We remember the shame and the slights.

Being 6 years old and walking toward passport control with Dad, who has sweaty hands, who clears his throat, who fixes his hair and shines up his shoes on the backs of his knees. All the pink-colored people are let by. But our dad is stopped. And we think, maybe it was by chance, until we see the same scene repeated year after year.

Being 7 and starting school and being told about society by a dad who was terrified even then that his outsiderness would be inherited by his children. He says, “When you look like we do, you must always be a thousand times better than everyone else if you don’t want to be refused.”

Being 8 and deciding to become the class’s most studious nerd, the world’s biggest brown-noser.

Being 9 and watching action films where dark men rape and kidnap, manipulate and lie, steal and abuse.

Being 10 and being chased by skinheads for the first, but not the last, time.

Being 12 and coming into a record store and noticing how the security guards circle like sharks. They talk into walkie-talkies, they follow only a few yards behind us. Move in a maximally noncriminal fashion. Walk normally. Breathe calmly. Walk up to that shelf of CDs and reach for that Tupac album in a way that indicates you are not planning to steal it.

Being 13 and hearing stories. A friend’s older brother tossed into a police van and beaten up. Dad’s friend N, who was found by a police patrol and locked up in the drunk tank because he was slurring, and the police didn’t notice until the next day that something was wrong, and in the E.R. they found the aneurysm, and at his funeral his girlfriend said, “If only they had called me, I could have told them that he didn’t drink alcohol.” All while our city was besieged by a xenophobe with a rifle and a laser sight, who shot 11 dark-haired men in seven months without the police stepping in.