Sometime in 1967, not long after I had settled into my routine in Boston, I noticed something in the wording of my Geneva Convention travel document — the refugee passport issued to me in Austria before I left for America. The Convention was clear on the matter: after emigrating, the holder was obligated to surrender the document to the immigration authorities of the new country, and in exchange, the new country was obligated to issue a replacement. It was not a favor. It was a right, written into international law.

I went to the Immigration and Naturalization Service office in Boston specifically to do this. I was not asked to come. I went on my own, in good faith, because the Convention said I was entitled to make this exchange, and I wanted what I was entitled to.

The woman I spoke with took my passport. Then she told me I could not travel. I was in the United States on a conditional entry, she explained, and that meant I was restricted from international travel for two years.

I asked her to read what the passport said. I told her I was not there to argue about my entry conditions. I was there because the Geneva Convention gave me the right to exchange this document, and I simply wanted what the Convention said I had coming to me.

She asked me where I wanted to travel.

I told her I had no specific plans. I did not have a trip in mind. But I wanted to be able to travel when I chose and where I chose, within whatever restrictions the Convention itself placed on such travel. That was the point. Not a destination — a right.

She told me I should be thankful to be in the United States and not question the restrictions.

I told her that I was very thankful. But I also told her that no one had given me any help when I arrived. No housing. No money. No assistance of any kind. If I had not been able to work and take care of myself from the first day, I would have died from hunger. So I would not get down and kiss her feet for the privilege of being here, because as far as I could tell, I had taken care of myself entirely on my own.

There was one other thing on my mind that day. At the same time all of this was happening, I was being drafted. The United States government wanted me to go to Vietnam. It did not seem entirely fair that I could be called to serve in the Army but could not travel freely as a civilian.

I said this to her as well.

She told me that if I wanted to complain about Selective Service, I needed to go to Selective Service.

She kept my passport. I left without a replacement document and without any of the rights the Convention had promised me.

I was very upset — not just for myself, but because of how they treated people in that office. People who had come with nothing, built something from nothing, and were still made to feel they were asking for too much simply by knowing what they were owed.

I never got the passport back.