Be afraid. After reading today’s New York Times off-lead piece “Border Sweeps in North Reach Miles in U.S.” how can anyone not?
“The Lake Shore Limited runs between Chicago and New York City without crossing the Canadian border…armed Border Patrol agents routinely board the train, question passengers about their citizenship…’Are you a U.S. citizen?’ agents asked one recent morning, moving through a Rochester-bound train full of dozing passengers at a station outside Buffalo. ’What country were you born in?’”
This comes just a few days after another NYT piece “New Life in U.S. No Longer Means New Name,” pointing out that immigrants to the United States are no longer “Americanizing” their names. At glance these pieces are in contradiction, but upon closer observation they’re connected. Neither is good.
Unlike today’s article, “no new name” was meant to be a feel-good feature demonstrating America’s tolerance and diversity.
Here is why it wasn’t: There is no such thing as an “American” name.
That’s something I learned traveling from Sarajevo to the United States in 2004 when I was asked by a Dutch security official, “Where are you from?”
“I’m American,” I replied.
The tall hazel-eyed Dutchman was not amused. “No, you didn’t understand me, I want to know where you are from,” understanding all too well what he meant.
“Oh, I see, I’m from Brooklyn.” He clenched his jaw and continued to interrogate me about where my family was from, and finally where my name was from. “Your name is not American.” I told him that he was out of line. He nearly hit me. His colleagues restrained him. I broke down in tears.
Letter after letter to Schiphol Airport and the Dutch Foreign Ministry, I demanded an apology – and explanation for such behavior. “Never would I have expected,” I wrote,
“that in such an open and tolerant society (the Netherlands), which values self-determination, civil liberty and democracy, would I encounter such belligerent and horrendous behavior. Questioning my identity as an American because of my name was inappropriate at best. America’s wealth lies in the trove of its unique and diverse citizenship; there is no single definition or profile of an American.”
To which I received this reply:
“One of the signs our agents have been trained to scrutinize, (sic) is the surname of the passenger. Your last name, although in your case belonging to a US citizen, probably has its origin somewhere in the Balkan region.”
Here’s why I wouldn’t accept that response:
“My name originates from Brooklyn, NY…. Bayrasli is every bit as American as Van Buren, Eisenhower, Powell, Chavez, Giuliani or Shinseki. We all carry the same passport, and allegiance to a government that is based on equal rights and equal protection, because our identities originate from a Constitution that knows only values, not ethnicity.”
Here’s why this is important:
We are currently living in a post 9/11, Glenn Beck-restore-honor-to-America-Sarah-“there will be no ground zero mosque” Palin-immigrants-are-not -welcome-in-Arizona world. Anti-immigration and Islamophobia are escalating to the point where dark-skinned men are being violently attacked and some believe that “it is impossible for a Muslim to be a good citizen in America.”
Declaring that people are no longer “Americanizing” their names leads one to believe that a single group defined the American identity – particularly those from that single group. While it may be true that a single group first came to America, they built it so that no single group or single person could dominate it. That, unfortunately, is at risk. Just read the apology I eventually received from Schiphol Airport:
“One of the security measures, regarding U.S. flights, approved by the Dutch Government and the TSA is the procedure of pre-flight questioning, the so called profile check, in which numerous possible signs are listed. One of those signs approved in the procedure, is the surname of the passenger.”
When TSA approves racial profiling; when border patrol agents wake “foreign looking people” to question their citizenship, America’s own name is in jeopardy, not just those of its citizens – new or old. And that’s certainly something to be afraid of.
3 Comments
Thank you for sharing such a personal and engaging story about identity and the names we choose. Your writing points to the fact that this form of intolerance is predicated on stereotypes. I do not enjoy when cultural intolerance is masked with pleasantry or big words and presented as a morally sound or institutionally necessary practice. My sincerest wish, is that we continue to remove the spaces in our culture (and in ourselves) where this bigotry finds refuge.
Thank you for writing this, Elmira. I admire how you persisted in making your extremely valid point to the Dutch authorities. I had trouble there about the same year you did, traveling on a one-way ticket from Istanbul to San Francisco. Tough questioning, despite the fact I was returning to my birth state and had made the same trip twice a year…but I’m certain my ‘American’ face ultimately helped me through. Sad, but why I will not update my passport from my Anglo surname to my husband’s Turkish one, even if it is ‘easy to pronounce’.
You write “…our identities originate from a Constitution that knows only values, not ethnicity.” Exactly. How can we help Americans leave fear behind and remember this? How do we confront the well-funded Beck and Palin propaganda machine?
I appreciate your blog post and how you hit the nail on the head with your summary analysis of the entire situation. Your handling of the situation right down to your persistence with the Dutch Foreign Ministry was admirable as well!