The Author on Vine St. in Hollywood in 2002, commemorating James Dean’s death on September 30 in 1955. The mural used to be on the garage wall where James Dean took his Porsche Speedster for a last check up before heading out to the racetrack in Salinas. He died in Cholame, CA just before 6 PM, blinded by the sun, in a head on collision with a pick up truck. The mural and garage are long gone. “Gone cat James Dean is gone but not forgotten.” Photo by Mario Luza.
Eens Nederlander, altijd Nederlander.
Once Dutch, always Dutch.
Dutch saying.
All Rights Reserved (2023) All Pictures mine, except where noted. (Sensitive info. on legal documents, etc. has been photoshopped for privacy reasons.)
The Author, Orlando G. Bregman, in Hollywood (2016) Photo by Mario Luza.
Look forward to my next essay, which will reveal everything.
It’s called Social Security Numbers Vs. Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers. (Original Working Title: “All Of Them Witches”.)
(HINT: SSNs tie into benefits and never start with a 9, whereas ITINs do start with a 9, and do not legally tie into pension benefits.)
Pretty self-explanatory. And all info. nowadays openly available online. Nowadays meaning COVID-19 Pandemic Years. This type of info. used to be pretty top secret and was apparently only known in Undocumented Immigrants communities. It took me almost 30 years and a global health crises to figure out this riddle, and it cost me my film career, my health, my family’s life savings and both my parents. It almost cost me my own life as well.
Pretty self-explantary. So again, ITINs always start with the number 9, and SSNs never start with a 9.
To all of my Facebook Friends/acquaintances, Film Industry/Non-Profit people and Immigration Lawyers alike.
(And not DACA or Asylum lawyers but Legal Immigration lawyers, that is.)
I’m glad the WGA strike is over but do you so-called Facebook Friends realize I have not made a single penny in this country since around 9/11 in 2001, due to being fired by the Laemmle Theatres after producing a very successful John Cassavetes Film Retrospective at their theater, after working there for a decade (the 90s) on my Real and lawfully acquired Social Security Number and Employment Authorization Document, AKA work permit?!
Look closely at the dates on my lawfully acquired Employment Authorization Document (EAD) or 1-year work permit. Valid from 11/13/92. Expires 11/12/93. My Dutch passport also contains my academic International Student Visa (F-1), lawfully obtained through Film School acceptance in Los Angeles in 1992. It also has my B-1 B-2 Visitors/ Business Visa in it. I was legally hired by the arthouse theater chain The Laemmle Theatres on these very papers in February of 1993 by Tom Fisher and got fired after producing a very successful 3-month long John Cassavetes Film Retrospective in November of 2001, without any reason given, but threatened with the cops if I didn’t immediately leave the premises. The person doing the dirty job was R. Vernotico. The culprit behind it all was home office employee Kevin Gallagher, with a little help from union projectionist Lou Honeycutt. I started finding out the reason (Benefits) after reading a very twisted account of this in a book published in 2012 by former employee Derek Hunter.
I was hired by Tom Fisher in February of 1993. The culprit behind my getting fired in November of 2001 was Kevin Gallagher, who now runs a bowling alley in the Mid-West, after some 30 years at the Home Office at the Laemmle Theatres.
Do you people realize the Laemmle Theatres are still pretending to this day that my papers were fake to essentially get out of an “involuntary servitude” situation, since they didn’t want to pay benefits, did not in fact offer 401K plans during my employment, didn’t ever tell me to renew my work permit, and wanted me to work as many hours as possible without ever promoting me?
(Did you know they hired many people from Eastern Europe and Central America who would occasionally take me out for a drink after work, really to ask me about papers?!)
I received this letter from a Payroll Service not in use during my employment from 1993 through 2001, and 16 years after the Laemmle Theatres fired me without giving any reason. Payroll during my employment was handled by Kevin Gallagher’s wife. The letter dates September 11, 2017, exactly 16 years after the 9/11 attacks, and during Trump’s first year as President. Two months after this letter my film production office Bregman Films was raided by Hollywood Division PD and I was cuffed, threatened and not released until I gave the PD my full SSN. The letter states an attempt at emailing me, which is false, and the promise of a 1099-R, also false. And there was no 401K plan during my employment even, so I had initially figured this whole letter was fake, and so did not give my crucial information out to total strangers.
Do you know that because of the Laemmle Theatres my film production office Bregman Films got raided in November of 2017, with a regular PD of the Hollywood Division, as opposed to an immigration officer, demanding my SSN while holding me in cuffs and threatening with arrest if I didn’t give him the number?! (I have his name as I stared at his name tag long enough.)
My 1-year work permit (EAD) expired during the 2-year marriage!
