A Cuban in Italy

Published by lioneisy savon

My name's Lioneisy Savon, I'm from Cuba. In 2002 I got married with an Italian in Havana and I came to Italy. Everything was going well until the day when, returning to Cuba, 10 days afterwards I found my divorce made without my knowledge and a lawyer threatening me to sign the document. Not tolerating threats, I signed but with another name, so she broke down and said to my ex-husband not to worry, which meant that she would have taken care to have my signature as well someway, though false, on the act. So it was. In fact, when I met again my ex-husband in Italy, he had the document signed with my real name. Maybe I was naive but I did not think possible for a lawyer in Cuba to be bought such a way. Yet what it had happened so far was nothing, once back in Italy it was even worst. I looked for a lawyer to have my eligibility for citizenship certified. But things went differently. The Police released me a residence permit valid for one year, but obtained only three months before its expire date, until I would get a job. In short, I didn't find a job (I challenge anyone to find it in 3 months!) and I lost everything. No one had attended me to have my right to Italian citizenship recognized and eventually they told me it was because I had not made the request in time. So I was illegal in Italy for the following three years, shortly before in this country illegal stay became a real crime, punishable even with imprisonment. One day, during those three years as I said, in 2008 the Financial Police came to my house at 7 am and filled me with insults and offenses. It was a day that it still hurts me to remember. They took me to the Carabinieri station where the chief told me that if Financial Police had brought me there it meant that I had surely done something bad. But he soon had to realize that I was clean. Words flew between them, one of them put a gun on the table before me and went out. I do not know if he wanted to test myself, to see if I took it. I did not, why should I if I knew I was clean? They took me to the headquarter of Financial Police and then again by the Carabinieri, who did not understand why I had been reported there. The fact is that I found myself with an expulsion order and a ban of 10 years just for having got my residence permit expired. From that moment I began to feel dirty, as if I were a criminal. That same day the car of Financial Police starting almost shot me under.

From that day I felt nomore alive. I could not believe that something so horrible was happening to me, it was like living a bad dream. Then in 2009 I had the chance to apply for amnesty. At the Police office the clerk said to everyone who asked it that the permit would be ready in 45 days. I have been waiting 3 month and I didn't get it yet. Meanwhile, my job giver is helping me paying every three months about 380 € of mandatory retirement fees (those payments are required in Italy to pay retirement pension, which I probably will never take advantage). But to get the long-awaited permit, and ultimately not to feel yourself a

criminal, to work (or to be legal residents, which the Bossi-Fini's law and subsequent amendments has made become synonymous actually!), or simply to get the chance to go away because you are tired of being treated like slave with no rights, there are a lot of other expenses that I am not here to list in full: from the "Irpef" tax to the fee for the permit itself, stamps, photos and other expenses. Ultimately an immigrant and his job giver spend an amount of several thousand of Euro, with great joy for state coffers and the plause for those who managed to knock out these new aliens with the well-designed trap of last amnesty made -wonder why- after yet another decree of the Berlusconi government which had just turned the illegal stay into a real crime, punishable with imprisonment. There would be a way to ensure that immigrants are finally respected by governments and political forces in this country and can be summarized in two points: 1.to modify the law on citizenship in order to be based on a right of land and not blood, as it is in all civilized countries; 2.to extend the right of vote to immigrants ... And then we'll see what political future will await people like the Interior Minister Maroni and his intolerant and racist collegues!

And to you Cubans who live there, in a country that has no issues of taxes, costs of hospital and school, to you who speak ill of Cuba and disgrace us before the whole world, I'd like to say: don't you know that we aliens abroad are worth nothing? We are living here worst than we would live at home? And with this I mean to say to all the Cubans who speak bad of Cuba: be aware, think twice before pouring shit on your country!