This is how you know you don't quite belong in this country: you fill out an American passport application, turn in all the correct documentation and anxiously wait for it to arrive--your key to freedom! Then just when you think you can't wait any more, your passport arrives...missing your second last name.That extra name that makes sense in Mexico baffles Americans. The name that any other Mexican would acknowledge while simultaneously drop becomes the bane of your existence because no one can figure out who you are.
What to do about a person who uses their first last name on a license but then has both last names on a birth certificate or certificate of citizenship? If you have no idea, don't worry, you are not alone because the government doesn't really know what to do with you either.
I thought that when I was replacing my passport that it wouldn't be too difficult. I am an American citizen after all. I have the documentation to prove it. I follow instructions. This shouldn't be too bad.
But wait that's not where the story begins. The story begins with a plane ticket. I bought a plane ticket to India. India's on my bucket list but more importantly India is the other love of my boyfriend Dave. If India were a woman, I'd be worried. Thankfully, India is a country and so I am going to India to taste the air and inhale the food--or something like that.
I bought a ticket. I hadn't gotten my passport, yet, but I figured that was a technicality. There is a reason why travel websites tell you to get your passport before you book a ticket. The name I entered included my first and second last names. I was thinking that my passport (once I'd actually gotten it, of course) would have both my last names since my birth certificate has both of my last names and my certificate of citizenship has both last names and so does my social security card. But oh no. No, no, no this was not to be because you see my driver's license had only my first last name.
A long time ago my parents had gotten me a state ID with just my first last name because a second last name--my mother's surname would simply be too confusing for Americans to wrap their minds around and so to make it easy, so that I would not be known as Ms. Flores instead of Ms. Ortiz, they chopped it off. It made sense. I mean even I was confused by having two last names when I was a little girl trying to figure out why I had no middle name but two last names. When I got my license the secretary of state used my information from my state ID perpetuating the use of just one last name.
So there I was sitting at work holding my brand new passport with my mouth wide open because suddenly I could not use the ticket I had bought. I tried calling Orbitz since I had booked my ticket through them. They told me I had to cancel my ticket and then book a new one--what sense does that make? Shouldn't it be easy to change your name on a ticket you bought for yourself?
If only it had been that simple. But no, I would have had to pay an extra $1000 in order to cancel and rebook my ticket. It would be way less expensive to change the name on my passport, right? I mean I had requested the use of my second last name in my passport application so it was their fault, right?
Nope. It was my fault. At least that's what the nasty lady who is one of the managers at the Chicago Passport Agency yelled at me through her bullet proof (but not sound proof) window. After letting her know that she was being rude, she dispensed with me by sending me to another window. Explain to someone else this business about your two last names cuz I have no idea what you are talking about. The second man I spoke to was very nice but by then I was too upset to listen. I left in tears. Would I ever get to leave the country again?
Luckily, Dave came to my rescue by further investigating wh. at could be done about my passport. And what I had to do was this: go to the DMV, have them change my name on my license, bring it back to the Passport Agency, apply for a new passport under that name and pay the full fee, again. Still cheaper than a $1000. So after much grumbling and gnashing of teeth, I went. I returned to the Passport Agency and nearly $400 later, I had a new passport, a state ID and a driver's license with my full name.
At last my freedom was assured! India here I come!
I just hope no one calls me Ms. Flores or I may scream.
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