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I went to a seminar on race and ethnicity in the United States. We talked about how immigration has traditionally been presented as the feel-good story of the peopling of America. We talked about how immigrants are lured by the myth of the promised land, only to experience the reality of exclusion and discrimination. We agreed that the melting pot metaphor does not quite apply to America. Other metaphors were proposed, including the salad bowl—the tossing of the national roughage, the popcorn popper, and the oil refinery. At the end of the course the professor proposed New York City as the metaphor for the immigrant experience—filthy, smelly, squalid, noisy, exciting, strange and familiar at the same time.

The seminar ended, and I got on the train to New York. On the train from New Haven to Grand Central I found my metaphor.

I arrived at Union Station with two other girls from the Yale seminar—Mingli from Taiwan, and Fumiko from Japan. We dragged our huge suitcases onto the 11.55 train, and after a bit of a struggle, settled into our seats. The doors slid shut, and the train was on its way.

There were three other people in the train car—a black man who was muttering to himself, and two white men in adjacent seats, having a conversation. There was something in the white men’s tone that I found disturbing. For a moment I thought they were arguing. One of them was speaking in a loud voice, for the benefit of everyone present. He said, “These stupid people can’t even plan their trip right. I can’t stand the sight of them.” His companion said something, then he said, “We should have the same thing they have in Europe, where there’s first class cars, second class, third class. . .”

He had been ranting for about five minutes when it occurred to me that he might be referring to Ming Li, Fumiko, and myself. I looked over at my fellow Asians, but they were laughing about something. They probably hadn’t noticed anything wrong. I myself wasn’t sure the white guy was talking about us, because he said, “These people can’t even speak English.” Surely he couldn’t have been referring to us—we had been speaking in English the whole time, and our grammar was better than his.

I have never to my knowledge been discriminated against, and the possibility that that white guy was saying awful things about me because I looked different came as a shock. I had thought that if such a thing ever happened I would have seizures of righteous indignation, but all I felt was horror and a twinge of something I didn’t know was pity.

The conductor came in and saw our suitcases piled on a chair. He told us we had to put the bags on the overhead racks or in the vestibule. As we got up to arrange our things, the white guy let out a loud snort. The black man stood up and helped us with our luggage. “It’s very heavy,” I warned him as he hoisted my suitcase onto the rack. He said it was alright. Then he helped Ming Li and Fumiko with their bags. We thanked him profusely, but he just shrugged and returned to his seat.

At the next stop five people got into the car: a white couple with their two small children, and a black woman in her twenties. She was carrying a box of doughnuts and the New York Times. There was a Walkman on her belt, but she wasn’t wearing the headphones—they were around her neck. Her Walkman was on, the volume was way up, and I could hear tinny Latin music coming from the headset. She sat beside me, opened the newspaper, and started to read.

The couple and their kids sat in front of me. Every thirty seconds the little blonde girl said, “Are we there? Are we there?”

Five minutes later the white guy who had been ranting about non-English speakers turned to the black woman with the Walkman and snarled, “Can you turn that thing off so we don’t have to listen to it?”

The black woman looked up from the paper and said, “If you’d asked me nicely I would have turned it off, but since you’re yelling at me I won’t.”

The white guy went ballistic. “That’s what you people do!” he cried. “You come in here and bother us. . .”

“What do you mean, my people ?” the black woman said. “You can’t yell at me, Mr. Prejudice.”

The commotion attracted a passenger from the next car. I don’t know if he was black or white, but he was tan. He stood in front of Ballistic White Guy and said, “Mister, you need to chill out.”

Ballistic White Guy seemed ready to pop a blood vessel. “This woman is disturbing us and being rude. . .” he sputtered.

“You’re the one who’s being rude,” she pointed out.

“Mister, chill out,” said the passenger, “Or I’ll make you chill out. I was a US marine, I’m not kidding.”

Ballistic White Guy continued to complain, and the woman continued to berate him. “You’re full of shit,” she told him. “If you don’t like it in this car, go sit somewhere else.”

The conductor came to punch our tickets. “Are passengers allowed to play their music on the train and disturb everyone?” Ballistic asked him. The conductor looked at him and walked away.

“You’re not allowed to yell at me and insult me, Mr. Prejudice,” said the woman. Ballistic realized that he was not going to win the argument with his scintillating personality alone. Still muttering, though less audibly, he got up and moved to another car.

“Now that he’s gone, I’m going to turn it off,” the woman announced. The Latin jazz stopped.

The passenger walked over to the woman. “I’m sorry this happened,” he said. He patted her arm. “Don’t let it ruin your day.”

“If he’d asked me nicely, I would’ve turned it off,” she repeated.

The little blonde girl knelt on her seat and peered at the woman. “You said a bad word,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” the woman said. “I didn’t see you. If I’d known you were here, I wouldn’t have said it.” She smiled at the little girl. “You’re adorable.”

The train reached Grand Central Station without further incident. I lugged my bags to the street and hailed a cab. The driver emerged to put my bag in the trunk—a giant black man in colorful flowing robes. I gave him the name of my hotel. As we drove to the corner I saw a man opening a wire cage. He took out half a dozen shiny green iguanas and placed them on top of a crate, presumably to sell them. But that is another metaphor.