Immigrant Line

This morning was extraordinary, it gave me a chance to really soak up the immigrant experience. Granted we weren't packed head to toe on some ship for months but it was very humbling. we,
the Fixer and I got there, just a few minutes after the doors had opened and there were easily a hundred people there. From everywhere France had been they came, gathered at the grim prefecture door.
The Fixer had to run off to do his various tasks, I was to call him when I was closer to Heaven's Gate.
The line was coiled in an area that seemed like a one car garage with no door, cold, cement. There was a guy touching me with his whole body in line, pressing against me like we were lovers or as if he could push through me and get into France proper. In the US, I would have jabbed him in the ribs, but I didn't want to do anything that could cast a negative light on me, so I put up with it. He hummed the entire 1 and a half hours we spent in line. First, in one ear, then in the other. God, I began to really hate him. I kept telling myself, he is just a person like me, but in those circumstances any liberty a person takes, any stepping outside the lines, becomes a great transgression. It's very easy to hate someone who won't give you room to breathe.
For example, a guy lit up a cigarette. A woman immediately began chastising him ferociously I am assuming it was because we were in this concrete sarcophagus, but she just was not having it. She cursed him in French, I could tell she called him a moron, at one point. He argued back, everyone in line looked but we were all trying to be on our best behavior, except for those two. The woman in front of me just bunched up her sari in front of her nose. I was amazed at the woman's chutzpah and the man's lack of consideration. but then, it occurred to me that yesterday, there had been a demonstration/parade. It was a recognition of women's place in the world. There had been signs and women with paper chains marching past Printemps (a large department store), when I got home and found out what it was about, the female newscaster noted that women in France still only made about 80% of what men made and that this was not unusual (in the west). Now, here is this woman going off on a guy in line because of his smoking. Was it freedom? Was she just a busybody? Was he chain smoking because of his nerves? Was he just a jerk?
The Fixer showed up again once I was inside and called. It was so helpful to have someone speaking French.
He got things rolling. Evidently, the problem du jour was my birth certificate and name change. How was he desk jockey to know that I was the same person as the person on my birth certificate. Now, one may ask how is anyone to know who any is, ever, but that is rather existential and this is a very tangible problem!
So, I must go to the Embassy/Consulate and ask them to add something to my passport saying I am who I am.
I think therefore, I am somebody?