Becoming a non-person

Erik K. Ward on what happens when you don’t have a drivers’ license (in his case because of a visual handicap) and have your passport and birth certificate go AWOL…

I’m African-American and my family moved to California almost a hundred years ago after a lynching took place outside their hometown in Kentucky.

I’m also undocumented, or in the current anti-immigrant vernacular, “illegal.” I don’t have the necessary documents to prove my identity. Therefore, within four years, I won’t be able to vote, have access to social services, or receive state identification to travel…

Since it was obvious, after twenty minutes of discussion, that I didn’t own a driver’s license, a passport, or a social security card, they told me to fill out the proper forms in front of a notary public in Chicago. I quickly opened the phone book and had a co-worker drive me to a notary public. But when I got there, the notary public said I needed a passport, social security card, or driver’s license to receive an official notary seal.

…

Four weeks later my birth certificate arrived!

But when I arrived at the Post Office to pick it up, the attendant asked me to produce a passport, driver’s license and, most ironically, a copy of my birth certificate to obtain my birth certificate.

So, what do we call Mr. Ward? An illegal non-alien, or an undocumented citizen?