Being Profiled

Although American born and bred, author May-lee Chai has lived her life being considered the outsider – for her looks, her name, her accent. She reveals the truth of being profiled at home and abroad.

Although I was born in California, and thus am American by birth, I do not look Caucasian. I look Asian. And that means, to many people in the United States – and abroad, I do not look “American”.

Recently, the state of Arizona passed a law that requires the police to ask anyone merely “suspected” of being in the US illegally to show proof of their right to be here. Before this law, we had not been required to prove our citizenship or immigration status except in clearly relevant legal situations, such as when crossing international borders or when applying for jobs.

The vagueness of the law’s wording is perhaps the most troubling aspect. The state governor claimed the new law would not lead to “racial profiling”. She did not explain why not. She said that she herself did not know what an “illegal immigrant” looked like.

Now, 17 more states are trying to pass similar laws.

We, as a nation, are traveling down a slippery slope. There is no way this law can be enforced without “racial profiling” unless every single day every single person is stopped by the police simply for walking along the sidewalk, driving to work, stopping at a Starbucks. Big Brother anyone?

When I was in college in Iowa with WEEKENDER editor Bruce Emond, I was the one asked to prove my right to be in America when I applied for jobs in town, when I tried to get my driver’s license, even when I went shopping and suspicious store owners followed me from aisle to aisle. Bruce, despite having immigrated to the US as a 12-year-old and his still-distinct accent, was accepted by people in town as an American while I was not.

He even gamely wrote an article for the student newspaper about our dual experiences at the town’s Job Services office after I told him they’d refused to help me because they said I didn’t have a green card, the document that allows non-citizens to work legally in the US. Naturally, as a citizen, I didn’t have one. When Bruce went to the Job Services office, they offered to help him find a job and didn’t even ask for his green card.

As a teenager, I could not understand why I was being rejected by my own country. I wondered what I was doing wrong. Today I understand. I don’t look “white”.

The day Arizona passed this new law, memories of the humiliation of being profiled throughout my life overwhelmed me. I found myself overcome with despair, rage, fear, and heartbreak. And then I began to write.

This is what it feels like to be profiled:

Phase I: Fear

Being profiled means scowling adults will come up to me out of the blue when I’m a child in South Dakota and tell me to my face I’m the Devil’s spawn because my father is Chinese and my mother is white and God didn’t want the races to mix.

Being profiled means men will come and shoot my dogs and leave them in our driveway for me to find when I get home from school.

Being profiled means I feel fear in rural areas even today.

Phase II: Confusion

Being profiled means being followed in the grocery store because the owner assumes I will shoplift then fly back to my home country before I can be brought to justice.

Being profiled means I can’t get a job in a small town, not at the Hardee’s, or the Hy-Vee grocery store, or as a waitress in the only sit-down restaurant.

Being profiled means instead I take a job washing pots and pans in my campus cafeteria, taking out the trash, working tray breakdown by the garbage disposal for minimum wage.
 
Being profiled means that when I ride my bicycle in China during the student protests in 1988, the Chinese police grab my handlebars and force me off the road because I look like a Chinese student who might be protesting.

Being profiled means Chinese people will make fun of my Mandarin and think I’m stupid because I speak Mandarin with an accent.

Being profiled means every Chinese person on the train will ask me to translate for the white students.

Being profiled means I get paid less than the white students to teach English in China.

Being profiled means I don’t get hired to teach English in Hong Kong while my friend, the French girl who can’t speak English, does. And when she can’t understand the English of the woman on the phone giving her directions to her new job, I pretend to be her … because I can speak French and put on her accent and fool her boss.

Phase III: Rage

Being profiled means literary agents will tell me my English is too good for a Chinese.

Being profiled means being “randomly” pulled out of every single airplane boarding line on the Eastern half of my book tour from Dayton, Ohio to Washington, D.C. to Albany, New York, because women with long dark hair look like terrorists in somebody’s book after Sept. 11.

Being profiled means I keep my hair cut short because I will go nuts the next time I’m “randomly” pulled out of every single airplane boarding line and forced to dump all my carefully packed carry-on’s contents onto the table or floor for the world to see my tampons.

Being profiled means everyone will turn and stare at me at the McDonald’s off the highway outside South Bend, Indiana, where I stopped because I was thirsty and needed to stretch after a long drive to visit my former graduate school adviser.

Phase IV: Wisdom

Being profiled means I have empathy for people who are profiled.

Being profiled means I feel such rage I could become dangerous if I weren’t such a damned nice person.

Being profiled means I know why you might be profiled too someday.

Being profiled means I know “you” means “everyone under the sun”.

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