The man behind the glass pounced on my passport, grabbing it just as I put it on the counter, barely pausing mid-stamp to verify if I was male, female, or alien. He did not even bother to register that with my hair pulled back and wearing contacts I no longer clearly resemble myself at 16 years old, thanks to the fulfillment of puberty and style trends. As long as my passport name matched the ticket, he didn’t care why I had been in Guatemala or for how long, it only mattered that I did not hesitate and mess up the flow of his line.
A couple hours later I took my seat on the plane that would carry me to Miami and introducing myself to my neighbor—a middle-age, bottle blond woman, excited to be heading back to Tennessee after an oppressively hot and humid Missionary trip. As the plane rolled along the runway, I patiently explained to this good Samaritan: no, I was not coming home after a service trip--like a large number of people before her assumed. I successfully avoided lines and moved through the airport procedures quickly, but my luck would not hold in Miami.
I have only been in Miami International Airport twice. Coming and going from Guatemala. Both times I sat on a plane for two additional hours after scheduled take off. Without the added excitement of going somewhere with tropical weather, volcanoes, and Mayan ruins, I was stuck listening to the captain hedge his bets about the number of hours before we could start moving toward New York. It did not put me in a particularly pleasant mood, especially after over 12 hours spent exclusively in airports and the sky. Traveler’s fatigue was starting to hit and I couldn’t help the scoffing noise from escaping my throat, while I watched lightning crackle over a nearby grounded plane. The scoff accompanied the groan of the woman sitting next to me. We glanced at each other and I could tell she was far more fed up than myself, “They have to feed us, at least, right?”
I shrugged; I had no clue if they prepared for that on a two hour flight. This seemed to frustrate her immensely which sparked my curiosity. I guessed that my neighbor was in her late 20s or early 30s by her fashionable business ensemble. She was tall and lean, had dark skin, and beautiful black ringlet hair; she could have been a model. Later she would tell me all about her job as an interior designer based out of New York City for medium/high grade hotels in Jamaica. Her family was from the Dominican Republican and this was her return trip from visiting them. I nodded my head expecting to hear how nice it had been, but instead her next words took me by surprise. “This was the absolute worst traveling experience of my life, and this delay is just the extra!”
She had been adamant about receiving a meal, because after her flight from the DR arrived she was detained by U.S. customs for almost three hours with around 200 other people, and as a result did not have enough time to grab food. Her expression changed and I could tell it was not the missed meal that made her so distraught, “They asked me all these questions about my family, when I had gotten my passport, why I traveled to the DR so frequently, who my grandfather was! It was outrageous! I have never felt so awful and vulnerable in my life.” Her accent thickened as the pace of her words quickened; she was becoming more overwhelmed and I heard it when her voice cracked. “I just spent two weeks with my family next to my grandfather’s death bed. He died yesterday.”
She started to cry and I did my best not to let her see that I teared up, too. I offered my condolences, in my mind scrambling for the right thing to say to keep her from getting more upset, still shocked by her tale. I asked her about her family waiting for her in New York, and she told me she couldn’t wait to see her husband. Gradually, we talked more about what she did there and as she calmed down I realized I did not know the name of this woman who had broken down in front of me. We exchanged names, and she patiently corrected me with a small smile both times I pronounced her's wrong. I finally got it. It was a beautiful name and I wasn’t sure if it was a popular Dominican name, but I guessed that it was probably unique there too.
She told me about how she learned English when she first came to New York City, and how grateful she was for her wonderful teachers; she volunteers there now to assist new arrivals with the language. She became frazzled for a moment and rather bitterly made a comment about her dual citizenship being a source of pain in some instances. I told her about how I learned Spanish and what I was doing in Guatemala, for the first time since we had boarded the plane she perked up in excitement, and we exchanged a few words en español. We exchanged stories about how life was in the DR and Guate, and our conversation relaxed into a friendly back-and-forth that even included some light laughter. We stopped when her husband called; I could tell that some of her anxiety returned, but she was also comforted to hear from him.
While she talked on the phone and long after we were up in the air, I thought about her experience in the airport in contrast to mine. Customs was mostly computerized. I just scanned my passport and press OK and NO a few times to receive a small receipt. I had no contestable items to claim, and honestly the worst part was poor signage for the directions of the different lines. Even the people standing by to guide the lines weren’t particularly helpful but I’ll end my condemnation of airport staff here. At least they were nice--for the most part. When I finally interacted with a customs officer he held out his hand for the receipt which also had a picture of me, I had taken just moments before. The only word he spoke: “Next.”
I was invisible going through security, the security guards were too busy incorrectly ordering people in lines, while their coworkers tried to get them to listen to logic. The ticket reader who was looking on was also joking with me about how the guys never listened to her, and she believe it was because she was female. She almost forgot to scan my ticket, because she was so amused by the disaster in front of her. The security guard running the bag scanner coached me amiably about how to deposit my items onto the belt faster. Clearly neither of them were concerned about what I had in my carry on.
I’m positive that I’ve never appeared threatening or intimidating to anyone (except maybe my younger brother) in my life. Nothing about my L.L. Bean backpack, jeans, and college ball cap would make anyone particularly suspicious of me. But on the plane ride, I couldn’t stop envisioning all the trouble I could raise if I really wanted to. There was nothing about my appearance which said I wasn’t capable of starting a riot or trying to smuggle something illegal onto the plane and back into the country. My north-facing moral compass and my intelligence are the reasons I didn’t try those things (not to mention the fear that I would get caught). I was in Guatemala and traveling by myself for six weeks, why had no one in either airport bothered to ask me why I was there to begin with? There was no question of my medical history in a country that does have malaria in some parts and quite possibly zica, which we are apparently trying so hard to keep tabs on in the States. The simple truth is that I fit a stereotype that they had been taught not to view with suspicion.
But then why had the attractive business woman from New York City, who had only spent two weeks in the DR, and carried back nothing but a heavy heart been put through intense, long interrogation, when I only needed a slip of paper to get back into the country we both shared?
I don’t know a huge amount about relations between the U.S. and the D. R. in the current moments. I don’t know if something about her passport got my new friend flagged. But I do know something about intuition and people who demonstrate their emotions and thoughts are genuine. I continue to wonder why if people like my neighbor are visibly upset, there is no gentleness in the way that questioning is handled by customs officers. Is it so difficult to pause and have a conversation that might put them more at ease? I probably learned more about her than the customs officer and we spent less time together.
In terms of what matters for airport security, there were very few meaningful differences in terms of our situations. We were both travelers returning home to our country, but my neighbor had simply been born in another place with darker skin and a reason to travel more often than me. It's speculation, but I highly doubt that Guatemala would question me so heavily if I decided to get my citizenship there and then return to the U.S. to see my family at least once a year.
When the plane landed in LaGuardia, I stood up and glanced back. I could tell that my neighbors anguish landed as heavily as the humidity outside, yet again. Before I walked down the aisle, I turned to her, and with the best Spanish fluidity I could muster I told her she was beautiful and wished her well in her future. I believe that she appreciated the gesture and, while I meant it most sincerely, it was also the only thing I could do to make up for the consequences of my white privilege.
