family of the bride.

The Tibetan word for wedding can literally be translated as “setting for drinking beer” and so, naturally, we then commenced with several hours of beer drinking and merriment. After the feast, we settled down for a series of animated games of Uno, the classical Mattel card game of numbers and colors. Luck was on my side that day, and I managed to win five games.

I have been asked to marry people in South Asia for immigration purposes several times. The first happened in 2000, when I stayed at a Tibetan refugee camp in South India. I became well-acquainted with a married Tibetan couple and their young son. We exchanged phone numbers and addresses and when I returned to the U.S., a strange letter awaited. The man had managed to get refugee asylum in the U.S., but his wife was not able to join him. The wife therefore wrote me directly to ask that I marry her so she can come to the U.S. too. She included a sexy photograph of herself as well, which struck me as a little strange considering she was already happily married and wanted to marry me only so she could be with her husband. After consulting with some people, I decided against the proposal.

When you marry someone for immigration purposes so they can come to the U.S., you invariably have to do a lot of lying, some of which is at the felony level. I have several friends who have gone through with it anyway, knowing they can divorce after five years and still help the foreigner out. To have the marriage accepted by the Department of Immigration, both parties have to go through intense grilling and scrutiny. You are sometimes asked intimate questions about the other’s genitals and sexual prowess to see if you hesitate or answer as naturally as someone who is already married. If they are convinced you are lying and don’t really know or love your supposed spouse, they may reject the marriage and send the spouse back to their home country. The American could also get jail time if their lying can be proven.
Someone I know recently arranged an immigration marriage between an American and a Tibetan girl. When the two met, they decided that they liked each other and would try it out as a legitimate love marriage. A friend of mine who used to live in the same house with them said they do a lot of quarreling, but they are still together.

Sometimes, foreigners will marry Nepali women for their own immigration purposes. My European friend has a fake Nepali wife arranged through an agent whom he has no relations with. Thanks to the arrangement, he can get a year-long Nepali visa for only $10 a month that can be renewed each year. A typical visa costs $60 a month and is only valid for 5 months. For her trouble, the Nepali girl receives a salary and can be granted a divorce when she is ready to settle down for real.

One of my friends on the Nepal program in 1999/2000 married her Nepali trekking guide after they fell in love. She moved back with him to Milwaukee, where they fell out of love after a few months and separated. Both of them later remarried and lived happily ever after in the U.S.

Many people here have an obsession with going to the U.S. to work. In their minds, it is glamorous and lucrative and as soon as they touch down on U.S. soil, they will be able to start raking it in. Most of them don’t realize that working illegally on a tourist visa can get you deported and rarely pays above minimum wage. They also don’t tend to factor in the astronomical cost of living in the U.S., which is easily 10 times that of Nepal. (You can buy a meal at a restaurant here for 70 cents and get a decent hotel room for $2.50). The airfare to the U.S. is also around 5 times the annual income for a Nepali (not an exaggeration). The success stories of “a friend of a friend” who went to the U.S. on a tourist visa and is now thriving are enough to keep the American dream alive and well in the hearts of Nepalis and keep immigration marriage requests coming for Americans throughout the Nepal.