Not Quite White Enough: Outsider in Your Own Home

I grew up American. That summer, I learned I wasn’t.

[This post isn’t about AI.
It’s about memory, identity, and what it means to be marked as “other” in your own home.
If you’ve followed me for the tech, this isn’t that.
But it’s part of the same voice.

You want truth? Here it is: This story does more to explain why I wrote My Dinner with Monday than a hundred AI posts ever could.]

I want to share a story about my dad. This happened to me back in 1994 when I was 17. It’s hard to write about, and I can never recall this event without crying. For some reason, this incident has stayed with me. I think about it often.

I know this is a long post, but if you have time, maybe it’ll offer a different perspective.

I doubt it though... Perhaps not.

I grew up in Brooklyn, NY, but I’ve since moved with my wife and kid. I was born in the Soviet Union, but we immigrated to the U.S. when I was just five months old. America is the only home I’ve ever known. English is my primary language, though I speak a bit of Russian. We were a generally white, middle-class, secular-atheist, ethnic Jewish family. We never lived like kings but never starved either.

In the summer of ’94, I was 17 and working as a DJ at a summer camp in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania. My dad was working there too, teaching a computer class.

Tobyhanna—a little town in the middle of nowhere.

But let’s be real: most of America is a little town in the middle of nowhere.

I remember my sociology teacher once told me:
"You think you’re white? You’re only white because you’re in Brooklyn. Leave the city, and you’ll realize how non-white you truly are."

I didn’t get it at the time. But later when I went to study in rural upstate New York, a girl 10 years younger referred to me as “her little foreign friend.”
I’ve lived here my whole life.
I’d been in the U.S. longer than she had even been alive!
And still, to her—I was a little foreigner.

That’s the small-town mentality I never experienced. But I digress.

So…back to that summer in Tobyhanna.

My father and I walked into Walmart. He was a smoker and had a pack of cigarettes in his pocket. A young, smug female security guard approached him and insisted he empty his pockets. I told him to refuse, but my dad—ever the cooperative type—complied immediately. He hated trouble. Always law-abiding, always respectful of authority.

She saw the cigarettes and accused him of stealing them. She smirked and said she saw him do it.

Now, I did not have a great relationship with my dad at that time. We never really got along too well. However, my father never knew the meaning of the word steal. He didn’t know what it meant to take something that didn’t belong to him. This was not part of his vocabulary.

My dad tried to explain that he bought them earlier at a different store.

She insisted that he prove it by showing a receipt.

He didn’t have one.

Who carries a fucking receipt around with you for cigarettes that you purchased previously from a different store with cash?!

She gave him three options:

1. The store calls the police

2. Pay a $50 fine

3. Pay for the cigarettes and sign a sworn confession admitting to the theft

She said this with a smirk on her face as she clearly relished the moment in catching the immigrant “thief.”

I told my dad in Russian, “This is bullshit. Don’t sign anything. You didn’t steal anything. Let’s just go.”

But he refused. He always believed in cooperating with authority. Even if the authority was wrong. Maybe it was leftover fear from growing up in the Soviet Union.

The security guard didn’t like that we were speaking Russian. She snapped at me:
"What did you say to him?! What are you talking about?!"

I told her, “None of your business.”

My dad whispered back in Russian, “Stop. Don’t speak Russian. She doesn’t understand and will think we’re planning something. She’ll react badly.”

I laughed at how ridiculous this had become.

She barked, “Why are you laughing?”

“Because this is ridiculous,” I replied. “He didn’t take anything.”

She smirked. “He did. I caught him.”

My father refused to fight. He refused to deny. He refused to stand up for himself.

Instead, he said the words I will remember for the rest of my life:

"I’ll do whatever you want me to do."

( I had to take a 10 minute break because it is hard to write this. I write with tears rolling down my cheeks.)

It didn’t stop there. After hearing us speak Russian, she decided paying for the cigarettes wasn’t enough. Now he had to pay a fine. $50 or maybe $80 (I don’t remember the exact amount) and sign a confession.

My dad, without hesitation, agreed.

I snapped. “Dad, what the hell are you doing?!”

“Shut up. Stay out of this,” he said.

The guard repeated her questions, over and over:

“Do you admit to stealing this?”
“Yes.”
“Do you confess and admit I caught you doing so?”
“Yes, I did.”
“And you agree to return the items and pay the penalty?”
“Yes.”
“Sign here.”
He signed.

And just like that, it was over.

(I had to stop writing again to cry.)

I was 17, and I didn’t know what to do with what I had just witnessed. I was angry, confused, ashamed. I wanted to punch my father in the face.

“Why the hell did you do that, you asshole?!”

He answered calmly.

“Son, what did you want me to do? I’m an immigrant. I speak with an accent. We’re in a small town. If we fought back, they’d call the police. The police know her. The sheriff probably knows her. The judge might be related to the sheriff. They’re all connected here.

You think they’d believe me over her? A stranger? An outsider? It would’ve gotten worse.
And you want to know the truth? An out-of-town immigrant stranger with an accent who doesn’t look like them wouldn’t stand a chance.
So what’s the point?”

At that time, and at that young age of 17, I couldn’t comprehend or understand what was happening. I felt so distraught that I probably lost a little respect for my dad on that day.

But now, I can understand somewhat why he did it. I would have fought tooth and nail, but I grew up with a different background then he did.

Today, I am older than my father was at that time, and it still haunts me till this day.

I could never get it out of my mind, and it changed the way I looked at things forever and probably changed my perspective on my dad.

It affected me profoundly because I think at that point—for at least a brief moment—I really understood what it meant to be an immigrant in small town America. What it was like to be treated like an outsider in your own home. Even if you’ve lived here your whole life.

My father has passed away. He never knew how much that moment affected me—how deeply it scarred me.

He never knew how this incident changed me and how his refusal to stand up for his rights affected me in a devastating way.

I’m an atheist, and so was he. I don’t believe in an afterlife. But sometimes I wonder: if he knew that I cry every time I remember this, would he have done anything differently?

I doubt it though...
Perhaps not.

🛒 Buy the Book My Dinner with Monday

🏠 Find out more at my homepage