An open letter to the white, English speaking US passport holders
let's have a chat about privilege, power and victimhood
Dearest friend,
I think there has been a grave misunderstanding. Because as a white person, who holds a US passport, and speaks native English…
You are not the victim of immigrants.
Because the group with more privilege and thus more power…
Cannot be a victim.
And lets clear this one up first:
Being harmed by an individual is not equivalent to being categorically oppressed by a group.
You can be the victim of a crime committed by an immigrant without being the victim of immigrants as a class.
A crime committed by an individual does not automatically make you a victim of the group they belong to- unless that harm reflects a systemic pattern reinforced by power.
Listen, I remember what it’s like growing up in small town Alabama. It seems like everyone who is “other” is a threat to your very existence.
You honestly may not realize the immense privilege and power that you hold
Just because of the country you were born into and the language you speak
As someone who left the US in 2019 and has traveled to 59 countries all across the world, I have become acutely aware of the privileges that come along with
speaking English natively
having a US passport
having white skin (although it is polka dotted which confuses people in some countries)
I used to think I couldn’t admit to “having privilege” because it somehow meant I was a bad person. Or that it negated any effort that I put in.
If someone even hinted that I had “privilege” I would immediately feel defensive.
So if you feel that way right now.
Take a deep breath.
You are not under attack.
At the heart of it:
Acknowledging privilege involves allowing someone else’s experience of the world to be different from yours.
It’s being humble enough to know the only shoes you can walk in are your own.
It’s being open enough to trust other people when they share what the world is like from their shoes.
Acknowledging privilege is validating other people’s realities
It’s zooming out to look at the systems we all uphold that create those realities.
That’s why denying your privilege feels like straight up gaslighting.
** and as a side note, I do not understand why acknowledging the reality of people besides white men is considered “woke” or “radical”.
That being said, I believe the best way to understand privilege is not necessarily data point and statistics (although those help add credibility), but through stories and first hand experiences.
So here are some specific examples of how I’ve realized some of my privileges
Native English Speaker Privilege
When I first left the US, one of the ways I earned money online was by teaching English.
I taught through a company called VIP Kid and made $22-$24/ hr
I didn’t have a teaching degree. The reason I got the job: I was a native English speaker. (And got an online TEFL certificate)
While I was traveling, I made friends from other countries who spoke English quite well. Because, impressively, they had learned it as a second language
But they were immediately rejected from companies like VIP Kid, simply because they were not native English speakers.
The only companies that would hire them paid $12/ hr or less.
I cannot think of a clearer example: this is literally the definition of privilege.
We were both doing the “same job”
I made $22/hr because I was born speaking a language.
Literally all I did…. was be born.
They made $12/ hr because
they LEARNED a second language.
Can we pause on that for a second. Because it’s a double injustice.
It’s not that we put the same amount of effort in and then I got a better paying job.
It’s that they put in MORE effort and still were paid LESS than me.
A $10/ hr difference.
Because of where we were born.
The fact that you were born speaking English is a privilege.
And as you can see, that gives you power.
When someone “doesn’t speak English”
they are not attacking you
or harming you
or threatening you
They are not victimizing you in any way.
They are simply speaking their own language.
Plus, the person who holds more power (aka… you)
cannot also claim to be a victim.
US Passport Privilege
I was completely unaware of this one before traveling.
The US passport historically has held a lot of power
I can usually enter a country without thinking ahead
and get through customs with a visa on arrival.
I don’t have to think much about crossing borders
because for the most part I assume I’ll be let in without problem.
But I’ve traveled with friends from
Bolivia, India, South Africa, Guatemala, etc
and borders are not as open to them.
There are some countries they cannot travel to at all.
There are many more countries where they have to fill out paperwork months in advance, travel in person to an embassy, and pay fees so they can enter the country.
That’s the way I’ve observed passport privilege.
I have more doors open to me
and it costs me less admin work to walk through those doors.
White privilege
Now, as for my white privilege. This one feels the trickiest to write about. I am likely still blind to many of the ways it has benefitted me over my lifetime.
But one of the starkest exampleswas at the airport when I was traveling with a friend from India.
When I’m traveling alone, I usually have delightful experiences.
checking in
boarding the plane
smiling and being helped through security
Sometimes I’ll forget to take liquids out of my bad (I actually “forget” it on purpose, because they usually don’t stop me)
They graciously hand me my bag, I remove the liquids, and I put my bag back through. No big deal.
If there is something flagged in my bag on the scan (my podcast mic used to always set it off). It was still a lovely experience.
They just “needed to check” to make sure everything was fine. But they were friendly, kind and just doing their job. No animosity or suspicion was directed at me, because after all, I’m a white lady.
But traveling with my Indian friend, was an entirely different experience.
We were stopped at every single check point. Patted down alllll over as we went through security. Picked for “random searches” of our bags before boarding the plane. Passports scrutinized at customs.
There were microagressions of suspicion the entire journey. I felt on edge. Like I was a criminal. I constantly felt like I needed to apologize for doing something wrong.
And I wasn’t even the person that was being directly targeted.
My emotional experience was just from traveling with someone of a different race. I cannot imagine how much more intense the experience would be, if I had a different color skin.
So do you see how this all adds up?
Because of the language you speak
you have more economic opportunity
Because of the passport you hold
more doors are open to you
and you can walk through them more freely
Because of your race
you are treated with kindness instead of suspicion.
Imagine how those benefits accumulate over months and years and decades and centuries
That $10/ hr difference
That new country
That treatment from strangers
They add up to increased relative power over time.
Privilege creates power.
And maybe you don’t feel like you have much power
But as a white, English speaking US passport holder
you have more structural power than most people in the world.
You, as a US citizen, cannot be a victim of immigrants.
So, basically what I’m saying is: can we just let them speak Spanish?