Navigating the World with a Disadvantaged Passport.
A Personal Account of Being Denied Boarding.
Hello friends,
How are you doing? Although it’s late, I wish you a happy international women’s day. And with spring just around the corner, I hope you embrace the fresh, vibrant energy that comes with this season of growth.
This newsletter started as a result of me taking some time off of instagram (plus a little push from my amazing friend and co-host of our podcast, Hoda) because I felt like this would be a great way to vent/rant all my opinions and thoughts and trust me I have a lot of them. The few newsletters I wrote so far gravitated towards self-help ish. I do not have a specific format with this newsletter. I like the free writing aspect of it. I am not a good writer, but I want to continue writing these newsletters to get better at it. So I appreciate you talking the time out to read the stuff I have to say, no matter how generic they are.
Please bear with me, this is going to be a long one. Okay so let me set the stage here….Like 8 months ago I discovered this YouTube channel called YesTheory and man oh man.., I immediately fell in love with their content. I might be a little biased here, because at the time when I checked out their channel, the latest video on was about a trip they took to Nepal. Anywho, one of the creators (Ammar Kandil) shares in few videos his story of having a passport from a middle eastern country and how much of a struggle it is to travel places. Those videos really hit home for me, made me really emotional.
So inspired by YesTheory, I want to share my own story. I believe that sharing personal stories is how we bond and one of the most powerful ways to unite people is through a common challenge or difficulty that we all experience together. Therefore, I want to share this story of what happened to me at Istanbul airport because of the passport I hold. I have shared this story with very few people. It is because of a few reasons:
First, when I think of this incident, it makes me really angry. And anger is the kind of emotion I do not want to feel alone. Let me explain this. I do not mind being angry at the politicians and wealthy people for not doing enough regarding climate change, I do not mind being angry at corporations for making individuals think that somehow we are responsible for the plastic pollution. But I hate being angry because of something that is specific to me. Does that make sense? And when I am angry, it does not feel good to sit still, I feel the need to pour this anger out on someone or some thing, which is a terrible thing to do, and you always end up saying/doing things you do not mean when you are angry. So anger is not my favorite emotion and I want to feel as little of this emotion as possible.
Second, I have authority anxiety. When the authority says that it is me and not them that made the mistake, I was taught not to question it. I instantly blame myself for whatever is happening to me. This has largely to do with my upbringing and schooling, I am working on unlearning this.
And last, this just pains my heart. Even as I am writing this I am full of tears.
Okay, so let me begin the story…
On Dec 24th 2021, I flew from Miami to Athens, with a layover at Istanbul. Remember this was still COVID time. So we had to show PCR and proof of vaccination to be able to fly, both of which I had. The flight from Miami to Istanbul was pretty smooth. I had about 2-3 hours until my next flight from Istanbul to Athens. So I was mostly talking to my partner on phone during this time, who was already in Greece at this point. I was incredibly excited. I was gonna be in Europe for the first time, I was meeting my partner’s family for the first time (this part I was a little nervous about). Anyway, boarding time rolls around, and I get in the line. So I get to the front of the line, present this person at the gate my documents and passport. And she asks for a document from the consulate giving me the “permission” to travel to Greece, because my country of origin was Nepal and Nepal was in this “red light area”, from where travel was restricted, which is understandable given that there was a COVID surge in parts of Nepal and India at that time. I told her that I was not traveling from Nepal, I was traveling from the US. Also, the travel restrictions had few exempts, that applied to me, which were:
"EU member states nationals & the Schengen agreement, including their spouses or persons with whom they have a cohabitation agreement, as well as their minor children."
☑️I had a document that proves that I am in partnership with essentially my partner, who is in fact a Greek citizen.
“Students”
☑️I am indeed a student, I had my I-20 to prove that and a F1 visa.
“nationals and resident of the USA”
☑️I have been living in USA for more than 4 years at that point in time. Note that the official website where all these rules are listed, it does not specify permanent resident because the purpose is to characterize the origin of the travel and not the nationality and I had not been to Nepal since May of 2019, long before COVID started (I had my I94 to prove this). This interpretation of the term resident was verified by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Greece.
So you see, I had not only one exemption that applied to me, I had three…THREE!!!! In spite of that, I was denied boarding, just because of my country of origin, the passport I hold. How is this fair? I am wrong here? On top of that, the two airline staffs that at the gate, their attitude was so condescending, no compassion and empathy. I kid you not when I say I lost faith in humanity that day because of these two individuals (dramatic I know). They were not willing to listen to reasoning, they just needed this one piece of paper that gives me “permission”. Isn’t the stamp of a Greek visa on my passport giving me permission to do just that? And mind you this visa was given to me by the Greek consulate in November, a month before the travel date. And when I tried to tell them that I am traveling from the US, they asked if I had a green card. Why does it matter if I had a green card? This very much felt like a racial profiling to me.
So yea ultimately I missed the flight and I was asked to talk to the customer care for help, which was not any good either. Luckily, my partner’s family could get in touch with the Greek Embassy in Turkey to get the document emailed to me and I am incredibly thankful for them and the embassy for doing this on a Christmas eve. I don’t know what I would have done without their help in a completely foreign country. The email that accompanied this document contained instructions in both Turkish and English, which was also cced to the Turkish Airlines. Despite all that, the Turkish Airline staff questioned the validity of the document for the next several hours. During that time the Turkish Airline staff refused to provide me with hotel accommodation at the transit area of the airport. At last, around 2 am after 6 hours of me facing their dismissive attitude, I was given a new boarding pass for a new flight that morning. And after I landed in Athens, I just shoved this incident in the back of my head, wanting to never think about it again.
But the thing about trauma (Can I call it trauma?) is that it never goes away until we deal with it, does it? This incident has increased my stress and anxiety level so much every time I am at an airport. It is so ridiculous that I was so anxious when flying to Nepal last year, my own home country. At the back of my mind, I have this feeling that no matter how prepared I am with all the necessary documents, people in authority can always say no. And that’s an awful feeling to have. I do not know how to get over this or if I ever will…
The struggle will probably continue for a long time, since Nepali passport is ranked very low in the passport index. So, never take your passport privilege, if you have any, for granted.
P.S. If you made it this far, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading my story.
Until next time
-Rebika ❤️