Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013, January 07, 2000, Page 27, Image 27

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    January 7.2000 »
Continued from Page 25
B
could finally say, ‘I’m here,’ without worrying
if they’re going to come to my door in the
middle of the night and take me away," he
says.
In July 2000, Wario can apply for perma­
nent residency. If all goes well, after another
three years he can apply for citizenship.
Wario expects to follow all these steps,
and is confident he will succeed. He’s excit-
ed about being able to make plans and start
putting down roots.
“I can never go back and live in Kenya,”
he says.
“I still dream about Kenya almost every
night,” he adds quietly, longing for the famil-
y the summer of 1995, Wario’s student
visas and his tourist visa had expired.
Uncertain what to do next, but certain that
he couldn t go back to Kenya, Wario became
an illegal alien.
Wario had not realized there was a large
contingent of Radical Fairies as close as Port­
land. But as soon as he did, he moved to the
City of Roses and got a certificate to teach
English as a second language.
“I fell completely in love with Portland,"
he says. “I’m out to everybody, and ever since
I’ve been here I’ve never tried to hide that.”
But life as an illegal alien was tough.
“If I’d left, I would have been banned from
returning for five to 10 years,” Wario says.
“I spent four years as an illegal alien, never
knowing what was going to happen at any
moment,” he recalls, the depth of his fear still
recent in his memory.
He was careful not to do anything even
remotely illegal— no traffic tickets or parking
fines, no arguments with jealous boyfriends
»f*
who might turn him in.
“I was always looking over my shoulder,”
he says.
What kept Wario going was the support of
his friends in the Radical Faeries. Because it
was too great a risk to lie on job applications,
Wario was forced to take odd jobs that paid
cash under the table. He moved around, often
staying with friends when he was between jobs
cleaning houses and working in construction.
Life was all about basic survival.
Finally, in late 1997, there was a change in
IN S regulations that allowed illegal aliens to
have their status readjusted without penalty—
if they had a good reason to stay.
Eventually Wario connected with mem­
iar sensations of home. “I miss the way the
bers of the International Gay and Lesbian
Human Rights Campaign in San Francisco, a ploughed earth smells after the first rain, and
group that focuses on immigration issues,
the mountains of fruit in the open-air mar-
They told him he might be able to claim asy- kets."
lum and hooked him up with an attorney.
Once Wario obtains U .S. citizenship, his
It was a slow process, and it took a year just passport will make no mention of his former
to get an interview with the INS. But from asylee status, and he should be able to visit
then on Wario had a pending case, which
Kenya as long as he keeps a low profile. His
meant he could come aboveground and
father, now a prominent bishop,
obtain a work permit.
and the rest of his
In early 1998, the President of Kenya,
family
Daniel arap Moi, joined other unenlight­
ened African leaders
a
s s ? - '
denouncing
h o m o se x u a ls.
In an official
edict he said,
“Kenya has no
room or time for
gays and lesbians—
we will not tolerate
j \ ) » '999
it.”
Those were the
magic words that ulti­
mately convinced the
» & ***» **
IN S panel that Wario’s
life would be endan­
.-o
gered if he returned to
Kenya.
O n June 11, 1999,
e* « » * '00
*y\U*D
f r» V> y oui r ; 0u a * *
'nv
Warios petition for politi­
, eU»^'W ve to®*0
cal asylum was granted,
,we to*10*
and he received an asylee
visa, which is valid indefi­
nitely.
“ I had dreamed about that
*b° V' e*»bV
moment for years— when 1
S * = 2 T » —
*■ ?Ä * - Î 5 Î. * s S 5 »
would be at
known there.
situation became
rario has, however, had one recent
face to face meeting with his father.
In the summer of 1998 his father came to
Chicago for an evangelical conference. To
prepare him for their meeting, Wario sent his
father a letter in which he revealed his sexu­
al orientation and detailed his immigration
struggles.
