I was born and bred in the United States, and my roots are undeniably tied to my parents’ native Durango and Guadalajara, Mexico, but strangers have frequently mistaken my dark hair and skin coloring for that of a Middle-Eastern woman. No one, however, had ever labeled me a terrorist suspect before.

My security trial began long before I reached the airport metal detector. I was traveling alone from Los Angeles to connect with my tour group. Like the rest of the group, I waited in line to be interviewed by El Al’s security before approaching the ticket counter.
Following the typical line of questioning about who packed my bags and whether they had been with me at all times, the security agent began an intense probing. Her suspicions bordered on accusatory.

“Did anyone give you any gifts to take with you?” she asked.

Even though I repeatedly said no, she continued to press with determination.

“Please, you must tell us the truth,” she insisted.

Other questions followed. “Where are you going and why? Why are you traveling alone in a group? Why couldn’t you find friends to travel with? You don’t know where you’ll be staying?”

Surely there was a reason for their exhaustive probing, I thought. Maybe they were privy to research that revealed that women traveling alone blow up planes.

Since 9/11, people who previously were able to glide through security lines without a problem have become suspect — even families. According to Laurie Jaghlitt, a civil rights attorney for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Arab-looking families have been asked to leave a plane if other passengers or flight crew feel uncomfortable or suspicious of them.

By now the security agent had called on her supervisor. Together, they continued their interrogation as I watched my group leave the ticket counter and head onto their boarding gate.

The drill of questioning scanned topics that seemed unrelated to security issues. “How do you pray?” one agent asked. “Do you know any Jews or Arabs?”

One of the seemingly important points of this questioning was my employment and financial status. The agents wanted to know how I got the money to pay for the trip and my method of payment. Security asked for a business card, checks and other credentials. I learned the hard way that it’s important to know your itinerary, have your hotel confirmations, and have all documentation ready for scrutinizing whenever you travel.

My interrogating agents had summoned the supervisor’s supervisor, and the verdict was in. I would not be allowed on my flight to Israel with my travel group.

Despite my tears and pleading, they insisted that I should return the following morning to JFK for a thorough inspection of my luggage before being allowed to fly to Tel Aviv. With a hotel voucher in hand that identified my reason for the overnight stay as a “security reason,” they checked me into a New York City hotel.

The following morning, I spent more than two hours watching El Al’s inspectors carefully scrutinize my luggage and its contents with laparoscopic eyes. They dismantled my camera, walkman and hair dryer. Since they were unable to do the same with my travel iron, they had it shipped to my home address at their expense.

I was intrigued by the technology used to examine my papers, books and Bible. It was like watching TV detectives use “I-Spy” high-tech gear, except this time they were using it to probe through my lingerie and paper copies of articles on archeological digs in Israel.

A packing tip to keep in mind, I know now, is to separate batteries from your camera and walkman or CD player so you can expedite the searching process. Be sure to remove all film from your camera before going through security, or you risk having it exposed.
After an exhaustive process that culminated with a body search and with security escorting me to a new flight to Tel Aviv, I finally connected with my tour group already in progress. Out of the 150 people on the tour, only a few others were questioned for one hour. None encountered my security misadventure.

We all had one common denominator: We were all either dark-skinned or dark-haired. There was the Puerto Rican priest, the Italian-American businessman, and the college student with a dark, bushy beard.

El Al boasts of being one of the most secure airlines in the world. After 9/11, it was the first airline to fly because it already had in place the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) new stringent standards requirements. Even its pilots are from the elite Israeli Air Force.

Indeed, my extreme security encounter happened before 9/11, but since the subsequent security increases such experiences have only become more common. Today there are several groups monitoring reports on alleged racial profiling and other airline security mishaps.

“Racial profiling would be more subtle with American airlines than Israelis picking out the dark-skinned travelers,” says Barry Steinhard, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) Technology and Liberty Program.

He and other civil rights and privacy groups have been debating the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its Transportation Security Administration (TSA) on its next generation of Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS II). They are concerned that it may use screening factors that would single out minorities and thwart privacy rights.

Under the proposed system, the TSA would attempt to authenticate a passenger’s identity and perform a risk assessment on every airline passenger. Travelers’ information would be checked against commercial and government databases to assign each passenger a “threat index.”

Mark O. Hatfield, Jr., director of the Office of Communications and Public Information for TSA, says they have assigned a “privacy czar” who will analyze results to make sure there isn’t any disparate impact on any particular group of people.

If you feel you have been or might be singled out or treated unfairly by airport security/airline personnel because of your religion, skin color or nationality, here are some steps to take:

1. Be prepared. Know and abide by airline/airport security requirements before packing. Check out the Transportation Security Administrations’ website which lists items you can take on your carry-on and checked baggage as well as tips on how to dress to reduce your wait time at the security checkpoint. www.tsa.gov.

2. Be aware. Compare how security treats other people, and if you feel you are being singled out for race, religion or nationality, ask why. They may not give you an answer, but it’s worth a try.

3. Be confident. Ask for the supervisor and document names and details of incident. Find out what you need to do to correct the problem.

4. Be informed. Become familiar with the airline’s policies on anti-discrimination to cite in your complaint.

5. Be active. Write a letter to the appropriate airline/organization and copy your local elected representative.