[Starr]

This Saturday me and my DH had to go to the cities to get fingerprinted for the adoption. No biggie we go to the cities maybe 5 times a year and have never felt uncomfortable or unsafe. So as we start driving down the 2 1/2 to 3 hr trip I thought of all you MDC twin cities mommas.
We needed to go to the INS office which is on the corner of University Ave. and Hamline I beleive. We got there at 7:15 just to be safe that we could find it and extra time for any road construction, you know how it can be. I would never consider DH or myself to be racist in any way, but for some reason both of us felt as if we should get back in the car and lock the doors. We needed to stand in line for 45 min. until they opened. The line got to be about 80 people or so long and we were the only caucasian couple there.I've never felt uncomfortable among people who can not speak English. I find it almost soothing to listen to them talk in their native language. Yet standing in the middle of the line, with cops in the building looking out at everybody I suddenly felt very on edge. This has really been bothering me ever since. I don't know if it was just too early in the day for me, if I was out of sorts have gone through construction and detours, or if I really did have a valid reason for being nervous. Can anyone give me some insight?

 

[Starr]

Thanks for the response. I was really bothered by it all weekend. And yeah we did get some funny looks looking back now they were all probably wondering what we were doing inline with them, most of them were trying to renew their work permits it sounded like. I think I've been on University Ave before when I was younger but then I was like 10 and with my parents. It was suprisingly easy to get to. We exited off of Snelling and onto University. Let you know when I'm there next time.

 

[Starr]

Diane B- Thanks for the great tips of where to take her, where we live in MN (Alexandria) there isn't much of a hispanic or latino population, and we've been looking for ways to incorporate diverse cultures in.

DH and I also were flabbergasted at the different forms of treatment we received. We were the 5th couple in line, from getting there so early, and when the others before us went in line the staff would quite loudly I thought tell them to go, sit down, fill out papers, and go into another line. We had t o do the same thing as well but they were like"Good morning", "Do you have any questions?", they didn't offer to help anyone else. It was so sad

. The lady that fingerprinted me though wasn't so nice

: . She kept making me stand in different spots and kept saying "Don't fight me on this" (as she was rolling my wrist) and then "You need to cooperate". We were out pretty quick though. Now just waiting for 171H form to come in.