13-Year-Old Girl Humiliated for Being Insufficiently USian

In an increasingly familiar fit of the nationalistic racism I'll call Illegal Alarmism, a 13-year-old US citizen of Mexican heritage was marched in front of her class and accused of being an undocumented immigrant by her teacher for wearing a Team Mexico football shirt.

[Diana Aviles] said the teacher singled out her daughter in front of the class and accused of her being an illegal immigrant while the girl was wearing the shirt for the World Cup soccer tournament.

"Basically, she put her down in front of the whole class," Aviles said Thursday.

Aviles said she and her daughter are U.S. citizens. The teacher later apologized.

Hmm. I wonder if she would have apologized if the girl had been an undocumented immigrant—because what the teacher did wouldn't have been acceptable even if she hadn't been denying her student's citizenry. (For a whole lot of reasons, not least of which is that a 13-year-old doesn't become an undocumented immigrant by her own design.)

And, in addition to wondering why anyone would ever try to turn someone's immigration status into an insult, as if the rest of us have some choice over where we're born and what opportunities we're given, I also wonder why the fuck anyone who holds such an absurd opinion and works in the public sector serving children, among whom might be undocumented immigrants or the children of undocumented immigrants, would express that view as if it has any business existing outside the confines of an impenetrably bigoted head.

Aviles said her family visits an orphanage in Mexico, and so they bought a "Mexico" shirt. The family also tried to buy a "USA" shirt, but none were available, she said.

I just feel bad that she even had to say this, as if there would be something wrong with wanting a football strip other than Team USA's. Iain—who, rest assured, has proven his sufficient USianness by purchasing a Team USA jersey already—has commented several times that he likes the strips of other countries as we watch World Cup matches. If they weren't ridiculously expensive, he'd no doubt have jerseys from all over the world.

Which, frankly, strikes me as way more "American" (fist-bump the melting pot!) than humiliating a child, no less erroneously so, for the grievous sin of not having been born here.

[H/T to Shaker Maria, who notes: "If you value your sanity/faith in humanity, don't read the comments. However, if you read Spanish, it's worth glancing through the comments on the Spanish-language version of the story, if only because the contrast is amusing."]