Coming to America...

We land in Washington on a cool Sunday morning, 6 o’clock. I saunter along to the exit of the plane – there is no real hurry because I am now familiar with what happens up at the clearing gates and I have adjusted my connecting flight schedule accordingly, or so I think.
The first time I was at Washington Dulles Airport, back in 2008, I was shocked to find that they don’t operate 24 hours a day; so we had to wait outside the gates grumbling. This time when we eventually make it to the arrivals hall, they are open and a rather long line is snaking forward slowly. My connecting flight is at noon or thereabouts so I am in no particular haste, just anxious to gain successful entry. I am anxious because, well I am black, and it’s about a month after that stupid Nigerian boy – now popular known as the Christmas Day Bomber – tried to blow himself out of the sky along with a planeload of innocent civilians. This has, of course, marked everybody with his profile for particular scrutiny. I have dutifully taken my wife’s advice and shaved off all facial hair (aka beard) to look less like a would-be terrorist, perhaps. I remember doing the same thing on a trip to the UK in the aftermath of the 7/7 London bombings. Growing a beard seems to be a crime in itself, it appears.
Beard or no beard, it didn’t help, I find out later…I am somewhat marked as high risk for whatever reason along with all other swarthy passengers and we are directed to room D for further screening. A case of racial profiling, I think, until I see whole families of apparently white people and women also squeezed in. I am somewhat comforted by that observation. In that room are people of the world, a young Indian couple with a young child running around with no care in the world ( a baby terrorist, perhaps), one black guy who appears to be from East Africa, many many Arab looking people and then Caucasians from God knows where. At least if I am sent back home, I won’t be alone…
Eventually my name is called by a young Japanese officer, a hyphenated American, as I call them – Japanese – American, Latino-American, Irish – American (not so obvious in a crowd perhaps), African – Americans (a rather amorphous hold all, because what do you call a white Zimbabwean who becomes an American citizen, or my friend Samanyika, newly arrived in America but now with a green card. And these people the two Zimbabweans share more together then they do with negro descendants of African slaves. But that’s a story for another time perhaps). The long and short of it is that all Americans are now hyphenated and lately the right-wing conservatives have been bandying around the moniker European-Americans, in opposition to Obama’s cosmopolitanism. This group believes that they are the true Americans (never mind the fact that these lands really belong to the “red” Indians who are now largely confined to the reserves and slowly being wiped out by alcohol and social dislocation. On a previous occasion I met a young Native American who was reading a book about the “journey of tears” which isan account of the driving out of Native Americans from their ancestral homes to the reservations and the disease and conditions which nearly led to their extinction as a people. In fact some of the smaller nations disappeared altogether).
Back to the Japanese-American officer. He represents the beauty of America i.e. you are American even if you are a mafikizolo (Johnny come-lately). Can you imagine being an African – British; nay, on the forms that I used to fill in all my time in the UK I had to tick the race box; a selection from white, Irish (as if that is not white), African Caribbean, African, Indian…or other! Or for that matter, can my son who is a South African citizen call himself a Zimbabwe – South African since he does not fit into any other category. Sadly, he will always be “that foreigner” despite having the same life and possibly cultural narrative as the child who was born in the next bed in Bellville clinic, Cape Town. So in that respect I would want to be American; Zimbabwean-American to be precise knowing fully well that I will be accepted as I am.
But I detract… The Japanese-American officer asks me the questions I was asked in Cape Town and earlier that morning at the gate. I give him the answers without embellishment. My sister Tendo always said that you should just answer such questions without giving unsolicited information and I never been given better advice in my life. I am handed my passport back and led to my bags; he wants to check them.
The officer rifles through the bags and comes across packets of Royco mix (I can’t live without my gravy mix). He double-checks with a colleague if this is an allowable item and he gets the green light. He asks me about my rooibos boxes (the only hot beverage I drink) and then he sees that I have an apple which I had picked up at Johannesburg Airport lounge. An apple it turns out is a very dangerous weapon because it can bring in all manner of plant disease into the country. I am given the option of eating it or throwing it away. I choose the former seeing as I am very hungry; I scoff it down in big bites and hand him the seed to dispose of.
With some satisfaction, he takes the seeds and waves me through, “You’all set then”.
And indeed I am. With a sigh of relief, I push my trolley towards the baggage counter for the connecting flight. It’s about 9.30 am. I am exhausted; I have been on the road since 13.00 of the previous day and I have flown seven hours back into time. Or perhaps, my journey actually has a further starting point back in time, I reflect. This journey started back in the 1970’s from the foothills of the Nyanga Mountains, where my earliest memories lie. The village boy has made good; or at least he is trying…
Feeling disoriented and hungry for something warm I wind my way into America, the land of opportunity and my home for the next 12 months.