Jumping For Gymnastics And The Privilege Of Doing It In The USA

Here is a good one for you. I had to spend 89 minutes online
with a Verizon technician to fix my email sending and receiving section of my
computer. Usually when I call, I get someone in India who is extremely polite,
compassionate, caring and knowledgeable.
This time for the first time, it was a young man age 20 from Costa Rica.
He and I became instant friends while he was trying to fix it. I guessed he was
28, he said lower, and finally I got to 20. So I asked him to guess my age from
my voice and he said 35, then 45, then 50 and I finally told him I will be 79
in June. He could not believe it. I have heard this before, so this is nice.

He eventually got it back to being great and he told me he
was supposed to be right now in Orlando for the Cheerleading competitions. He
was on a team and they all were coming legally to Florida. The cheerleading is
not our type of girls cheerleading at high school football games or the Ravens
games cheerleaders. This is actually gymnastics. He had taken control of my
screen with my permission to fix it and then he put on You Tube, where I saw
him doing fantastic gymnastics with his team and by himself. He has been
studying this for years and he is quite proficient at this. Then he told me
that many from the teams were not given their visas to come here for no
apparent reason and so all of the team was not present. He had paid 300 dollars
for a team uniform that he can use there in other events and he hopes to come
next year to USA wherever the competition will be held.

This seems ironic that a person coming into this country for
an athletic sport with his group and legally asking for a visa is turned down
without any reason. There were many in the different teams who got the
rejection besides him. I told him he should go to Mexico and he could get here
easier.

He is working full time for Verizon in Costa Rica and I told
his supervisor afterwards how competent, nice, dear, and how he tried so hard
to fix it. During the repair period, something silly popped up for me to check
ok on. It wanted for me to pay Verizon 30 dollars for a year of doing this or
10 dollars for last night. I do not pay them for ordinary tech work and it was
in this case, he told me, a breakdown on Verizon’s end and it would be fixed in
24 hours. However, he got it working good after 89 minutes and then it worked
even better after about three hours, so evidently it was from Verizon and
nothing I did. He wiped out the fees and I did not sign for them anyway, so I
am not responsible.

The moral of this story is that here is a team member, a
fine young man and many of his team mates were kept from coming here to Orlando
to compete in this competition, because probably some snafus on the United
States whatever department it is called. Yet in the Boston Marathon
killings, it seems the older perpetrator went back and forth to Russia and we
were warned about him coming back here from Russia, and somehow nothing was
done.

When my Dad at age 7, he and his parents and siblings came
to this country from Russia legally in 1900, they came and their names are on the
walls at Ellis Island of the immigrants who came and passed through there. My
father-in-law came here when he was eighteen in about 1913, he too came legally
and passed through Ellis Island, New York and his name is also on the wall at
Ellis Island.

Now days, millions come here illegally, stay and receive
benefits galore.

Here is this fine young man, a gymnast and his co- team
members and they apply to come for an event of sports and they are denied visas
with no reasonable explanation.

He is very spirited and he said they will all try again.
They were notified only one month before their departure of no visas.

I am not an expert on legality or denied visas, but this
seems wrong.

Many years ago, probably about fifty, my sister-in-law had a
cousin, a prominent medical doctor come from Israel to work at Johns Hopkins to
continue on his life saving research on some disease. Hopkins was proud to have
him and he stayed two years doing the combined research with Hopkins and
Israel. He was well received and liked and his visa was up and he wanted to
stay for an additional 6 months and Hopkins wanted him to do that. He was
denied even one day past his visa expiration and Hopkins was so upset that they
would lose him before the entire expert work was completed. Of course, he left.
So here was an esteemed medical person doing necessary research and work for an
illness and he had to leave. He was told if he stayed one extra day, he would
be arrested.

So tie in the story from 50 years ago with the story of
yesterday and they are similar. One is a sport, the other for humanity and
illness.

As they say “all is not fair in love and war.” Jonathan
Castro from Costa Rica, we hope you can obtain your visa next year. It was my
joy to have a fine young man of your caliber take care of me with my Verizon
email problems. Keep up your excellent work for Verizon and next year, I hope
to see you and your team here in America at the Cheerleading competition which
should really be called Gymnastics Supreme, because from what I saw on the
video, you all are superb, qualified and excellent in this. Good luck and we
will welcome you here to see our country and to participate in this delightful
happening.

There is another saying:

“Wisdom is not gained by knowing what is right. Wisdom is
gained by practicing what is right and noticing what happens when that practice
succeeds and when it fails.”

You, Jonathan will accomplish and fulfill your wish to come
here and compete next year and you are still a winner either way.

Elita Sohmer Clayman Fairfax Station Patch