Ever since I can remember, America was where I wanted to make a life. I always felt it was calling me. I knew my future was somehow tied to the U.S.
I grew up in India, where I was not in sync with the patriarchal society. In many parts, women were not educated or given the same freedoms. It wasn’t safe for me to be alone at night. But America signified all the freedoms. I could be who I was, not how people expected an Indian girl to be. I could reinvent myself.
* * *
My idea of America was flat and monolithic, based on movies from the ‘70s and ‘80s like Saturday Night Fever and Grease. Very white, very middle class. I saw America through a WASP lens; it was all I’d been exposed to. I didn’t think a lot about life as a brown person in the U.S.
When I came to the U.S. to attend grad school, I felt freer. I could wear what I want, date who I want. But as an immigrant, I was always focused on my next step. I didn’t have the luxury to stop and smell the roses along the way. I couldn’t take three months off school to go skiing or go the beach, to try to understand what I want in life.
* * *
Fifteen years ago, I flew from New York to Puerto Rico for a conference. I didn’t need a passport, just my driver’s license. On the trip back, I walked the jetway in Puerto Rico to board a flight home. A plainclothes policeman stopped me.
“What’s your citizenship?” he said.
“The U.S.,” I said. I’d been a naturalized citizen for years.
“Where are you going?”
“New York via Philadelphia.”
“Where’s your passport?”
“I was under the impression I don’t need a passport,” I said. “I didn’t have any problem flying in here and I didn’t have any problem checking in and getting to the gate. So what is the problem here?”
He kept asking questions. “What were you here for? Where do you work in New York?”
“I’m an employee at the university,” I said. “If you need my passport, I will have my husband send it. But it won’t arrive for a few days. I’ll stay in Puerto Rico at the university’s cost.”
“Fine, you can go,” he said, and let me through.
It was obvious he was profiling me because I was brown. He didn’t know where I was coming from. I could have been hopping islands. I actually found it funny.
He didn’t stop the other passengers. “We’re Canadians, and he didn’t even ask us,” said a white woman behind me.
* * *
Years later, I was trying to explain unconscious bias and microaggressions to my mother-in-law, who’s very conservative. I know she voted for Trump. I told her about my trip to Puerto Rico.
“You think he stopped you because you were a person of color?” she said.
“I know he did,” I said.
“Well, I never thought of you as a person of color.”
“What is that really supposed to mean? I am a person of color, I’m brown,” I said. “What do you mean that you didn’t see me as a person of color? That’s a very privileged statement for you to decide what you see me as.”
Comments like that don’t wear me down. When you come to the U.S. from a nonwhite country, you come having grown up in a dominant culture. You have a bit of protective armor. You know who you are.
* * *
I realized my American Dream. I came here with two suitcases, and no idea what would happen. Things just fell into place. I got my Ph.D., a job at an Ivy League University. I put my kids through college. But I worry for them as people of color, because of their sexuality, or because of their gender. The only protected people here are white Christians.
J is…
- 57 years old
- Female
- Indian American
- Straight
- Middle Class
- Hindu