Traveling can be a liberating experience. For people of color it can be surprising in different ways.
Guest host Raquel Cepeda spoke to novelist and journalist Farai Chideya about an article she wrote, Traveling While Black, that was featured in the New York Times.
Chideya wrote about traveling to Africa as a healing experience. She says she learned that most of the world is “brownish,” which gave her a new perspective on identity.
Farai Chideya has combined media, technology, and socio-political analysis during her 20-year career as an award-winning author, journalist, professor, and lecturer. She is a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. She was also a spring 2012 fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics.
Photo by Woohae Cho AFP/Getty Images
Love that stock photo! The right page is a work visa for employment in the mining industry in the FRG.
It reminds me how strange and informal the American popular stance on immigration is (at least once you are on US soil.) Many years ago I went to school abroad I had a two page visa, mostly hand written stating the terms of my stay. Prior to getting a visa I had to get proof from the local police back home showing I had no criminal record. My family had to pay for and provide proof of health insurance. And the family I stayed with had to inform the local town government of my presence and pay a fee (some household fees are based on how many occupants a dwelling has.) And the region I lived in was near the border with two other countries, and legally you were supposed to have your passport (or a federal ID card) with you all the time.