by Dave Eggers
I Didn't Know I Wasn't an American
I didn't know I wasn't an American until I was sixteen and in handcuffs.
My mother came to the United States with me in 1990, when I was one. We originally came from Koubia in Guinea, West Africa. My dad was here already, living in Brooklyn and working as a cab driver. He went on to open his own business later.
Along came my brother, who is now nineteen, my sister, who is seventeen, and two more brothers who are thirteen and five. I'm twenty-one. We moved to this apartment in Manhattan, and we have been living here for thirteen years.
I think a lot of people in Africa and third world countries hear about the riches in America. It's the land of opportunity. So, he came here for that. From the stories that my mom tells me, their lives back in Koubia were farming and that's it.
Growing up in New York, I remember having my "cousins" around. They're all Guinean. They weren't real family, but whatever community members we had here, I considered them family. I remember having them come over, I remember us running around and messing up things.
My friends were Latino and African-American. At that time, I fit in with them. I was going through the same issues as them, like boys, going through puberty, he said/she said kinds of things. Those were the kinds of problems that I wish I had now.
We All Did It?
I went to public school until seventh grade. My dad wanted me to learn about my religion, so he sent me to an Islamic boarding school in Buffalo, New York. what's weird now that I look back is that my parents aren't really religious, we didn't really go to mosque. But my dad heard about the school from somebody who recommended it.
I was thirteen when 9/11 happened. Every teacher came in late, and they sat us in a humongous circle. My teacher said, "I have to talk to you guys. For those of you who are from New York, I want you to brace yourself. I have some bad news. Sometimes things happen in life that we don't understand." She started telling us about God and how to be patient and steadfast. And then she said, "The twin towers were hit today."
I remember freaking out, panicking, trying to reach my family.
When she called us back for a second meeting, that's when she announced that a Muslim had done it, and that there might be hatred against Muslims. When I heard that I was like, "Wait, what do you mean? We all did it? We didn't plot it. I don't have nothing to do with it. And why are we all getting the blame for it?" So many thoughts went through my head that time: Who is this Osama Bin Laden guy? What is he up to? Why would he do this? This is against Islam. None of us knew who Bin Laden was. We were making jokes about the guy. My friends said, "Your name is very close to his name: Adama, Osama."
When I finally reached my family the next day, they told me they were fine, and my dad said, "Shh, don't talk about it. Be quiet, bye." He would not talk about anything over the phone.
The Way I Left NYC Was Not the Way It Was When I Came Back
I felt 9/11 when I came back to New York for Ramadan break. There were six of us classmates who had to get on a plane to come back to New York. At that time, we covered our faces. I remember coming to the airport dressed all in pitch black with our faces covered. We were even wearing gloves; all you could see were our eyes, that's it.
I couldn't believe the looks on everyone's faces. Everybody was scared, pointing. You saw people turn red. We were whispering to each other, "Whats going on?" Honestly, I was scared. I thought those people were going to beat me.
We didn't know what was going on around the country. We didn't know about the hate crimes—we didn't know anything, though the day after 9/11 someone threw a rock through the window of the school.
That day at the airport, we got extra screenings, our bags were checked, we got pulled to the side. The guards were so nasty to us. The people were so nasty to us, the airline was so nasty to us. I remember us boarding the plane and the captain looked at us and shook his head.
It made me feel like crap because I was being singled out. I'm thirteen, I've never been through something like this. I've never had racism before. I've been sheltered from things like that. So, that was my first time. People cursed at us, yelled at us and sucked their teeth, saying, "Go back to your country, you Talibani, go back to Osama Bin Laden."
This whole time, I thought I was American. I thought, You can't touch me, I'm American.
My parents didn't know I wore any garb until I came home. My mom opened the door, she saw me and she closed it back. She told my father, "You have to tell her to take this off. I told you not to send her to Buffalo!"
They disapproved of my niquab (face veil). They said to me, "Take that off, take that off."
When I originally left NYC for school, it was peaceful and happy and everybody was cheery and saying hello. When I came back after 9/11, everyone was like, what do you want, where are you from? There was more fear. The fear was towards me, and I felt the same way. People didn't take the time to talk to me, or ask me why I was wearing a niquab. Walking down the street, people would curse at me, they would even throw things. It was just nasty. It actually made me want to wear it more.
Oh, You're Not Ugly!
I came back to New York public school for 9th grade. I left Islamic school because I didn't like it. I remember telling my dad, "I'm too controlled there." I wore my niquab for a few months with colored contacts to make the niquab look pretty. Might as well make something look pretty—if you can't see my face, look at my nice eyes! But, it was actually fun. I didn't have any problems in high school. The other kids always asked me to see my face, though. Like, "I wonder how you look under there? You're probably ugly." We would make jokes about it. I'd say, "Yeah, I look hideous. That's why I wear it, of course!"
Then, after a while, I thought, This is not a mosque. So in the middle of 9th grade, I took it off, because you know what? This niquab is not a must. It's really not.