And Erik Bergquist controlled my out-of-state school tuition through a joint account I had no access to, and so it’s not like I could quit on my own or even leave the US, and I was still legally attending Film School, paid for in advance.
And the divorce papers were signed in August of 1994 during work hours in the actual lobby of the Laemmle’s Monica 4-Plex, now the Laemmle’s Monica Film Center, with Erik Bergquist pressuring as he did with marriage itself, pretending I would get in immigration trouble throughout, and his father waiting in a car outside the theater.
Divorce papers from Forced Child/Minor Marriage to future co-screenwriter of The Fast and the Furious, Erik Bergquist from Palos Verdes, who was then a fellow film student and 24, while I was a lawful International Student, and 19, and in my first semester of Film School, Los Angeles City College. My EAD or 1-year Work Permit expired in November of 1993, so during the marriage, and required the US spouse’s signature for renewal, and which was not given by him. The divorce was finalized in the lobby of the Laemmle’s Monica 4-Plex, now the Laemmle’s Monica Film Center, during work. I was still attending Film School, the Out-Of-State tuition for the first year paid for in advance, an Affidavit-Of-Support signed by my father, and my tuition supplemented by the Dutch Government through the Dutch Child Tax Credit program.
Do any of you realize my immigration papers were acquired through what’s legally called Forced Child Marriage, to the co-screenwriter of The Fast and the Furious, Erik Bergquist, while in Film School (Los Angeles City College) on an International Student Visa (F-1) and where I met him and he bothered me since day one?
And yes, a 19 year old lawful international film student, and trans-masculine, gender nonconforming lesbian, is still a child for immigration purposes.
A 15 minute ceremony at City Hall in Downtown LA is all it took to make me essentially a slave for life. No wedding, no witnesses, no ring or proposal even, and not even a copy of the Marriage Certificate of my own.
I was forced into marriage as a Minor for Immigration Purposes at age 19, during my first semester of Film School, Los Angeles City College, by fellow film student, then 24 years old Erik Bergquist, future co-screenwriter of The Fast and the Furious.
Erik Bergquist’s online educational bio, without any mention of his years in the Film Program at Los Angeles City College when he forced me to marry him after continuously bothering me in class, and sexually assaultng me in the editing room in 1992.
Look at the date on this email, sent to me by the ex-spouse of my Forced Child/Minor Marriage from 1992 -1994. On February 6 of 2019, some 17 years after the divorce, he contacted me, sounding all “reasonable”, yet dead-naming me as well as misspelling Gabie, while protecting himself and his family, pretending he wants to help me with immigration matters once again.
My parents basically died without ever fully knowing I had been married that young, and never suspected it since those things are practically unheard of in the Netherlands, and I was openly and vehemently against marriage to a man even back then, and I could only reveal tiny bits and pieces of this awful time in my life over the years.
Do you realize I was sponsored by my parents and the Dutch government, through my father’s Affidavit-Of-Support and through the Dutch Child Tax Credit program, and that my parents have been sending money from the Netherlands for almost 30 years, just to keep me alive, and until their own deaths?!
Dutch Child Tax Credit form issued by the Social Security Office of the Netherlands, where my father also worked from 1966 through 1987. The form was never filled out and returned, by Los Angeles City College nor the Laemmle Theatres, and my Dutch Child Tax Credit cancelled when I slowly started revealing what had happened in November of 1992, a secret and forced marriage at City Hall in Downtown Los Angeles, without any witnesses in attendance, and no formal wedding nor even proposal ever. I also never received a copy of the Marriage Certificate, or else I would have posted it as well.
And do you film industry and non-profit types even realize there are a bunch of “would-be filmmakers” essentially getting into the film industry on Fake Social Security Numbers, in reality ITIN’s, and that they have in fact been spreading that they can get hired on those in-print, in the IDA Documentary Magazine (Spring 2021 issue), with some of them having since then acquired actual SSN because they qualified for the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program, and which they don’t have to tell any prospective employers about neither?
Do you people realize I am still, as an out and proud trans-masculine, gender nonconforming lesbian, stuck in a second marriage to my former co-worker, and technically boss at the Laemmle Theatres in the 90s, since 2007, Mario Luza, whose family are die-hard Trump supporters and anti-vaxing conspiracy theorists? (Don’t worry, we’re both fully vaccinated.)
Do you realize he, as a US citizen got his Stimulus Checks in 2020, while residing at my film production office on El Centro Ave. in Hollywood, while I got mine a whole 2 years later, while in reality all people with Valid SSNs were supposed to get them in 2020, during the very height of the pandemic, and I nearly died in that rotten office because of these BS lies from the powers-that-be? (Don’t ever rent on 1617 N. El Centro Ave. or from The Beaumont Company, but that’s another story.)
