Earlier this summer, I got a very small, but potent taste of Arpaio’s Phoenix, just as I was leaving, in the airport. I gave my I.D. to the homeland security agent before going through security, as usual. He looked at my driver’s license, then looked at me, then looked at it again—again, pretty standard—then he looked up at me again and said, “And you are?”
I looked at him, completely confused—because he’s holding my I.D., right, so, why is he asking for my name? (Isn’t that the usual response to a “And you are” question?) So I say, “Um, I am…Renata Espinosa?” I phrase it as a question because I’m not sure what kind of answer he is looking for. “I can see that on your I.D.,” he says, and then he repeats the question again.
I realize that he wants to know my ethnic background—though here I am with a valid form of U.S. identification—and I’m annoyed that he doesn’t just ask, or that he insists on asking such a vague question. It makes me wonder if this is designed to unsettle the person who is being asked, so that they automatically get nervous and look guilty…of something. This time I respond, “I am going to New York City,” which is still not the answer he is looking for.
Again he asks the same stupid, vague question.
“That’s a very open-ended question,” I tell him.
He’s not being particularly mean, just insistent, and I start wondering if he’s just messing with me for fun, because he’s bored. He’s actually smiling and I don’t know whether I’m supposed to smile, too, like this is some big joke, or whether I’ll get in trouble if I do. So finally I say, “You want to know my ethnic background?” He nods yes. “Mexican and Spanish,” to which he says, “That’s what I thought,” and then he lets me through.
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