My name is Jo Rock and I am a California native, and a love exile: I live in the United Kingdom with my British partner because the UK welcomes us and the US does not recognize our relationship in any legal fashion.

Even though California has many domestic partner benefits and laws, that does not help us. California isn’t its own country; so the lack of federal immigration laws, which would allow me to sponsor my partner the way that straight married citizens can, means that we can’t live there.

Faced with the choice of living apart or leaving my country of birth, I chose the latter.

I am currently living in the US while working on my Master of Fine Arts degree in technical production at San Diego State University. It has been quite difficult being apart this long, and I am very much looking forward to going home at the end of the school year.

I will miss sunny southern California and being able to see members of my family regularly. But the US is no longer my home.

I am walking with Jennifer as she starts her Walk for Togetherness to make the plight of bi-national couples more visible. I hope to see the day when the US welcomes its native sons and daughters, and their spouses, home. I fear there is still much work to be done by lots of brave people, and that it will be a long hard road. May we all survive the journey!

- Jo
San Diego, California, March 2006

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