On Borrowed Time

Donald Vega is a quiet, soft-spoken young man with a rapidly growing talent for playing jazz piano.

Ask him what is most important in his life, and he replies, “I just love jazz. All I want to do is play as much of it as I possibly can.”

He does precisely that so well that he has received a string of honors in the past few years, ranging from the $5,000 Music Center Spotlight Award in 1991 to the 1995 L.A. Jazz Society New Talent Award. Along the way, he also managed to pick up classical performance awards in 1991 and 1992 from the Southern California Junior Bach Festival.

“Donald is a first-class player,” says bassist-composer John Clayton. “It’s very rare to find a player with his kind of talent at his age.”

Vega would seem to be a performer with a bright future in front of him.

Maybe yes, maybe no.

Because, at the moment, the Immigration and Naturalization Service is threatening to deport the gifted 22-year-old back to his native Nicaragua.

Why? Because Vega, like thousands of other resident aliens, is now confronted by the tough new regulations of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which went into effect on April 1. And Vega’s career, which appeared to be on the fast track, is now floating in limbo until, on some indefinite date, a court rules that he can either stay here or must return to Nicaragua.

Vega’s situation is not unique, but his talent clearly is. He began picking out melodies on the piano at 8 and quickly turned to jazz when, as an 11-year-old conservatory student, he discovered the music of Chick Corea and Eddie Palmieri. Brought to this country at 15 by his parents, he barely spoke English and was totally involved with his music.

“I came in as a minor,” he says. “At that time, I wasn’t thinking about what ‘illegal’ was. I didn’t even know what it meant. I just wanted to do my music.”

His abilities were quickly recognized. He was granted a scholarship at the Colburn School of Performing Arts in South Los Angeles almost immediately after he arrived in 1989 and attended the school for the next five years.

“Donald is an enormous musical talent,” says Joseph Thayer, Colburn’s dean. “He is the only student to ever perform both jazz and classical works at our annual honors recitals.”

In 1991, Vega became much more widely recognized when he won the Spotlight Award from a judging committee that included Henry Mancini, Bill Conti and Leonard Feather. Currently, he is a junior at USC, working on a degree in jazz performance.

Vega’s accomplishments are all the more remarkable since they have been achieved despite considerable physical problems. Born with a cleft palate, he experienced hearing loss in his teens. Surgery repaired the hearing problem, and he has begun a series of operations to deal with the cleft palate.

“I have three more surgeries to go,” he says. “It’s a complete thing, you know, for my teeth, my lips and my nose.”

Does this unusual combination of special talents and singular physical problems have any impact upon his residency situation?

It depends on whether one is speaking of the old law or the new one, according to Vega’s lawyer, Carl Shusterman, a specialist in immigration law.

“Under the old law,” Shusterman says, “if you have seven years in the U.S., if you’re a person of good moral character and it would be an extreme hardship on you or certain close relatives who are citizens or green card holders if you were deported, you have a fairly good chance of staying.”

The parameters of the new law are much more difficult.

“Under its terms,” Shusterman explains, “you must have 10 continuous years in the U.S. and have good moral character for the 10 years. The real killer is that the ‘extreme hardship’ qualification has become ‘exceptional and extremely unusual hardship,’ which was the standard we used to use for people who had committed crimes.”

Further compounding the difficulties, hardship to the would-be immigrant is no longer a factor. The new law only defines hardship in terms of qualifying relatives.

“Donald doesn’t have 10 years’ residency,” his lawyer says, “and he has no qualifying relatives [his parents, whose immigration case is separate, are not legal residents]. So it would be a loser case for him under the new law.”

To avoid falling into that category, Shusterman last year advised Vega, as he did other clients, to turn himself over to the INS before the new law went into effect in order to qualify under the terms of the old law. Although there have been a few glitches, Vega’s case is now pending qualification under the more moderate conditions of the old law.

Even here, however, the situation can be dicey. Shusterman points out that suspension of deportation under the old law has not been given out very freely by judges.

In the final complication facing Vega, the congressionally mandated cap of 4,000 permits to suspend deportation for the calendar year 1997 has already been reached. According to Shusterman, it is not yet clear how the government will deal with applications beyond the 4,000 number.

The Los Angeles jazz community has rallied around Vega to provide evidence that the young pianist deserves to remain in the U.S.

“KLON [88.1 FM] has been running an ad asking for support,” Shusterman says. “The L.A. Jazz Society, musicians, fans are all writing letters asking the judge to be aware of Donald’s unique qualities.”

Vega takes a fairly philosophical view of the situation.

“Mr. Shusterman is a very good lawyer,” he says, “and I’ve done everything he told me to do. So, now I’m just waiting to see what happens.”

But he also is vividly aware of the impact that deportation would have upon his life. Professionally, he sees himself as a very young artist with a great deal to learn.

“I’m really just getting started,” he says, “just beginning to find my own sound. And getting the chance to listen to, and even to play with people like Eric Reed, Mulgrew Miller--people that I really admire--is incredible. I would never have that opportunity if I had to go back to Nicaragua.”

Equally important, the surgery to complete the work on Vega’s cleft palate is dependent upon his continued residency in L.A.

“There’s no way I could have the surgeries if I had to go back to Nicaragua,” he adds.

Shusterman, who is handling the case pro bono, is cautiously optimistic about Vega’s future.

“There’s nothing else that we can do,” he says. “We have the paperwork right, I believe. The next key date is when we open the mail one morning and it will contain a notice to appear before the immigration judge in a deportation hearing for Donald Vega. At that point, we’ll just have to see what happens.”

Vega, despite his uncertainties, tries to keep an upbeat attitude about the nagging predicament.

“I have faith,” he says. “So many people believe in me, and the jazz community has been incredible. So I just try to be confident that, somehow, I’ll be able to stay.”

* Donald Vega performs today from 1:30 to 4 p.m. with the Jazz Delegation From the West (Zane Musa, saxophones; Shanti Mathews, guitar; Danton Boller, bass; Willie Jones III, drums). Pedrini Music, 230 W. Main St., Alhambra, (818) 289-0241. Free.