A Talk with Dad

Due to political unrest, when my dad was seventeen years old, his family fled their moderate wealth in their hometown of Karachi, Pakistan and quite suddenly found themselves struggling to eke out a living in Santa Barbara, California. In Karachi, my grandfather had been a politician affiliated with the Pakistani People's Party, a party that the political rebellion of the time did not like. Because of the danger to himself and his family, My grandfather decided to sell the family's house and car and flee to America. Once in America, the family was safe from political hatred, but was then faced with a different kind of hatred--discrimination.
My dad and his family's move to America was under extremely unfortunate circumstances, but even more unfortunate was that, at the time of their migration, the Iranian hostage conflict was in full swing. Because of this, the family was discriminated against heavily. Even though they weren't Iranian, they looked it; and that was enough.
American teenagers were merciless. My dad recalls, "At school, I would regularly be harassed by American kids. They'd pass me in the hallways and shout things like, 'Go back to your country, camel jockey!' It was hurtful, but also odd to me, considering I'd never even ridden a camel." He remembers another Middle Eastern friend of his who got his head flushed in a school toilet because of his ethnicity.
When the family moved to a small suburb of Chicago, the sense of alienation increased. Most of the people in the community were white, and it was hard to make friends with the neighbors.
However, as time went on, things improved greatly, only going downhill again following 9/11. After that, my dad began to be pulled aside for further investigation in airport security--even once being pulled into a separate room and being questioned in a foreign airport, delaying his mission trip team an hour!
Despite this and other discrimination, though, my dad is an extremely successful restaurant owner who is proud of his heritage and has raised my sister and I to be proud of it as well. There will always be ignorant people, but there will also always be a heritage to be proud of.

Source: Adil Jaffer