So one day I walked into school, I was still wearing an abaya (a loose robe, usually worn with a head scarf called a hijab), but I had my face uncovered. My teacher just looked at me and said, "Adama?" And I remember all the students just coming in to look at me, in the middle of English class, to see what I looked like.
They said things like, "Oh, you're not ugly! You have nice teeth."
I replied, "Thank you." I was just smiling.
What Did I Do?
The morning of March 24th 2005, my family and I were in the house sleeping.
Someone knocked on the door, and my mom went and opened it. These men barged in, waking us up. I always sleep with the blanket over my head. They pull the blanket off my head, I look up, I see a man. He said, "You've got to get out!" I'm like, What the hell, what's going on?
I saw about ten to fifteen people in our apartment and right outside our door in the hallway. They were mostly men, but there were two women. Some had FBI jackets, and others were from the police department and the INS. We were all forced out of the bed and told to sit in the living room. They were going through papers, throwing stuff around, yelling and talking to each other, then whispering. I heard them yelling at my mother in the background, and my mom can't speak much English, and they were pulling her into the kitchen, yelling at her, "We're going to deport you and your whole family!"
This whole time, I was thinking, what's going on? What are they talking about? I knew my dad had an issue with his papers, but I didn't think that my mom did. They kept saying, "We're going to send all of you back to your country."
Then I saw my dad walking in, in handcuffs. They had gone to the mosque to get him. It was the scariest thing you could ever see; I had just never seen my father so powerless. He was always this guy who you didn't mess with. If he said do it, you did it. He was just someone you didn't cross paths with.
They took him to the kitchen, whispered something to him.
He sat down, looked at us. He said, "Everything's going to be fine, don't worry."
And then I knew nothing was fine, I knew something was wrong. They told him to tell us what was g
oing on. He told us that they were going to arrest him and they were going to take him.
The FBI agents told me to get up and get my sneakers. I was thinking they wanted to see my sneaker collection. I have all types of colors of sneakers. I went and grabbed them. I said, "I have this one, I have this one, I have this one."
One of the agents said, "Choose one."
My favorite color is blue, so I picked up a blue pair and said, "This one."
He said, "Put them on."
I said, "Okay, but I know they fit me."
He said, "Put them on!" He was very nasty. Then he said "All those earrings have to go out." I have eight piercings on each side, a nose ring and a tongue ring. I went to the kitchen to take them off, and they followed me in there.
My breath was stinking. I asked, "Can I at least brush my teeth? My breath stinks really bad. Can I use the bathroom?"
They said, "No. We have to go. You're coming with us."
I said, "Where am I going to go? Am I going with my dad?" I put on my jacket. They let me put my headscarf and abaya on. Then, one of the women took out handcuffs. I panicked so badly, I was stuttering, "What did I do? Where are we going?"
First time in my life—I'm sixteen years old—in handcuffs. I looked at my dad, and he said, "Just do what they say."
My mom didn't know I was going. When we got out the door, she said, "Where she go? Where she go?" The agents said, "We're taking her," and they held my mom back. The man who seemed to be in charge put his hands on my mother to stop her.
They took me and my dad and put us in the same car. I was scared. I said to him, "Whats going on? what's going to happen?" My dad said, "Don't say anything, we're going to get a lawyer. It's okay, everything is going to be fine."
There were two Escalades driving with us. I was looking around, paying attention. I recognized the Brooklyn Bridge, I recognized a lot of landmarks, but I didn't recognize the building where my father and I were taken. We got out of the car and we walked past a security booth where the cars drive up to, before taking a ramp beneath the building to the parking lot. Once we were inside the building, they put me in my own cell. It was white, with a bench. No bars. No windows. There was a door that had a tiny glass pane, and I could see who was out there. I just saw a bunch of computers and tables, and people walking back and forth and talking. I kept seeing them talk to my dad.
I don't know how long I was in there.
I was nervous, I was panicking, I was crying, I was trying to figure out what was going on. And, I was constantly using the bathroom.
The toilet was an open toilet, though. There was a camera on the ceiling in the middle of the room. I was wondering, Can they see me peeing? I just wrapped blankets around me as I was peeing.
I'm Not This Person
I was taken out of my cell to be interrogated. Nobody told me who they were. It was just me and a man, sitting where all the computers were. Nobody else was around me. There was a guy all the way down at the other end with my dad, but that's about it.
He asked me questions like, "what's your name? what's your age? Whats your date of birth? Where were you born?" They knew I was born in Guinea. Then he asked, "What is your citizenship status?"
I said, "American."
He asked me all these questions about my citizenship status. Then after a while, he said, "You know you're not here legally, right? You know why you're here today right? You weren't born in this country. You know you're not American?"
For a second, I was just so mad at my parents. It was as if one of the biggest secrets in the world had just been revealed to me. I don't know if it was to protect them or if it was to protect me, but that was the biggest secret someone could ever hold.
