Imagine that you meet the man or woman of your dreams, and two weeks before your first Valentine’s Day, that person tells you s/he has to leave the country and may never be able to return.
That’s what happened to Brian Andersen and Anton Tanumihardja in February 2011. It’s a dilemma faced by many binational couples in the United States. Currently, more than 25 countries allow residents to sponsor gay and lesbian permanent partners for legal immigration but, sadly, the U.S. isn’t among them —here, it’s a privilege reserved only for heterosexual married couples. But there is hope on the horizon. Last week, President Obama proposed an immigration-reform package that would include the provisions of the Uniting American Families Act, which would lift LGBT discrimination in our immigration law — and which can’t be passed soon enough for this local couple.
PGN: Tell me about yourself. AT: I was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, 48 years ago. [Laughs.] I’m oooold. I moved to this country in 2002, June I think. I met Brian through the chatting room or whatever they call it. Since then, we’ve been inseparable. I was a little bit lying to Brian about my age when we first met because there’s a big age difference — 18, 19 years. When he saw my profile it said 35 years old! When we talked I told him the truth and told him I was too old for him but, fortunately, he didn’t care. We found a very good love together. Two weeks before Valentine’s Day in 2011, I told him, “Brian, I have an immigration problem.” He’s a very mature man and he just listened to me. After I explained that I was due to be deported on Valentine’s Day, he didn’t say much. But the following day he came to me with a list of LGBT organizations that help with immigration issues and we contacted an attorney.
PGN: What first attracted you to Brian? AT: As I said, he’s very mature for his age. He’s a very nice person, he’s cute, he’s the whole ticket. We have our differences of course, especially with such an age span. I like to stay home, he likes to go out—but we compromise. He’ll spend time home with me just watching TV and I’ll go out with him to hang with his friends or to a club sometimes. We accept each other and who we are and work to make each other happy.
PGN: What do you like to do when you’re not together? AT: I’m crazy for tennis. I play every Friday. I love it. And movies, I love going to see films.
PGN: So back to your childhood: Tell me about the family and growing up. AT: I have six sisters and three brothers. My dad is no longer with us and my mom died two years ago, but because of my immigration problems I couldn’t fly back for the funeral. It was very upsetting but what can you do? The first thing I want to do if I get my green card is to go back and see my mom. I hadn’t seen her for 10 years and I can’t see her anymore but I can lay flowers on her grave.
PGN: With such a big family, what was something you loved to do together? AT: We loved to go to church every Sunday. We are Chinese-Indonesian — even though I can’t speak any Chinese. In Indonesia a lot of ethnically Chinese people don’t speak the language. My family was Buddhists until I lived with my sister and she helped me get into a Catholic high school. Then I became a Catholic, which was her religion. Then everything changed and everyone in the family, including my parents, became Catholic. I don’t know why. Mom went really crazy with it and we were reading the Bible every day. Every Sunday at 9 a.m. we went to church. My mother lived by herself about eight miles from where I lived with my sister, so it was a way to get everyone together and also make sure Mom-mom was OK. Every Christmas we’d gather at her house and go to the cemetery to see my dad. We’d have a little picnic and be like, “Hi Dad! We are all here. Merry Christmas.”
PGN: Where do you fall in the family lineup? AT: I’m the youngest. I’m soooo spoiled. The ones that spoiled me the most were my sisters, especially the oldest, who treated me like I was her baby. She’s the one who sent me to high school. My mom could never say anything to me because my sisters would intervene. I was a spoiled boy.
PGN: Did you play any sports? AT: Yes, I played badminton. It’s not popular here but in my country it’s really big.
PGN: I read that even before meeting Brian, you’d applied for asylum because of the persecution you feared going back to Indonesia as a gay man. AT: Yes. It’s very dangerous. You can’t show who you are at work or even at home in your community. If you were to hold your lover’s hand you would get stoned or beaten to death. It would be suicide. A long time ago my friend asked me to go to a gay dance in another city and at the last minute I canceled because I had some stuff to do. I found out later he almost got killed. People heard about the event and stormed the building where it was being held. He came home covered in bruises. You can’t tell the police or call the news when something like that happens. Nobody can help you. PGN: How do you find a gay community there? AT: There are no gay bars or anything. You have to be very sneaky; it’s all word-of-mouth. People will say, “OK, this bar is having a gay night tonight.” You can’t publicize it, you just have to let everyone know that a certain club or bar is the place to be on a certain night. But you have no freedom to express your feelings or your love in public. You have to be careful, you have to walk a few feet away from your lover. You have to hide.
PGN: When did you know you were gay? AT: I think when I was in high school I first noticed an attraction for other guys. But like I said, you don’t know what to do with it. I didn’t know anyone who was gay. I was trying to hide it from my friends and family because if your family knew you were gay they’d kick you out. I think some of my family knows, but I’ve never come out and said, “I’m gay,” and they would never say anything about it. But I think they all know now. Especially after CNN did a story about me and Brian. If we can make it happen and I can get my green card, I’d love to take my husband back and introduce him to my family. They might not accept it but they’ll know who I am. We’ll go to the cemetery and I’ll say, “Mom, you always wanted me to get married; well this is my husband, Brian.”
PGN: All right Brian, your turn. Tell me about yourself. BA: I’m from the area, grew up in Delaware County, except for a short period when I was young when we lived in South Philly. I went to Pittsburgh for college.
PGN: What did you study? BA: I had a double major in political science and history. And I have two certificates in Western European and European Union studies and a minor in religion.
PGN: And what do you do now? BA: [Laughs.] I’m the business-development manager at a car dealership. Really putting those degrees to work!
PGN: What did you want to be when you grew up? BA: A lawyer. And I was on track to do that when I got a summer job at a car dealership and they just kept promoting me and paying me more money and here I am! It’s a lot of work but I enjoy what I do.
