My name is Samantha Awad. I was born and raised in Parsippany, N.J., a town that prided itself on its bagels and soccer teams. I grew up outside of New York City and had a front-row view of the aftermath of 9/11 and all the hurt and devastation that is caused those around me. While this was a heartbreaking time for us, I was lucky enough not to be subjected to the racism that followed Middle Eastern people after the wake of this tragedy.
Oh, did I forget to mention I was Middle Eastern? It’s not something I normally feel needs to be addressed, but lately a person’s race has seemed to be at the forefront of every news article. “White male swimmer rapes student at Stanford.” “Young black man gunned down by police.” “We need to keep Mexican immigrants out of the country; they’re stealing our jobs.”
Since when did someone’s race become his or her telling factor?
I recently got back from studying abroad in England for six months. During that time, I travelled to about 12 countries, countless cities, traveling on planes and trains, and not once while I was traveling across Europe was I stopped. Now many may say that this is because of the open borders in Europe. There were cases when I needed to show my passport, but no one said anything, no one stopped me, no one asked me questions. I danced from country to country, with little care about where I was going, focused only on what I was seeing, the history I was reveling in and the characters I was meeting along the way.
I boarded a plane from Birmingham International Airport in the United Kingdom at 9 a.m. on June 19 for an eight-hour flight to Newark Airport. As previously stated, I was born in New Jersey, and lived half my life there. For both international and domestic flights my family and I flew out of Newark, so this airport was one I was very familiar with.
After getting off the airplane and collecting my three suitcases (while I was already struggling with the two carry-ons I already had), I proceeded to cart everything toward customs. After taking my picture and bringing forth my customs form and passport, I get a quick stamp of approval from someone from border control, and continued on to finish going through the customs process. I was waiting in line to meet with someone at a desk to check my passport and ask the usual questions, “Why are you here? What were you doing in England? Where did you go? Business or pleasure?” All questions I was used to since I had been traveling internationally since I was 7 years old. As I’m waiting in line, a lady stops me, looks at my passport, smiling deceivingly sweet up at me and asks me to follow the yellow arrow and wait to have my things searched.
I had been traveling for six months, and I finally get stopped — in my own country, in my home state, with my U.S. passport.
I follow the arrows and step forward to another man behind a desk. He takes my passport, looks at it quickly, glances back up at me and goes, “You’re Egyptian, right?”
I am proud to be Middle Eastern. I am proud to be Lebanese. I am proud to be descended from the first people. Proud to be descended from the Phoenicians. Proud to have tan skin, raven hair, light brown eyes with a ring of blue around it, proud to have perfectly arched eyebrows. So to me it wouldn’t matter if I was Egyptian or Lebanese, but I would welcome my culture with open arms regardless of where my parents were born.
I’m tired, I’m in a rush to get to my new gate and I’m also from New Jersey, which all together means that I’m mean, annoyed and about ready to start shouting. Keeping my anger on a tight leash I reply, “No, I’m not.”
“Yeah, I mean I know you’re a U.S. citizen,” he says as he waves my U.S. passport around. "But where were you born? In Egypt?"
“Nope. I was born in New Jersey. The state we are currently in. Right now.”
“Yeah, well, like, where is your family from?”
“Lebanon. Do you know where that is?”
He didn’t have a response for that except to huff out a breath, trying not to make eye contact, and tell me to put whatever two bags in the scanner I wanted to and go to the next person. He obviously didn’t know where Lebanon was.
I proceed to pick up my bags and take them off the scanner and back to my cart. Another man asks for my passport, and he looks at all the stamps.
“So it looks like you’ve been to a lot of countries lately. Why is that?”
“Well I was studying abroad in England, and in my free time I decided to travel.”
“OK, well how many countries would you say you’ve been to in the last 12 months?”
“I don’t know, maybe 15? How many have you been to?”
“There’s no need for that attitude ma’am. This is just routine, random selection. You may take your things and go.”
I pick up my bags and turn around and see there is another girl around my age, who also looks Middle Eastern waiting behind me for her stuff. I look at the girl, look at the man and reply, “Random selection my ass.” And proceed to cart my luggage out of the terminal.
If any of the two men had bothered to look at my passport instead of passing judgement on me based on my appearances, they would have seen that I was born in the U.S., was a U.S. citizen and had a six-month student visa in my passport from England, and would not have asked such stupid questions.
While I am not proud of my attitude, I was not about to go quietly. My experience with racial discrimination has not been as extreme as others; however, the feeling of being judged for something that cannot be controlled, that cannot be changed, leaves a pit in your stomach. It makes you feel like you are less of a person, that your feelings aren't important and that you aren’t deserving of the life you’re living.
So for anyone reading this and has that feeling in the pit of their stomach: you are worth it, you are important, you mean something.
