Surprised...and a little upset

Janaki, we took it - and still take it - as a joke. Those kids were good friends with my son. We were living in a very rural area, there were only about 20 kids in my son's graduating class, it was a very small school. The kids thought the whole 9/11 thing would blow over soon, they couldn't have known how long that would simmer and hang on. Many of my sons classmates ended up in Afghanistan and Iraq, Bush's policies helped to extend that trouble. Not to drag up politics. Anyway it was not atrocious, it was kids' attempt to make light of things that did not make sense to them.

As for the profiling at airports, my son says that rarely happens anymore, but you know this happens in India and all other places as well, just with different minorities being the target. "Profiling", I mean, and not necessarily at the airport. I'm no more incensed when I am the target than when someone else is, in fact probably less so because I know I have the resources to withstand it better than many. Here I travel alone freely; no fears getting on a bus or driving or walking alone. No way would I do that in India - I don't have India reflexes and I'm pretty sure I'd be in trouble pretty quick because my first response to "eve teasing" wouldn't be to back down! What I can do here is not the same there. The way people would react here is not the same as the way they would react there. I haven't been back to India in 25 years but I'm told by some of the young women that strangers rarely help when a woman is being harassed that way. There is good here, there is bad here, and the same is true everywhere.

Try not to take it personally. I, too, have been treated this way both in the US and in India, also in Puerto Rico when I lived there. It is just things as they are. What we can do about it is not to perpetuate. Some people do not talk to strangers because they are afraid, that happens in all places, in India as well as here. Some people really are not very nice, but not all who do not approach you are that way. It is only our own reactions that we can control, so all we can do is not live down to the lowest expectations of the few people who are actually troublesome. Maintaining a cheerful pleasant demeanor regardless of how you perceive others to be treating you will eventually result in positive reactions. If only one or two other people eventually respond to your cheerful behavior, that is one or two more people you will get to know than if you just close off. When you get disappointed and put up walls to protect yourself, you are also closing yourself off from good experiences, too.

I know it is hard when you don't feel accepted, I've been there also. The best thing you can do is not to hurt yourself over it and stay open - otherwise friends can't find you.