Inside of front door to the office building on 1617 N. El Centro Ave. in Hollywood, where I had my film production office for Bregman Films and for The Auteur, and paid rent from 2012 through 2021, including full rent during the COVID-19 pandemic, and was bullied and threatened with eviction for the entire time. The above notices are false accusations of me keeping the front door locked during business hours. I even stopped receiving some of my own crucially important mail due to their tampering with the front door. And needless to say, management (The Beaumont Company) and the particularly vicious building manager (M. Rosenstock), did not care one bit about any safety rules throughout the pandemic.
Stimulus Check received on May 4 of 2022, almost 2 years after I was supposed to receive it, during the very height, and pre-vaccine days, of the pandemic in the Fall of 2020. Every single person with a real Social Security Number was allowed to receive Stimulus Checks, and only undocumented immigrants legalized in 2021 through President Biden’s Build Back Better Act, were able to receive them in 2022. In other words, the US government pretended I had an ITIN in 2020 and was an Essential Worker. This is practically attempted murder of me, and they almost succeeded, since I did continue to work as an Internet Publisher at The Auteur, a nonprofit I started with Mario Luza in 2020 at the Film Production office off of Hollywood Blvd. and Vine St., since film productions came to complete standstill and I needed to keep the office on 1617 N. El Centro Ave. Also, pay close attention to the wording by the IRS, regarding having either an real SSN, which again, entitles an empoyee to Benefits, and a fake number, AKA an ITIN, endorsed by the IRS for tax paying purposes, while US employers cannot officially hire prospective employees on ITIN.
Do you realize the system is covering for two heterosexual, heteronormative, male US citizens, and a movie theater chain, just because they don’t want to admit that I am a victim of essentially child/sex trafficking?!
Do you realize the Social Security Administration has since long stated stated that I am in fact entitled to my benefits but the other agencies are going against it?
Do you realize my own country The Netherlands, with the best benefits system in the world, is not paying me benefits here in the US, basically pretending I am dead, and while Americans in my country get massive benefits, usually for investing in the marijuana industry?!
A 40-page report/expose on the US Immigration’s active role in encouraging Forced Child Marriages, effectively making the young foreigners into slaves of US citizens. This report came out in 2019, a full 27 years after it happened to me, in Film School in 1992. Erik Bergquist’s online biography also omitted his time at Los Angeles City College and the Violence Against Women Act also did not exist yet during my Forced Marriage. It would also take another several decades for the VAWA to even include transgender protections, and so I had zero protections from the US government as a 19 year old Dutch citizen and Film Student, and Trans-Masculine, Gender Nonconforming Lesbian in those days.
Do you realize the US system is covering for legalized slavery, by not having different agencies openly communicate with each other, and which is bad enough for actual undocumented, poor people from “Third World” countries, coming over here to be exploited in low wage and low skilled jobs, but that this is actually completely illegal under Special Tax Treaties against Lawfully Admitted people on academic student visas from First World countries?!
My Dutch passport with 5-year Academic International Student Visa (F-1), as well as B-1/B-2 Visitors/Business Visa. The Forced Marriage lasted from November 3 of 1992 to August 4 of 1994. My work visa was issued on November 13 of 1992, exactly 10 days after the marriage, and expired during the marriage, on November 12 of 1993. The divorce was filed in January 24 of 1994 and finalized on August 4 of 1994.
And yes, real undocumented people, those who come here without inspection or fake papers, do in fact compete with American workers, especially in the low wage/ low skilled sectors, simply by not being eligible for benefits, which is very attractive to greedy employers.
And now they are competing with American filmmakers, since some of them have no intention to work in low skilled/ low wage professions, which was the whole reason the US turns a blind eye to them crossing illegally to begin with. No matter how you twist it DACA recipients did come to the US illegally, or on tourist visas with intent to overstay, and whether brought here by their parents or smugglers or unaccompanied. And if you come here un-inspected, you will break other laws to stay here for good. This then becomes another reason for Americans to unionize of course.
The above is part of an essay wriiten by the so-called Undocumented Filmmakers Collective, in reality young undocumented immigrants, some of whom qualify for the DACA Program Undocumented immigrants are not lawfully allowed to be hired by US employers, as lawful employment requires a Social Security Number and Work Authorization in the case of prospective foreign employees. Yes, they can fake their lawful employment by not revealing their numbers are not SSNs but ITINs, and not revealing they are DACA recipients in case they do have SSNs. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programs comes with a SSN, which is valid for life, but only a temporary Work Permit, which has to be renewed every couple of years. So DACA recipients can get around the interview by not stating the DACA program at all and not showing the actual SSN card. This is lying by omission however. For Independent Contractors and Small Businesses the rules are even looser, and oftentimes no interview is even required. Since many nonprofit film organizations want to do right by minorities they do not fully understand the complexities of employing or funding minorities who did not enter the US lawfully, AKA undocumented immigrants. Also DACA recipients who become Film Students are not actual International Students of Film (F-1 Visa holders). The F-1 is very expensive to acquire and extensive vetting is done on academic, international students. It is very unfair to F-1 holders to be classified as International Students, alongside DACA recipients, who are now by schools also classified as International Students. I state all of this information not for undocumented people to take advantage of, and they will lie by omission either way, but rather to simply state the truth around immigration policies, to help employers and schools to employ fair hiring practices and school enrollment practices.