The guy's attitude didn't change when he realized I didn't know what was going on. He was nasty the whole time. He just sat there explaining the process to me. He asked me if I wanted to see a consular officer.
I asked, "What is a consular officer?"
He said, "You don't know what a consular officer is? Those are people from your country. From Guinea."
I said, "What about them? What do I have to see them for?"
Finally, they called my dad. They gave us a document about how we could see a consular officer. My dad knows how to read English, but he said to me in Pular, "Pretend you're translating to me in my language." Then he said, "Whatever you do, do not say you can go back to your country. They will circumcise you there."
My dad wasn't just coming up with a way to stay. There was a real fear of female genital mutilation in Guinea. It happened to my mom. In order to get married in Guinea, a female would have to be circumcised. My dad's brothers would do it, they would make sure I got circumcised. My parents made a decision when they had girls that they would never do it. That's the main reason why our parents never took us back to Guinea, not even to visit.
The guy told my dad, "Hey, you've got to get up, you've got to leave."
To me they said, "We have to fingerprint you." When we were done with the fingerprints, they took a picture of me. I was then sitting on a bench in the main entrance when this young lady walked in. Her name was Teshnuba. I had seen her at the mosque before, but I didn't know her personally. I just recognized her face and knew her name. I said "Hi," but in my heart, I started panicking, thinking, What the hell is she doing here? Who am I gonna see next?
Finally I was brought to another room. This room had a table, a chair on one side, and two chairs on the other side. A federal agent walked in. She said, "I need to talk you about something." The questions she was asking had nothing to do about immigration. They were terrorism questions. She asked me about people from London, about people from all over the world. I thought, what's going on?
The male interrogator told me that the religious study group Teshnuba was part of was started by a guy who was wanted by the FBI. I had no idea if that was true or not.
The study group at the mosque was all women. So it was women learning about religion, women's empowerment, why we cover, how we do the prayer, when to pray, things like that. It was more for converts and new people who had just come into Islam. There was nothing about jihad or anything like that.
I wasn't part of the group, but Teshnuba was. We were the same age, sixteen. So, they asked me about this group and they told me they'd taken my computer and my diary. My diary was a black and white notebook. I had phone numbers, I had notes, I had stories in it, I had everything. Basically, they asked me about every contact in there, they asked me about every little thing. But, there's nothing in there about jihad, there's nothing in there about anything That's, "Oh you're suspicious." There was nothing in there at all. So, I wasn't worried.
They said, "We have your computer, we can find whatever you're hiding."
I said, "Go ahead, look in my computer. I have nothing to hide."
They kept making a scene, like there was something big there. They said, "Don't lie to us. If you lie to us we'll have proof, we'll catch you in your lie."
I knew there was nothing in my computer, but at the end of the day, I started to doubt myself. I thought, Okay, what's going on now? Is there something there? Their technique is to make you doubt yourself. But then I thought, Wait a minute, I'm not this person. What are they talking about?
The interrogation lasted a long time. This secret service guy came in. He asked me how I felt about Bush. I said, "I don't like him." I was being very honest with them. There was nothing to hide.
The Secret Service guy was just too aggressive. He said, "I don't understand—why do you choose to cover when women choose to wear less and less every day?"
I said, "It's freedom of choice. Some people want to show some stuff, some people want to hide things. Some people want to preserve their bodies, some people don't want to. They want to show it to the whole world."
He said, "I don't understand. You're young, why are you doing this?"
Then they asked me about Teshnuba. They asked me about her name, they asked me about her fa
mily, but I told them, "I don't know her."
They said, "Teshnuba wrote you on this list." I said, "What list?"
They said, "She signed you up to be a suicide bomber."
I said, "Are you serious? Why would she do that? She doesn't seem like that type of person."
They were trying to make me seem like I was wrong about who I knew and who I don't know.
They took me out of the interrogation room briefly, because my dad wanted to talk to me. They had him sign papers consenting to let them talk to me because I was underage. We didn't know that we were supposed to have lawyers. The FBI never told us that.
My dad said, "Everything is going to be fine. I want you to be brave. I'll see you later."
You Put Me on a List?
Back in the interrogation room, they told me Teshnuba and I were going to leave. I said, "Where's my dad, can I say bye to him?"
They said, "He left already."
I started to cry because I'd had my dad there the whole time. I said, "Where is he going to go? What are you guys going to do?" They said that he was going to see an immigration judge before the day ended.
I asked, "When am I going to see him? Where am I going?"
They told me to stop with the questions. They brought Teshnuba and handcuffed us both, hands behind the back. The cuffs were very tight and I remember they left marks.
We got back in the Escalade. I'm very traumatized when I see Escalades now. This time, I didn't know where they took me, but it was on Varick St. in Manhattan. When we arrived at our destination, the agent told us to walk in casually because all these people were walking past us on the street. He said, "Act casual and people won't say anything."