Imploration of the Two Year Old

[danie115 0]

I was born in America, as were my parents I was raised a white, Christian, conservative and so were my parents. Perhaps this puts me in the class of people least discriminated against in the history of our planet. And perhaps this is why my first tastes of the apple of racism were so very sour.

Last year, I spent some time in Japan and happened to meet a wonderful woman who quickly became my reason for living. She was born in Japan, raised Buddhist and so were her parents.

The people of Japan were always very accepting of me being a minority, of me being different. I would even say they treasured my differences and tried to learn as much from me as they could to form a mutually positive world view. I was never once confronted, verbally or otherwise, about my race. Tragically I can not claim the same understanding and intelligence of my native brethren know as Americans.

My wife and I have done nothing wrong in our long process to bring us together. We applied for her to be able to come to the United States as my fiancée to get married here. This superfluously long process lead to six arduous months of waiting without even the slightest glimmer of hope until the end was reached.

I applied on her behalf about three months before leaving Japan, with hopes of being able to return together. After nine months of separation the government kindly granted my sweet love permission to come to the United States to become my wife.

I was not along when she made the initial step through United States immigration at Chicago O’Hare airport that fateful day in December of 2006. However I was told that she was treated very poorly and delayed with no explanation until well after her connecting flight to Detroit had departed. She was told she would have to stay over night in O’Hare to wait for the next available flight. However at this time I was waiting in Detroit impatiently for my long lost love to be returned to me with no way of contacting each other because unfortunately I did not carry a cell phone at that time.

By some blessing of the Lotus Flower she was allowed on an airplane that night and after about six hours of waiting at the Detroit airport I finally saw my happiness coming down the arrival escalator.

Now that I have summarized my current situation, I will portray two prominent events that still leave nothing but awe and disgust in my heart. First, this summer I returned with my wife to Japan to visit old friends. Before departing we were informed that leaving the United States would void my wife’s permission to return to the United States without a formal document of “advanced parole”.

Now in my life, I have only heard one use of the word parole: for prisoners, people that have done something wrong and have proven to redeem themselves so that they may be re-released into society. The wording of this document already shows the government’s negative connotations on citizens of other countries.

Not wanting to void my wife’s current hard-earned legal status, we extinguished all of our qualms with the wording of the document appropriately filed for and were granted the aforementioned “parole”. We enjoyed a very relaxing summer visiting relatives and friends from years gone by. It is here, on my return that I was struck with my first swift blow from the baton of America’s lack of acceptance.

Upon our return to the United States we were informed that my wife must go through a special “secondary immigration” station and that I would not be allowed to accompany her. I pleaded for a moment with the woman with a hand gun on each hip to allow me to accompany her for we were both scared about the legality of our return to the United States.

Fortunately the American trained gun-zombie appeared to have some humanity left in her and allowed me to proceed to a dark hall-way with gun-zombies on all sides. She gave the reigns of us two tethered cattle to another two-hand-pistol-possessing man who put us into an elevator heading further down.

On the other end I was immediately confronted with hostility from a third gun-zombie upon showing my United States passport. “Only non-citizens are allowed down here” the zombie hissed. In response I communicated as calmly and politely as I could our situation: “I’m sorry, the woman upstairs told me I could accompany my wife as we have some concerns with a few immigration policies and are also pressed for time to gather our luggage and catch a transferring flight.”

The zombie grunted and rolled her eyes as she grabbed my wife’s paperwork. I assumed this meant she was not going to draw one of her several loaded pistols on me and that I could precede together with my wife: another ray of luck in this dungeon of despair “secondary immigration”.

At this point the gun-woman placed my wife’s papers on a shelf with no one around, and did not notify anyone of their location or importance. There were six immigration employees standing around near each other chatting and about 10 other prisoners waiting to be “paroled”.

After about twenty minutes of non-activity of any of the employees I began to worry about our checked luggage upon hearing the repeated announcement that “unattended luggage will be destroyed.”

Even though I was scared to look down the barrel of the sniping assassin at the gate to this hell a second time, I mustered my strength and addressed the gun-woman. “Excuse me ma’am, is there a system for processing paper” “No! They’ll call you when they’ll call you!” the fire-eyed harpy resounded with a hand clinching one of her guns.

Fear-struck I thanked the gun-woman and returned to my seat to see that my wife’s papers had been moved. I did not see which of the statuesque guardians of our “land of the free” had taken them, but they all seemed to frivolously squawk amongst themselves like so many twelve bullet handling sorority girl parrots.

After another twenty minutes or so I was almost certain we were going to miss our connecting flight and that our luggage was about to be destroyed so I mustered the courage to address one of these gun toting Rambo’s in charge of putting a stamp on my 100 pound Japanese passport declaring that she can return to the “beautiful land of American”.

I was appalled by the response vomited upon me by the guardian ogre. “We called you and called you but you never came. You should feel fortunate that we are letting you into our country! Why did you not come, do you not like that we allow you to live here?”

