Outsiders

Almost every day, as the school bus approached his bus stop, my father would peer out the window to plan his escape route. For when he stepped off the bus, he knew he would have to run. He didn’t have to run because he wanted to get home in time to watch his favorite cartoon, or because he would late. He would have to run because he knew the group of Moroccan boys would be waiting, rocks ready in their hands, to throw at him. And as he ran away, kicking up a cloud of dust behind him, the group of boys sneered “Shinwa.” Chinese.

My father and I share a common experience: we learned from a young age what it meant to be a foreigner, what it meant to not belong. My father was not Chinese. But because of the way he looked, and because of the foreign language that he spoke, he was labeled as an outsider. He simply didn’t belong. And that was reason enough for the young boys to throw rocks at him, and reason enough for him to run home every day after school.

With time, situations have changed. True, the majority of people may not throw rocks at foreigners today, but that does not mean that “outsiders” are not being discriminated in different ways. To understand how the treatment of foreigners has evolved, let us look at the history of the term “foreigner.”

There may not be a specific time or place from which the term originiated; however, it can be traced. The Romans, for example, called anyone non-Roman “barbaric.” Justifying their discrimination with religion, the Romans exploited the Eastern European Slavs as slaves. Interestingly, over time, the term “Slav” evolved to mean “foreigner.”

In 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay, opening Japan to the Western World. The Japanese, defenseless and with out any other choice but to open up its ports, called Perry and his sailors “Barbarians of the West.” Over 150 years later, the term has changed, yet the meaning remains the same.The Japanese term 外人, (gaijin) to translate literally, means “outside person,” further differentiaing between those who belong, and those who don’t.

We can also explore the history of exploitation of foreigners and use of the term “alien” in America. America exploited African slaves as cheap labor on Southern plantations before the country even gained independence from Great Britain. In the late 1700‘s, worried that America would soon be at war with France, Congress passed the Alien Act of 1798. Aimed towards “aliens,” or foreigners, the act authroized the President to “deport aliens dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States.” Related acts, such as the Alien Enemies Act, further presents evidence of prejudice centered towards foreigners who supposedly posed a threat national security.

Sound farmiliar? Are things really that different today?

Foreiners are still be exploited. Take, for example, the “foreigners price.” Do we not almost instinctively raise prices on food, rent, and tuition for outsiders, because we assume they can afford it? Don’t inhabitants of well-to-do countries exploit foreign immigrants by providing low wages and harsh working conditions to this day?

Racial prejudice has always played a role in the treatment and perception of foreigners as well. From slavery in the U.S., to derrogatory remarks, racial prejudice has always been linked to the treatment of outsiders. As controversial as the issue is, we continue to pull people out of security lines at airports simply because of the way they look. The Alien Act may not be in effect today, but that doesn’t mean other acts aren’t discriminatig against minorities. Take for example, the Patriot Act. In our post-9/11 society, we immediately associate “different” as suspicious, and the act allows the U.S. government to detain any “suspicious” individuals. Do their acts, or their appearance lead us to discriminate? We are still exploiting and discriminating against foreigners to this day.

I didn’t have to run home every day to avoid being thrown rocks at; instead, my experience led to feelings of frustration at other peoples’ cultural ignorance, and possibilty that things would never really change. History teaches us that conditions will change, but the prejudice towards foreigners will remain. While we may think that in the 21st Century we are open-minded, we continue to exploit foreigners, distribute the term “outsider,” and are thus, just as close-minded as ever before.