Everyday, Americans are dating or falling in love with
Latino immigrants. A lot of times, it is
true love, but true love is never enough.  It's a great
start, but relationships are destroyed unnecessarily
everyday because of what citizens and immigrants don't
understand about laws and cultural differences.

dating latino

Almost every day, I listen to citizens and immigrants talking about
their relationships. Sometimes they keep secrets from each other, secrets
that hold the key to the relationship. These relationships, well,
nothing can be done to help them, because one of the couple is
living a double identity.

Other couples are different. They want things to work out, and
they want to be open with each other, honest, fair, vulnerable.
They usually they start without enough information about other things.
And I think it's because they haven't had enough experience, or maybe
they haven't had ANY experience, with how complex and weird things
can get in a citizen-immigrant love affair.

Getting to know anyone might take years and years. I've given up
trying to understand my sisters. I sure can't figure my wife out.
But throw cultural differences into the mix, and now you're talking about
a very interesting but also, often times, a very agitating
situation.

illegal immigrant

Differences can be interesting. They can be just right.
They can be a lot of fun.  And they can be fatal.

I know it won't surprise you to know that a lot of the people I talk to as
I travel around the country interviewing and conversing with them,
it won't surprise you to hear me say a lot of them are here illegally.

But they are here, and their lovers are here,
and they have fallen in love, and sometimes their relationships
are really great for a while, and sometimes they do work out.
Most of the time the relationships are very difficult because
of what the couple doesn't start knowing about the law
and about different cultures.

A relative of mine told me he wanted to go to South America
to meet a young woman in person that he met online.

He doesn't speak Spanish and he doesn't know much
about the way people live in that country--or how
they think in that country. In his case, there would be less
cultural shock between them, because she comes from a background
similar to his...basically the same socioeconomic background.

On the other hand, yesterday I spoke with a Latino immigrant who
is married to a U.S. citizen, and he comes from a very different
background than his wife.  And...he prefers to speak Spanish.  She
doesn't speak Spanish.  They have children.  They really do seem
to be doing fine--their relationship, their family. Immigration officials
ordered him to go back to his mother country for a while and go through
proper procedures to re-enter.  Not everyone is allowed to re-enter.
He was allowed to return to the U.S. after certain conditions were met.
It was a very expensive hassle that I don't think he or his wife ever
imagined would happen.

I have close family members who dated and married Latinos and they're glad
they did.  Did they have some things to learn about each
other?  They sure did, and some were normal differences
that guys and girls have to learn about each other, and
some were about different cultures.

latino valentine

I have written a small but powerful book for citizens and legal residents who are in
romantic relationships with Latinos who don't have permanent residence
in the U.S. yet.  This little book reveals five pitfalls that you MUST
avoid in order to give the relationship the best chance of survival.  Not
just survival. Who wants a relationship that just gets by? That's a lot
worse than just surviving a job. Who wants a job where all you do is survive?
When you spend so much of your time on a job, the last thing you dream about is
simply surviving. You want to flourish, you want to enjoy life wherever you are.
Same with our romances. We don't want to become bored with the person we
fell in love with. And we don't want a barrel full of unexpected or overwhelming
complications that blindside us and destroy the relationship.

This little book that will save thousands of people thousands and thousands of dollars and hundreds of migraines...and save relationships.  You or someone you know needs to know about these five pitfalls that can and MUST be avoided.