Another border-crossing rant.

I think Obama has made some positive steps toward undoing damage done during the past eight years, but when it comes to Customs and Immigration officers, these assholes still seem to be operating under the reactionary policies of the Bush regime. I don't even know where to start with today's ordeal.

I suppose the first stupid thing that happened with today's officer was, after making me shut the car off and hand him the keys, he opened the backdoor and saw my duffel bag, which I got while working for an industrial painting company and which has the logo of the company on it and is unsurprisingly covered in paint, and this conversation followed:
Him: Whoa, what's this?
Me: My luggage.
Him: Looks like paint.
Me: Nice catch, Poirot. (I didn't actually say this, but I wanted to.)

Then he found my prescription skin cream, and this conversation followed:
Him: You have a prescription?
Me: Yes. It's skin cream. I have eczema.
Him: Is it pills?
Me: No, it's a cream.

Then he spent an inordinate amount of time searching the trunk, considering there was nothing in it but a tire pump, a road side emergency kit, and a spare tire. Then he walked around to the other side, knocking on each door to make sure there was nothing hidden inside of them. This was incredibly insulting because what it really amounts to is an accusation that I'm attempting to smuggle drugs.

Then he opened the front passenger door and searched my glove box and backpack. Then he made me pop the hood. I don't know what he expected to find, but I could have told him exactly what I keep there. An engine.

Then, this conversation:
Him: You can start it up.
Me: You have my keys, dick bag. (I didn't really say the second part.)

I always wanted to think that I wasn't being profiled, but let's call a spade a spade. What I don't know is whether I'm being profiled because of my age/sex, because I'm Mexican (but maybe look a little Middle-Eastern (if you're a racist border guard)), or because I'm an academic in a field that border guards don't understand and feel threatened by.

I think it worth mentioning at this point that every border guard I've encountered coming into the states has been a white man. It should go without saying why this is a problem.

Another thing that might work against me is that I have one stamp in my passport and it happens to be from Amsterdam. Where I caught connecting flights to and from Greece, where I studied for a semester. Unfortunately for me, they don't stamp your passport when you fly from Greece to Amsterdam because you're still in the European Union.

Also, after being harassed every time I cross the border, it's come to the point where several questions in, my leg begins to shake uncontrollably, which gives away how nervous I am. But I'm not nervous because I've done anything wrong. I haven't. It's a conditioned response to the badgering, power-tripping, ignorant assholes I have to deal with every time I just want to visit the girlfriend/friends/city I didn't want to leave in the first place.

So, to recap, things border guards don't understand:
1) Cultural Studies
2) Michel Foucault
3) Eczema
4) How substitute teaching works (they always want to know how I get the time off)
5) The EU
6) Why they make people nervous when the nature of their position is to make people nervous.