A young fiddler from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, tried to visit Maine last year to share her musical expertise in small workshops and house concerts. At the border, she was interrogated for four hours and then banned for life from the U.S. because she didn’t have a visa. Her friend, who happened to be driving, was also banned, on the grounds that he was attempting to smuggle an illegal alien into the country.
She was wrong to try to slip in without a visa, but banning her (and her friend) for life without appeal was not only unreasonable, it also punishes Americans who want to learn from her about Cape Breton culture and music.
This and other sticky problems of getting artists across the border were the subject of one of several panel discussions held by U.S. and Canadian arts presenters Aug. 4-6, sponsored by the Collins Center for the Arts and the Maine Arts Commission.
As one of the panelists, I was disappointed to see that this newspaper misrepresented our discussion. The reporter portrayed a disagreement between the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, or USCIS, representative, Julia Kennedy, and myself about a 45-day visa processing time. However, we did not discuss this 45-day timeline, nor did we even disagree.
What did happen in our discussion was very encouraging. As the third panelist, Anthony Derosby, an immigration lawyer from Portland, pointed out, the very fact that the USCIS even sent someone to the Maine conference from Washington highlighted the increasing responsiveness of the USCIS.
Julia Kennedy announced that visa processing times, which for a long time had taken at least four months and often much longer, was now down to 14 days. This is crucial for artists, because the only way to bypass the long wait times and be able to be on time for a gig was to pay a $1,000 premium processing fee. Now artists can avoid that fee altogether.
Think about the fiddler I mentioned from Cape Breton. Given the expenses of a $340 visa application, a $1,000 rush fee for visa processing, plus gas, food and accommodations, it’s no wonder that many artists simply don’t come here, or else try to slip in without the visa, putting themselves at great risk.
While my primary concern on the panel was the issue of small-scale cultural exchange visits, we also addressed visa problems of bigger name artists and bands who tour and have to pay high fees for visas. At one point Ms. Kennedy also mentioned difficulties with “rogue” border guards who turn away visitors despite approved visa applications, or who impose harsh punishments without appeal. Several conference participants expressed concerns with the fact that our country permits such arbitrary power in a single person.
Many small-scale cultural exchange visits have been choked off in recent years by visa restrictions. Festivals, concerts and workshops have been hit hard. We generally see in America only the higher profile musicians who can afford high-priced visas.
But shouldn’t we actually encourage that Cape Breton fiddler to come in for a short visit and share her expertise? Shouldn’t we allow families with Canadian roots to bring in Canadian musicians for small community events? What about music camps who want to bring in an expert to teach about another culture for a week?
Visa regulations are based entirely around concerns about jobs and commercial concerns. But after 30 years of working with both cultural exchange and international trade, I can attest that cultural exchange is a very different animal from international trade.
Cultural exchange is not commerce. It is an educational investment. It helps us appreciate foreign cultures, and actually spurs our economy by increasing interest in that field.
My push is for a new visa category or international agreement that encourages small-scale cultural exchange, even if we must place restrictions such as income ceilings and time limits. It should be easier to bring in qualified musicians to share their expertise with us.
The first step is to affirm that we value cultural exchange as education; then we can facilitate it as distinct from commerce. A link to my petition affirming this is at www.edpearlman.net/CEFTA. The acronym stands for Cultural Exchange Free Trade Agreement — a step toward a better world.
Edward Pearlman is a fiddle teacher and performer based in Portland.