I am traveling with Korean Air to go to Beijin, China. There are a lot of Koreans on the flight (or so I would think). It’s strange to say this but I feel so much more comfortable knowing that I will be traveling a group of Koreans (Asians).I’ve been in the Seattle airport for about 12 hours and I must confess I feel like a foreigner in my own country. In no way am I point fingers at Seattleans, I’m just speaking from personal experience. The people around me (majority are White travelers) would give me pitiful looks as if I didn’t/couldn’t speak English. They would avoid speaking with me in on the flight here. Sometimes they would avoid eye contact. It’s one of those things where people don’t have to speak a word but can feel their negative vibe in the atmosphere.
The flight from Minneapolis/St. Paul to Seattle was interesting. My seat assignment was 27A but I accidently sat in 27F because they were both window seats. When the lady and man (both looked like they were in their 60s) came to their seats and saw that I was in her seat she threw a tantrum and made a scene in the airplane. She said, “She’s in my seat! Can’t she read her boarding ticket correctly?” Then the old lady called the flight attendant. I was like, “Sorry, Mam. I can move. I knew my seat was 27A but it completely slipped out of my mind.” I felt embarrassed. The other passengers on the other end of row 27 had to get up to let me in. The old lady was pretty upset about the fact that I had “stolen” her seat, 27F. It was such a small matter; all she needed to do was tell me I was in the wrong seat. It wasn’t even necessary for her to add the comment that I was illiterate.
After my disastrous incident returning home from India I am more cautious about being a minority American traveling internationally. In college we discuss issues of white privilege, social construction and the skin-color-hierarchy in class about how unfair it is for people to judge others base on factors we can’t control. I can’t control the fact that I am Hmong, a minority within minorities; I can’t change the fact that my eyes are almond shape; I can’t help that my skin color is peach; I won’t dye my hair blonde and put blue-eye-contacts in just to fit in with the norm (because then I’d look more abnormal). But here in the “real world” I don’t have time to discuss issues of white privilege, social construction and the skin-color-hierarchy to people about how unfair it is for people to judge others base on factors we can’t control. And truth is, they don’t have the patience to listen.
So I travel cautiously knowing that I have two eyes in the front and one in the back. It’s sad that this is the reality of this world. I travel knowing that people will question my ability to do things; as a minority I have to go twice the mile just to prove that I am just a competent as people who are White. And if I mess up, my entire 'race' looks bad. This is why I say it’s strange but I feel so much more comfortable knowing that I will be traveling a group of Koreans (Asians). At least they won’t discriminate my ability to read. I guess this is why all of us need to go college – to learn to respect differences.
Before releasing me to the big big world my mom warned me: “If you cannot learn to respect differences then you are nowhere near intelligent.”
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