“O f course he freaked out,” Wario
remembers, “but by the time we met he’d
calmed down, and we had this incredibly
intense conversation over six days. A t the
and
I still dream about Kenya
almost every night.
I miss the way the
after the first rain,
and the mountains
o f fruit in the
open-air markets."
end we concluded the bonds of our family are
stronger than anything else.”
Although Wario stays in touch with his
family through letters, he believes they’re in
denial about his new life.
“They don’t believe it’s true— they think I
became gay because I left the
church,” Wario says, his voice
turning sad. “They’re praying
the heck out of this— they
think they can fix what is for
them a deep, shameful
secret.”
^ i n c e becoming an
^ a sy le e , Wario has con­
tinued his education at
the prestigious Starkey
Institute in Colorado,
where he studied estate
management. He got a
taste o f that career
during his under­
ground years when a
Portland man hired
him as a household
manager. Now he
is working at a
venerable down­
town Portland
i -n p w * ^ V o U h»ve
hotel while he
looks for the
perfect man­
agement posi­
tion.
And how
did he pick
such an unusual career? “A t the heart it’s
about nurturing, it’s about taking care of a
home,” he replies passionately.
“At heart I’m a homebody,” he says, adding
that his early close relationships with his
female relatives undoubtedly influenced his
love of things domestic.
And would this single man ever be con­
tent to stay home and be the happy home­
maker? “Absolutely!” Wario exclaims without
hesitation.
His time in Colorado also solidified his
love of the Northwest. “That made me realize
this is my home,” he says.
“I’m settling here in Portland, and I will be
eternally grateful to my friends here— our
community does have heart," he says with all
earnestness.
Best of all, he is out, out, out to everyone.
He has instructed his employment counselor
at the institute to write on his file “in big red
letters that I’m gay,” he says.
S
o, now that his legal battle has been won
and his life here is stabilizing, how does
Wario evaluate his situation? Any regrets? “I
would love to be able to speak my native lan­
guage, Kikuyu,” he says, explaining that he
doesn’t have any friends from Kenya here.
He does have close African American
friends, and they often discuss the differences
in their lives.
“It’s much easier for me here,” Wario says,
“because I’m perceived as a good black person,
not an angry black person.”
He has seen it time and again, that as soon
as people learn he’s from Africa, their attitude
toward him shifts dramatically into accep­
tance.
Another difference is his own attitude.
“There is definitely an ‘immigrant mind,’
but 1 don’t have that— that chasing of the
American dream,” he says.
He explains that he socializes mostly with
people who “wear beads, as little clothing as
possible and hang out in the woods.”
He adds: “Earning money has not been my
primary focus; my whole purpose for coming
here was completely different.”
Then Wario smiles, settles back into his
chair and says, “I feel I’m very wealthy and I
haven’t wasted my time.”
Talk of the winter holidays excites him, yet
when his thoughts return to Africa, a sadness
envelops him.
“I love the concept of Kwanzaa— that
shows what we can salvage after the devasta­
tion of Christianity. Kwanzaa means ‘first
fruits of the harvest’ in Swahili, and I’d love to
take the celebration of Kwanzaa back to
Kenya,” he says wistfully, knowing that adven­
ture will have to wait.
The irony of this is extreme: A man bom
in Africa is forced to leave because Western
religious influences have poisoned attitudes
toward sexual minorities; then he seeks sanc­
tuary in the West, where he’s able to celebrate
Kwanzaa, a spiritual holiday originated by an
African Am erican to restore indigenous
African heritage to Westerners.
But one day this ardent lover of freedom
who found his liberty in the Western world
may very well achieve his goal of restoring to
his homeland concepts that were destroyed by
Western invaders so many years ago. And
wouldn’t that be poetic justice? Wouldn’t that
bring Kahunya W ario’s two worlds back
together?
■ O R IA N A G R E E N is the Entertainment Editor of
Just Out and feels honored to have met Kahunya
Wario.