By Jim Troyer

Post-Bulletin, Austin MN 

Giselle Stern Hernandez did not cry until her performance was over, but some in the audience at Bridges Theatre on the campus of Riverland Community College wept for her.

Not a play but a "solo show," Hernandez is "The Deportee's Wife." It is her personal story about how the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service robbed her of her husband and her faith in America. And like so many tragedies, it's a love story.

"I met my husband Roberto in a renovated church that became a club called Limelight in New York City. It was April of 1999," she told her audience Thursday night.

"While Roberto spoke well in English, I noticed an accent that sounded like my mother's. 'Are you Mexican?' I asked? And he said yes."

What she did not learn until after their marriage was that he had been deported earlier in his life and ordered to stay out of the United States for five years, which he did. A handgun he had owned was also part of that incident.

These are elements that one might expect in a play, but this is a true story. Her husband made mistakes that he freely admits, she said. What sinks into the audience during her hour on the stage is her picture of the inhumanity of the country's immigration system and its disregard for the rights of the wife or husband of an undocumented spouse.

The couple visits the INS office building in Chicago to file a request for the re-evaluation of Roberto's request for admission and winds up across the desk from a deportation officer. There will be no evaluation.

The next time she sees Roberto, he is behind a glass wall, wearing a prison jumpsuit and speaking to her with a phone. He was deported to Mexico in April of 2001.

The performer's account of going back to her empty apartment alone was the hardest moment for Lynn Cunningham, who sat mesmerized in her seat in the balcony. "I was shocked that she could tell that story without crying," she said. "It was very moving."

In a question-and-answer session after the performance, Hernandez made her assessment of the American immigration system clear: "U. S. laws are there to keep a certain class level out," she said. "The people with the most money win."

The subject of students who have lived here for most of their lives but are not citizens also came up during the question and answer period.

"It was an eye-opening experience," said Riverland student Troy Stegenga. "What happens to them because they're not citizens," he asks. " Some of my fellow students are in that situation. It gives you a different perspective."

That kind of reaction, said Hernandez, is what her presentation is all about, "When I come on stage, it's not to change your opinion. I want you to feel uncomfortable."

Born and raised in New York, she received a degree in English from Hunter College and a fine arts degree in creative writing from Naropa University. She received a Ford Foundation Multicultural Playwriting Grant and has performed her solo show in Mexico and the United States.

Giselle and Roberto Hernandez now make their home in Cuernavaca, Mexico. "We live our lives," she said. "We are not waiting."

Kirsten Lindbloom, chair of the Austin Human Rights Commission, said "the commission plans to continue to be a voice for diversity within the community. We want the community to have a dialog."

At 7 p.m. Dec. 10, the commission will present an HBO production, "Which Way Home," which looks at immigration through the eyes of children.

"The Deportee's Wife" was sponsored by the AHRC, APEX Austin and the Advocates for Human Rights.

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