Since September 11, 2001 and the horrific attacks on that day, a lot of things have changed in the United States. I’m not talking about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that followed the tragic events, but the many little things that have changed too. Fear and suspicion has occupied the minds of ordinary people, but also of the leaders and powers to be in the United States and it is showing its effects.
When my cousin recently flew to the United States, her headshot and fingerprints where taken, a result of tighten security measures. Nothing wrong with that, apparently when the United States announced their plans to tighten airport security, Brazil did the same and started to take fingerprints and headshots, which left many US citizens who arrived in Brazil quite puzzled on why the local government would do something like that… But of course, nowadays, everyone is a suspect, even a tourist from Texas who arrives in Sao Paolo and who wants nothing else but catching a tan.
But back to my cousin – when her headshot was taken, she was not allowed to smile on the picture. Hello?! I can only assume that smiling on a picture that is taken to protect the United States from evil wrongdoers is something very dangerous. A smile must indeed be a weapon of mass destruction!
Since September 11, 2001, there is nothing to laugh about in the United States anymore some might assume. I remember my first trip to the United States in 1999, when my cousin and I flew home from Chicago. We filmed at the airport and the Check-in lady would even pose for us and have a big smile on her face. I still have that footage and I will keep it as a great reminder of happy and fearless days in the land of the free. I might show it to my kids one day, when everyone who arrives in the United States will be held in an immigration zone for a couple of hours to be interrogated and marked with an transmitter before being allowed to enter the country.
Protection and taking precautions necessary, but does it mean everyone is a suspect, and no one can expect a warm welcome to the United States anymore?
I am American, and about 20 years ago when my father applied for a new passport, he sent in a picture in which he was not smiling. They refused it and told him to send one in which he was smiling. Apparently, they found his look too menacing.