In my parents’ homeland of Taiwan, they lived under a dictator named Chiang Kai-shek. He fled from the Mainland and Mao in 1949 and took over Taiwan, where he ruled with an iron fist. Taiwanese people were treated like second-class citizens in their own country. They were not allowed to speak Taiwanese in school, and all the prestigious jobs were saved for members of the KMT. Since Chiang Kai-shek’s mission was to reunite with China, he didn’t care what he did to Taiwan or its people. My father was an ardent supporter of an independent Taiwan, and when he came to America to attend grad school, he didn’t keep his opinions to himself. I remember when I was a kid marching in the streets of downtown Minneapolis* with handmade signs, chanting for an independent Taiwan. Because of his actions, my father was blacklisted from his home country for decades and would have been jailed or ‘accidentally’ killed if he had returned.
I’ve heard stories of the horror of living under this man, which is part of the reason what’s happening right now in our country is sending chills down my spine. We Americans aren’t very good at understanding things we don’t experience, and most of us do not have any intimate knowledge of fascism. We read about the terrible things the Nazis did and think, “That would never happen here.” What we don’t understand, however, is that it didn’t start with concentration camps and the gassing of Jews. It started much as it’s starting here, with orders of who is and isn’t allowed in the country. “I’m just doing my job” isn’t never the moral option (akin to “I’m just following orders”), and less so now than ever before.
Let me tell you about my experience while flying in (and out) of America as a minority. Let me also preface it by saying that I realize I’m incredibly fortunate to be able to fly as much as I have. With that out of the way, let me say that flying is an unpleasant experience for me, especially when I was younger. When I first flew to Canada, a (male, white) coworker of mine told me quite firmly that I didn’t need a passport to fly into Canada. When I reached the Minneapolis airport, the ticket agent wasn’t going to confirm me because I didn’t have my passport. I showed her my driver’s license, and she said, “That doesn’t prove you’re an American citizen.” I argued with her for five to ten minutes, and she finally, reluctantly, allowed me to continue. Ironically, Canada was perfectly fine with me entering their country. Go figure.
My worse experience flying was to London to visit my boyfriend. The customs agents took one look at me with my permed hair, big hoops, and multicolored jumpsuit, and pulled me out of line. Meanwhile, next to me, there’s a big, dumb American saying he’s coming into the country to spend a lot of money, derp-di-derp. The agents wanted to know why I was there, and, oh, is my boyfriend English? No. American? No. I told them he was Sri Lankan, and that was enough to get me pulled to a backroom. They asked me about what my parents did, what I did, and what my boyfriend did. They also pulled him into the back and questioned him for twenty minutes. Afterwards, he was furious with me. He said I should have just said I was visiting a friend. How the hell was I to know, though, that I would be questioned like that? It left a bitter taste in my mouth, I’ll tell you that much.