To my Facebook friends...I want to share with you something that happened to me in October 2001 when I was trying to come from Canada to the US at the Niagara Falls border. I was driving alone, and headed to a seminar i was scheduled to attend at Princeton University. I pulled up at the immigration agents window and presented my passport. At the time I had a valid US permanent residence card. He looked at my card and my passport then asked to see my drivers license which I thought was odd but I presented it to him anyway. He kept my documents then asked me to drive around to a holding area...now I was getting really suspicious. So I drove my vehicle into a holding area, then went inside, and it was crowded with Arabs and people of color. I sat there and waited until some immigration agent appeared. he asked me a bunch of questions about where I was, what country I was from. Then they made me do a retinal scan, hand print finger prints..and threw me in a holding cell. I was cooperative but terrified because I did nothing wrong. I broke no laws. I sat in the holding cell for 11 hours...it was solid, no bars and a small window on the giant steel door with a slit which was closed the hole time. I was starring at steel walls for 11 hours wondering what would happen to me. Then just before I was released I heard the immigration agent talking to a US Prosecutor...he said he had a suspicion and wanted to detain me. The US Prosecutor told him to release me and give me all of my documents..well they released me but did not give me my Japanese passport, my US Permanent residency, or my Canadian Drivers License. That was my real experience with racism in this country. The next time I came back, which I was reluctant to do, I came through a different border crossing with no problems. Keep in mind this is around the time they were detaining anyone suspicious of terrorism. SO I guess he thought I am a terrorist? No, that was racism pure and simple and it still happens to this day but maybe on a wider scale. For me this country was fine, tolerable, until i experienced that. Now Jessica and I want to leave and do not plan to return ever for any reason.
Posted on: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 13:17:27 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015