“I saw that borders were affecting love stories everywhere."
Anna Lekas Miller on borders, relationships, and trying to "find a way where I could have hope of being together.”
This week we conclude our conversation with Anna Lekas Miller, author of Love Across Borders: Passports, Papers, and Romance in a Divided World. If you missed the first part of our conversation, check it out here. Reflecting on the turmoil of her partner, Salem, being deported, Miller pinpoints the internal questions that led her to publish her book and the ways these questions continue to evolve today.
A quick note: as we mentioned last week, we are giving away a signed copy of Anna’s book. Just like or comment on this post or subscribe to La Cuenta for a chance to win.
ANTERO GARCIA: At what point did you decide to write this book? It's all nicely wrapped up as a narrative, but when did you start to see this as a book-length project?
ANNA LEKAS MILLER: Yeah, nothing's linear. It really does feel sometimes like having a kid. A friend recently asked me how long the actual writing took, and I was just like, yeah, nine months. The moment was basically when I first visited Salem right after he'd been deported and I was experiencing all this shock of what are we going to do. The moment that the book really came to me was we'd just had this week together where we had this very bizarre vacation together in northern Iraq, which we were just trying to have a good time together. But I was also like, what the fuck are we going to do? And I just felt like there was no blueprint of what you do in this type of situation. I felt really lost and I just wanted someone to tell me what to do, but there was no one to tell me.
I remember, very vividly, sitting on the floor of the airport in Erbil and I was about to catch a flight back to Istanbul. It made no sense to me in my mind that there was this plane that was about to go back to the city where we lived and I could get on it, but he couldn't. I was just shocked at that emotion. I don't even think “processing” is the right word ... I was just held up at that fact there's so many people that have been in this situation before. This is happening around the world. I've been covering stories of refugees. I've been covering stories of people taking these very dangerous trips across the Mediterranean Sea. I grew up in California around Mexican communities. I had friends who were undocumented, who had undocumented parents. And I just saw borders were affecting love stories everywhere. This is crazy and unfair and how do they all do this too?
It made no sense to me in my mind that there was this plane that was about to go back to the city where we lived and I could get on it, but he couldn't.
I was curious about how everyone figured this out. I was curious if I could find a way where I could have hope of being together, but I was also very conscious of, okay, yeah, maybe I can make this grand romantic gesture of moving to follow Salem, but that’s because I have a US passport. what happens to people that don't? It was starting to have all those kinds of questions in that moment that led me to write the book.
ALIX DICK: You're still in London right now? Is your long-term plan to stay there? Do you miss the United States?
ALM: Yes. I'm glad you brought up the issue of plans because I think this is something that comes up in Love Across Borders. When you're in a situation like me and Salem, your life can just change overnight and stuff. And so we always find it really funny when we encounter couples who haven't necessarily had that. Our neighbor's friend came from France a couple of months ago and I was like, oh, how'd you guys choose Léon as where you're going to live? And he was like, “Oh, I made this spreadsheet and I optimized each city based on proximity to an airport and job.”
AG: Really?
ALM: Yes, really. I just thought how nice it could be to optimize where you're going to live based on a spreadsheet. We moved to London not knowing what the fuck was going on in our lives. So yes, I think planning is very difficult and I do think there's a huge privilege and luxury in planning. Right now we're at the point where we are planning to move back to the US in the long term. A lot of that is just based on the fact that that's where my family is. That's a place that I think he's [Salem’s] always been curious about. He grew up with a lot of American culture and things like that and has tons of American friends, and … obviously fell in love with an American woman. So I'm very much hoping that there's a future home for us there at this point.
I thought how nice it could be to optimize where you're going to live based on a spreadsheet. We moved to London not knowing what the fuck was going on in our lives.
AD: “Family” is such a complicated word, but how has your family responded to the experiences you write about in your book?
ALM: Oh my God! We have so much family, both blood and chosen family. His family's been really supportive. They're all in Southern Turkey. He has a little brother who's in Austria actually, getting his Austrian citizenship this year. So we're really excited for that to happen so that we can all reunite in a way that's easier. I mean, his family, they are Syrian and Turkish. So unfortunately it's pretty much impossible for us to all be together in the same place right now. We're hoping that Salem getting a British passport--because that's probably happening at the end of this year--might change that. So that'll be a really exciting moment for us to get to not be separated by borders.
It's definitely created a very different kind of in-law relationship. My parents basically met Salem five days before we got married. I was kind of like, our wedding is being shotgunned by the immigration system.
AG: You introduced him like, “I hope you like this person. If not tough shit!”
ALM: Literally, that's the point that I was at. I was so exhausted by everything. And so luckily it all went fine. And we're in the UK and we're sort of by ourselves. We're at the age where a lot of our friends are talking about or having kids. And so this idea of being by ourselves in one place and not having family around has affected how I see my future as a mother. It's made me feel very undecided about it and I'm curious about if moving to the US, and being closer to people that I would see in those caretaking relationships, would make that change for me. It's something that I think about a lot in terms of this issue of passports, papers, romance, family, et cetera. I think it has intersections with our reproductive ideas and our reproductive choice and it obfuscates that sort of vision and that idea of a family in some way. Those are issues I'm thinking about exploring in a second book.
AG: So much of your book is about the choices couples make about starting families across borders. Does your own family have expectations about your own family aspirations?
ALM: My family has been very accepting of the fact that I'm a weirdo and I married a weirdo and that we're going to do what we think is right in the moment. That's a huge kind of hat tip to them for accepting that things for us don't necessarily look traditional. It's a lot harder when people have the goal of having kids as something that they really want to do. When you're in a place like Syria you're used to having so much more family living around. It's just so much easier to imagine having four kids running around because there could be an auntie or someone else there to take care of them.
This idea of being alone in a new place just completely short changes that for me. So I think it's not just a questions of what a family looks like going forward. It's this issue of care. And it's also this issue that the world is on fire. What the fuck is going on, even globally right now in terms of just things like the economic crisis, climate change, the pandemic? How is this affecting how we all feel about continuing life?
I'm one of those millennials that has previously been like, “Climate change is happening, why would I bring a child into this world?” And now I find it incredibly brave when people decide to bring a child into this world. I find those people who are just like, “I'm doing this and I'm going to dedicate myself to making this life, this world work for their life” … wow, it’s so powerful.
I find it incredibly brave when people decide to bring a child into this world.
AD: Wow. Well, thank you so much. It's been so great talking with you.
ALM: Thank you. I appreciate you a so much.
Propina and Book Giveaway
We are incredibly grateful for Anna’s time sharing her work with us. If you haven’t had a chance to read Love Across Borders, please check it out.
If you are interested in winning a signed copy of Anna’s book, please like or comment on this post (or last week’s post to be entered an additional time!) or subscribe to La Cuenta. We’ll pick the winner on September 15th.
Finally, you can stay up to date with Anna’s ongoing work related to borders, relationships, and families at her own Substack:
We’ll see you next week.
Great post!