Dana Wilkie | Mar 9, 2003 | 7 min read
M.C. Escher's Tower of Babel ©2003 Cordon Art, Baarn, Holland Shortly before Christmas 2002, Xuguang Jiang took a break from his doctoral program at Iowa University and returned to his Beijing home with two goals: to see the family he missed so much, and renew his student visa. As of late January, the 27-year-old engineering student was still waiting for US embassy officials to finish the extensive background checks now required for some foreigners studying in America. Last he heard, it