Another Travel Document

The queue of aliens keeps movingmoves forward. I glimpse look around to check where ཨ་ལྕག་ལགས (a lcag lags) ends up, but I can’t find her amid the row of glass cubicles. I stand in front of the uniform assigned to me, and smile, offering a cheerful “Good Afternoon!” The uniform asks for my passport. 

“Is this your passport?”

“Yes, Sir. It is my travel document.”

“I have never seen a yellow passport. What is this?” 

“Sir. This is a Travel Document that the Indian Government provides for Tibetans who live in India. I am a Tibetan living in India.” 

I offer this rehearsed answer that I have used across immigration counters in the US, Canada, and Europe over the past six years. For exiled Tibetans, legal belonging is defined by the uncertainty of movement. From the generation who trudged across the Himalayas to those who were born in exile, one has to move between the rehearsed multiple positions as foreigners under Indian law, refugees in the Indian imagination, and/or holders of strange yellow documents for immigration officers. 

“You’re not an Indian citizen?”

“No, Sir. I am a stateless Tibetan living in India.”