I was so distraught with rage that it took every ounce of man energy in my person to keep from kicking the demon in the throat but him and his surrounding gun-toting monsters must have seen the rage in my eyes as they all started to pat their guns in synchronous, as if in warning. I quickly asked the man if we could go and thanked him for his time. He response also made me shudder: “You could have left twenty minutes ago if you would have only came when we called you, I guess you don’t like living in America?”

At this point I grabbed my wife and ran to the checked luggage conveyer belt to find my fears were coming true, a security guard was prodding around my wife’s and my luggage, as if they were about to explode. I practically grabbed them out of his hands before he throw them into a bin to have them destroyed. In response the man scolded me “Next time get your luggage sooner.” Again not wanting to be shot, I patiently thanked the man for his cautiousness and promised that it would not happen again.

Present day. I went to a BBQ pool party for residents of my apartment complex with my wife. It was a sunny day complete with a cool breeze to boot. Everything was looking like it would make for a lovely after.

After mingling with some other residents and taking some pictures of our surroundings, a woman approaches my wife. “You just took a picture of my son, I need to see you delete that right now or I’m going to call the authorities.” The woman threatened. The camera was set to have Japanese menus. Upon my wife showing the woman a prompt in Japanese saying the equivalent of “delete one image”, the woman screamed at my wife to set the menu to English “immediately or she would call the authorities.”

Somewhat awestruck my wife handed me the camera. I myself still struck with disbelieve set the camera to English and showed the wife the image being deleted. She did not believe me however and further prompted me on the subject. I proclaimed to her that it was already gone but she would not listen. After we finally calmed the woman down and persuaded her to leave she muttered something to her waiting friend about “….stupid Chinese…”

Not quite knowing what to do but feeling outraged all the while I proclaimed after the woman “She’s Japanese not Chinese! Japanese!” but the woman ignored me. I guess to her an Asian was an Asian and she didn’t want anything to do with it.

I would like to point out here that many of the other people participating in this event were also taking pictures and undoubtedly also caught a photo with this woman and her son in the background, but she elected to only bring up her issue of being seen with my wife.

Still shaken by the racial overtones of what had just transpired, I decided to make a complete with the head of the apartment complex. The woman seemed very understanding and talked to the woman in question for us but it seemed the woman would not apologize and would not leave.

After a few more minutes the woman, with her friend and husband approached my wife and I and said to me “Tell your wife that not only is she a Jap, she’s a f***ing Jap tattletale”. I was absolutely blown away. She said this to me holding her two year old son. How could this woman have the audacity to address us in such a way and especially in front of some many other people? How could none of the other participants care or say anything, the woman was clearly loud enough to be heard from several feet away. I asked a near by employee of the apartment complex if she had heard the woman’s comments but she claimed she did not. Upon my reiteration of what had transpired the employee followed the woman to the parking lot but the woman was determined to leave with the last word and speed off in her minivan.

The employee followed me to the main manager’s office, with whom I spoke earlier where I retold for a third time exactly what had happened. The manager informed me that the woman was not a resident so that nothing could be done but that she would not be allowed to participate in future events. Some solace, I suppose, but the damage had been done and for the next several hours I brewed the days events over and over again, which prompted me to begin writing this. What an ignorant hate filled woman.

Later I saw the resident with whom the racist woman had come arguing with the employee who went to the parking lot for me, demanding her to talk with her friend on the phone because her friend was upset. The employee said she would not speak with her and that her reaction to the photo was out of line. She said that she had even taken photos of the boy but had not been even address. The racist woman’s friend stated that it was ok for the employee to take photos because she was an employee. I wanted to interrupt from across the area and said “because she’s not a minority” but sometimes my wits are tossed out of me from emotion.

It was through this racist’s friend that I learned the woman from before was an elementary school teacher. This is a thought that absolutely appalls me. This racist ignorant woman is going to be teaching our nations future? As I brewed about the day’s events I snidely thought to myself “that poor woman’s child’s first words might just be…. “F***ing Jap”. I ream in fear that this woman becomes the teacher of my future half-Japanese children.

But sadly, my palate has slowly become accustomed to the gross flavor of the American people; to their hatred, to their ignorance. However this course of action is unacceptable. Please, next time something similar to this transpires speak up. The person whom is addressed feels threatened and alone and events like these happen more than is often thought. Please rethink your views and the views of your forefathers. Just because mommy called a Japanese woman a “f***ing Jap” because you happened to be in the background of her picture when you were very young, please don’t breed the hate. It needs to stop.

