Cultural Differences and a 90 Day Fiancé Visa

So many people from around the world fly to America legally after a lengthy bureaucratic process. The lure of a green card and freedom of opportunity are hard to resist, especially when poverty and violence are often their only alternative for the future. Many cross illegally the southern border with the blessing of the Marxist regime in power.

Not long ago, immigrants were required by law to complete tons of paperwork, provide evidence of their health, of their ability to provide for themselves financially, allegiance to our country, interest in becoming Americans, and making our country better. Today these requirements have all but disappeared in the social justice drivel permeating our third world society and leftist government rule.

Immigrants still say that they come to the land of opportunity for freedom but freedom has become illusory as American citizens hear their chains of imaginary freedom rattling every day, ever more loudly, coming from a government out of control.

What immigrants really come for is generous welfare and the hope that they can bring their entire extended families with them. Having left the failed system of socialist governments and tyrannies behind, they come to a place where they have no understanding of this new and fabulously “rich” country. They have no history of democracy in their own countries, it is a totally alien concept. They only understand government dependency and control of their daily lives.

But a small group of foreign nationals with a 90 day fiancé visa come because they have fallen in love online with American citizens who were lucky enough to have been born in the most successful constitutional republic on the planet.

Money grew on trees in America once upon a time, but the trees have withered and died under the weight of constant money printing (quantitative easing), and the luster has tarnished on the famous city on the hill, now a fortress guarded by thousands of heavily armed soldiers and razor wire. As the constitutional republic has vanished after the disastrous 2020 election and year-long economic lockdown, the foreign newcomers will be sadly disappointed.

The people of the highly successful show “90 Day Fiancé” come on a special fiancé visa for an imaginary freedom and prosperity provided by a quick marriage to a lonely American for whom matrimony had been difficult to attain. But technology, dating sites, and the Internet are providing access to other “lonely” people from the most remote corners of the world.

The “freedom” they seek in wealthy America no longer exists but immigrants don’t know that because nobody truly understands economics and government and they are still wearing the rose-colored glasses of the land of plenty, a world painted by Hollywood craftily on celluloid. Immigrants are still coming for the economic prosperity they have seen in movies, movies that bear no resemblance to reality.

Making the audience feel better about themselves, the “90 Day Fiancé” reality show is entertaining to American viewers who have no appreciation or understanding of where these people came from and why, their feelings, values, their tragedies, and religious and marital customs. The fiancés seem narcissistic, materialistic, selfish, greedy, insulting, unappreciative, and braggadocious.

The engagement situations and the drama appear contrived, the dialogues are bizarre at times, and the comedic “reality” moments are very uncomfortable to watch but the emotions are real and so are the vast cultural differences.

Ordinary middle class Americans find themselves in situations where they have to pay for expensive dowries they can hardly afford, in cultures where a buffalo, a cow, sheep, goats, or gold jewelry make all the difference in the world to the parents of the future bride who must survive in subsistence economies and dismal poverty. It is an expression of appreciation and respect for their daughter whom they raised to the age of matrimony and for their standing in the community. Some are required to summarily convert to another religion or be baptized in order to get married.

Americans abroad offend their intended’s families because their lives are so different from our life in America. At the same time, the foreign fiancés insult the loved ones of those they want to marry in America because of their ignorance and misconceptions.

The foreigners are scared, miss their families, do not like the food, do not understand the fine nuances of language, or the American English idiomatic expressions, often resulting in comedic situations for the viewers.

The prospective fiancés become easily insulted and hurt, feeling disrespected and dishonored. They reject the new environment, the culture, the food, the practices, the sounds, the wardrobe, and the way people do things that are so drastically different from those where they grew up.

The immigrant fiancés don’t miss their poverty but they sure miss their countries, their culture, and their immediate families and friends.

They want instant wealth, the proverbial money that grows on trees in America where the streets are paved with gold, but they want to bring their old country, language, their enclave of comfort, their familiar surroundings with them, creating a small homeland within America.

They feel lonely, abandoned, and lash out at their American fiancé who does not seem to understand their feelings, thoughts, and emotions of relinquishing their former lives and everything they ever knew and loved.

Then a few women become pregnant which complicates and aggravates the process of melding two lives from such uniquely different cultures and languages. Adding the substantial age difference in some cases, cause the problems to compound.

Despite the obvious discomfort and pain of real people, American viewers keep watching because the show makes them feel better about themselves. Everybody loves a good and happy ending of a joyful reunion preceded by strife, deceit, terrible misunderstandings, and tears of disappointment.