PGN: Siblings? BA: I have two younger brothers.
PGN: Who picked on whom? BA: I mostly picked on them, being the oldest. My middle brother and I used to gang up on the younger one. We liked him and all, he was a fun kid and hung out with all our friends, but he was our beating post.
PGN: What did the parents do? BA: My mom was a single mom most of my childhood and she worked for Sun Micro Systems; still does.
PGN: What do you do off the lot? BA: Well, I’m here almost 12 hours a day. When I’m not here I try to spend as much time with Anton as I can. I’d love to travel more. As you know, we have this Defense of Marriage case coming up and hopefully if it comes out favorably, he’ll be allowed to travel. I won Employee of the Year last year and the person who wins gets a trip. We’d love to go to Indonesia and see his family. He hasn’t been able to see them in over 10 years. His mom passed away from breast cancer, same as my grandmother, and he never got to say goodbye.
PGN: You met online: What was the first face-to-face meeting like? BA: Well, we’d talked online for about a month and it was just chatting, not romantic. So it was just one of those, “If you’re not doing anything tonight, let’s hang out” kind of things. I didn’t know anything about him. We’d talked so I knew he had an accent and knew he was Asian, but I didn’t know that he was from Indonesia. There was an Indonesian restaurant that I’d been going to a lot, Sky Café. I asked him if he’d heard of it and he hadn’t, so I took him there and he loved it.
PGN: He told me he lied to you online. BA: [Laughs.] Yes, yes he did. I eventually realized that he was significantly older than I was. It was fine, it was never an issue for us. He’s a fun guy.
PGN: What was it that drew you together? BA: It was actually a slow-moving thing. Neither of us were looking for anything at the time, but when we met we both had some serious things going on in our lives. The day we met was a day before my grandmother passed away from breast cancer. It was also the day after he’d had a surgical procedure done, so our first time together we spent talking about colonoscopies and cancer. Light conversation!
PGN: And you were together about six months when you found out he was in danger of being deported. You must have gotten attached quickly. BA: Well, interestingly I hadn’t really thought that much about “us” but, when he told me about his situation, that was the moment something clicked. It was the first time I really thought, I don’t want to lose this person. We both look back at that as a time when we realized, Hey, this is serious, we want to be together. It was a defining moment in our relationship.
PGN: It must have been a little traumatic. BA: For me it was a positive thing because it made me realize my feelings and then spurred me into action. I’m good in crisis modes, I don’t ever think about the negative. I jump to, OK, what are we going to do to fix this?
PGN: I didn’t realize that, once deported, someone could be banned from re-entering the U.S. for 10 years. BA: Yes, if someone violates the terms of their visa, which Anton did by overstaying, even after 10 years someone coming back would have to apply for another visa, which they would be unlikely to receive, having violated the previous one. Anton had applied for asylum several times on the grounds that he feared persecution in Indonesia because of being what he called a triple minority — Catholic, gay and ethnically Chinese — but he was denied each time. He was told by an attorney that instead of leaving when the visa expired, he should stay and just live under the radar. Not the best legal advice.
PGN: What has surprised you most since you’ve gotten involved? BA: Probably all the positive media response. I would never have expected as much attention and support as we’ve received. Obviously PGN was very supportive but NPR [National Public Radio] and CNN all did great stories.GLAAD [Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation] even helped coordinate media stories and coverage for us. I never expected our story to blow up that big.
PGN: Whom did you first go to for help? BA: There’s a great grassroots organization called Out4Immigration that I contacted. They referred us to Lavi Soloway; he and his law partner had started a pro-bono campaign called Stop the Deportations. It’s designed to help out gay bi-national couples who are married and would qualify for marriage-based visas or green cards if it weren’t for the Defense of Marriage Act.
PGN: That first year when Anton was scheduled to be deported, he had a flight booked to Indonesia at 7:30 p.m. It wasn’t until 4:30 that you got the call that he’d been granted a stay. As a pragmatist, my first thought was, Oh man, did they still have to pay for the ticket? BA: Oh, I have no idea. We were so happy, we probably took it home and shredded it!
PGN: And when did you get married? BA: June of 2011. We wanted to wait and do a big wedding but then we said, Screw it, let’s just do it, and we went to D.C. and had a small ceremony in Lafayette Park in front of the White House. We didn’t realize it was Gay Pride Weekend so we had a great time going around and celebrating.
PGN: Where do things stand now? BA: He’s under an Order of Supervision, which means that every 30-90 days, he needs to make a scheduled visit with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office to “check in,” to give them all his personal information and verify he hasn’t committed any crimes. We also have the appeal in the asylum case pending and I’ve filed for an I-130, which is a marriage-based visa designed specifically for U.S. citizens married to foreign nationals. That was denied and we appealed. It basically stalls the process and it’s not a final solution, but it allows him to stay here for now. Between President Obama declaring DOMA unconstitutional and the pending Supreme Court ruling, we’re hopeful.
PGN: Is it nerve-wracking to be under such scrutiny? Are you worried about getting a ticket for jaywalking? BA: Yeah, sometimes Anton will be like, “Can’t I drive your car?” and I have to say “Uh, no, you have a license to drive in Indonesia, but it’s not valid here!” We’re big Obama supporters so he was upset that he couldn’t vote either.
PGN: So last question, who should play you two in the movie? BA: Oh, I don’t know. We always tease each other and call each other fat, even though neither of us are overweight. He’ll see Jack Black on TV and say, “Look, he’d be perfect to play you!” And there’s an Asian actress, Maggie Q, who plays Nikita on the CW Network. I always tell Anton she should play him in our life story!
PGN: Perfect!
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