Asylum seeking is legal under the UN laws but only for the specific reasons of fleeing war zones and government persecution, and not just economic. Poverty in Third World countries needs to be solved through decolonization of those countries by the West, not by letting highly vulnerable people come into the US illegally or through lenient asylum claims.
Left-wingers need to acknowledge that by allowing illegal immigration you are complicit to the rightwing exploitation of the world’s most vulnerable populations.)
So do you people finally realize that my Adjustment-Of-Status, just like my SSN, cannot even be legally cancelled and so I have in fact adjusted my status, even if against my will, but that Erik Bergquist has been sitting on my paperwork for 30 years?!
My lawfully acquired and valid Social Security Number from 1992. There is no rightful and valid reason that my Work Authorization Conditions have not been removed in the 30 years I have resided in the US, and 10-plus years I have been employed by the Laemmle Theatres and others since my legal arrival as an F-1 International Student of Film, Forced into Marriage in 1992, and with an Adjustment-Of-Status which I did not want nor require during my time as a lawful Film Student. My F-1 was valid for 5-years and extensions were possible for transfer from Community College for an AA to a 4-year University for a BA in Film, as was stated on my 1–20 School Letter of Admission. And as you can see, my SSN starts with a 6, unlike ITINs which start with a 9.
Do you people realize I have been homeless for the last 2 years, and again (I was homeless for 7 years in the 2000s), and living in my van, yes with Mario, and both of us enduring physical attacks from total strangers, some of them undoubtedly informants, and starving by now?!
Look forward to my next essay, which will reveal everything.
It’s called Social Security Numbers Vs. Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers. (Working Title: “All Of Them Witches”.)
(HINT: SSNs tie into benefits and never start with a 9, whereas ITINs do start with a 9, and do not legally tie into pension benefits.)
My Film School letter of acceptance with I-20, from Los Angeles City College, dated April 1 of 1992.
CONCLUSION:
I am eligible for immediate Adjustment-Of-Status, under the Violence Against Women Act and any Crime Visa laws, by simply removing the INS Conditions from my lawfully acquired SSN.
(And that’s how old my SSN is.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service still existed in 1992 when I got my SSN from the Social Security Administration in Marina Del Rey, while living in a European Youth Hostel in Venice. INS folded in 2003, under the Patriot Act in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, and became the DHS and ICE.)
I need these conditions removed ASAP before I do in fact starve to death, and the US government will try to claim both my meager pension and moreover my plentiful IP.
Orlando G. Bregman
(They/He)
All Rights Reserved (2023)
Only In Theatres. My former employers, father and son team Robert and Gregory Laemmle, “watching” Michaelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura (1960), starring Monica Vitti and Alain Delon. The Laemmle Theatres arthouse theater chain was an extremely toxic and drug-fueled place, while actually exhibiting very good films, handed to them on a silver platter since hardly any competition even existed in those pre-internet/pre-streaming days, promoting my Western European culture, and pretending I was a foreigner of a non-Western background, never even promoting me in the decade I worked for them on a full-time basis, oftentimes even working double shifts in a single day at multiple theaters.
My famous Dutch, gay great-uncle, cabaret singer and actor Wim Sonneveld with Fred Astaire. Film in the Hollywood musical Silk Stockings (1957). Film still, MGM. No Copyright Infringement Intended.
My John Cassavetes Film Retrospective. From L to R: Peter Falk, Gena Rowlands, Seymour Cassel, Lelia Goldoni, and Bregman Films’ Orlando G. (Gabriella) Bregman and Mario Luza. The Laemmle Theatres, Santa Monica (2001) Photo by Jen Tierney.
“Van Life” once again. The Author in Los Angeles (2023) Photo by Mario Luza
The Author, Orlando G. Bregman, with Camera in Downtown Los Angeles, 1992. Photo by Eva Gross.
Essay Writer TRANS-MASCULINE IN HOLLYWOOD/Documentary Filmmaker F-1 DUTCH FILM STUDENT/Founder THE AUTEUR Film And Identity Publication & Film Org (2024) TM