Jason 7/14/2007

[mawilson 2,133]

Oh dear

[KarenCee 3]

I am so sorry this happened. *sigh* But please understand, not all Americans are this way. It's unfortunate that a few sh!tty ones make it nasty for the rest.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

1. guns rule

2. POE immigration business as usual

3. move

[Fandango 1,439]

But sadly, my palate has slowly become accustomed to the gross flavor of the American people; to their hatred, to their ignorance. However this course of action is unacceptable. Please, next time something similar to this transpires speak up. The person whom is addressed feels threatened and alone and events like these happen more than is often thought. Please rethink your views and the views of your forefathers. Just because mommy called a Japanese woman a “f***ing Jap” because you happened to be in the background of her picture when you were very young, please don’t breed the hate. It needs to stop.

Jason 7/14/2007

Pot. Kettle.

Irony...love it.

PS - I doubt you'd find intolerant people here, we're all in mixed nationality relationships duh...

[Lance27 19]

I agree, Majority of Americans I have come in contact with have been very welcoming and friendly. Too bad there are a few ignorant people out there who are so intolerent.

[L_n_O 3]

There's ignorant and racist people all over the world.. I'm sorry that you had to go through all of that..

Intolerant people suck.

[Mononoke28 135]

Jason,

I'm really sorry to read your story but sadly enough it does not surprise me. Most Americans are welcoming and friendly but there are many, too many in my opinion, who still shock me with this type of behavior. I'm also a minority and have felt the wrath upon me time and time again but I've come to the realization that no matter what I do, it won't stop. Racism is learned behavior and that woman learned it from her parents and will pass it on to her child. That's just the way it works.

So my advice is that since you're so new to this type of discrimination, to not even acknowledge it. If you do, they win. They're the ones who are missing out and who have everything to lose. Your life will go on with your wife and you're a better person by not spending one more minute of anger on those people. They're dumb, they're morons, they're stupid, their loss.

Diana

[Ban Hammer 13,345]

sounds like someone has a serious issue with guns as that's what stood out the most to me.

[danie115 0]

sounds like someone has a serious issue with guns as that's what stood out the most to me.

Guns kill. Also, that many guns at the immigration station is uneccessary. Everyone there obviously has legal reason for being there already or they wouldn't have been allowed on the plane. I feel it is an unncessary show of force from the US government and also puts the immigration workers in an inappropriate mindset.

[Ban Hammer 13,345]

sounds like someone has a serious issue with guns as that's what stood out the most to me.

Guns kill. Also, that many guns at the immigration station is uneccessary. Everyone there obviously has legal reason for being there already or they wouldn't have been allowed on the plane. I feel it is an unncessary show of force from the US government and also puts the immigration workers in an inappropriate mindset.

guns kill - spare me the gun grabber mantra. do try to find a difference between the average crack addict and security personnel at an airport. i find it difficult to believe that everyone was carrying two pistols like they were ready for the showdown at ok corral.

as for the immigration people carrying a sidearm, i'm certain it's a requirement of their job. same thing for police. get used to it

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

It sounds like a horrendous POE experience.

[bgreed 0]

Being that immigration officers are trained in the use and carry of firearms I HIGHLY doubt that there was anyone patting their their carry weapon in a threatening manner. Also they are not carrying two firearms one is a taser (non leathal device used to subdue hostile adversaries)

I really think you suffer from a persecution complex or nedd to grow a pair when it comes to dealing with abusive people. If a person were to come up to my wife and act in such a manner they would find themselves with someone they don't want to deal with in their face. Grow up grow a pair and quit whinning.

[Cantankerous 0]

Guns kill. Also, that many guns at the immigration station is uneccessary. Everyone there obviously has legal reason for being there already or they wouldn't have been allowed on the plane. I feel it is an unncessary show of force from the US government and also puts the immigration workers in an inappropriate mindset.

If guns kill then pencils must misspell words…

I am sorry to hear about your bad experience. There is no good explanation for poor behavior on anyone's part. I really do not understand the part about the photograph. When in a public place, people have no right to complain about someone else taking a photograph that they may be in the background of.

[Twomoles 8]

I am so sorry about your wifes bad experience.

Actually, even my POE wasn't so horrible, and I scheduled very extra time between flight. I know how I felt. I felt helpless and humiliated between all these official people, while they are watching you and make you wait. Even might think, what I 5 feet lost soul can harm them, and I have been checked before I got on direct plane - there isnt possibility, that I would have get just like this on plane in Brussels, they asked me questions before and checked me. But your voice start to shake only by this attitude, you start to feel like some sort of crime person even while scanning fingerprints.

Emotions are emotions, no matter they have one or two guns and especially after long transatlantic flight.

No, I don't think I got ever so bad experience as your wife. And most people are nice. Most americans are open and kind people. And about this less intolerant part, well, I better don't say nothing, because they are everywhere, and I cant say, that people in my country are always very tolerant. But maybe it depends on area you are in. Or maybe about stereotypes, maybe some individuals have some special anger to Asia, based on history or now happening economy.

But cheer up, there is so many good people, who will give your wife hand, and whose first thought is humanity, not what race you are.