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It was the summer of 2029 when the pain, darkness, and chaos I experienced in my own country changed me forever. I was starting a new job the next month, and I knew that this might be the last chance I would have to go on an extended road trip. I had always wanted to go to Washington D.C., a place that, for me, encapsulated everything that was perfect in America.

I immediately got on a 4-way call with my closest friends Lily Liu, Amy Wang, and Jennifer Huang, asking if they wanted to go on a road trip with me. Lily was all in: “What will we do? Where will we go?” Jennifer had her priorities straight: “Maybe somewhere sandy and sunny, where you can drink a pina colada on the beach?” I knew the kind of reaction I would get, but I threw out my plan for Washington D.C. anyway. Amy responded, “What?! You want to drive to Washington D.C? Have you seen the headlines lately?”

I recalled yet another newspaper article I had seen that morning, with the headline “ASIAN-AMERICAN MAN BEATEN IN MISSOURI.” Just reading it had made me feel sick to my stomach. I realized that our trip would need to be planned around the possibility of facing anti-Asian racism in certain states. I knew my friends would need more convincing, so I said that we would talk more tomorrow about planning and hung up. I had to plan every detail of our journey in order to keep us—four Chinese-American women— safe.

I quickly scurried to my bookshelf and pulled out a book my mother had given me for my 25th birthday called The Anquan Book. My mother had told me that this book would keep me safe; in fact, the word Anquan means ‘safety’ in Chinese. She had looked me in the eyes while handing me the book, saying, “Now, to be clear, this is not your typical traveling guide providing the ‘hot spots’, you know. This is an actual life saver for Asian folks since anti-Asian racism in the United States is so brutal now. Keep it with you at all times when you travel. You understand?” She had hoped that having this guidebook would lessen my chances of encountering the trauma of anti-Asian hate crimes in the United States.

I opened the dusty book that I had never seen before. The book included everything from gas stations that would serve Asians to restaurants, districts, shops, salons, garages, and safe places to stay. During the 2020 Pandemic, Asians were notoriously spat on, punched, kicked, or even murdered in seemingly progressive places like New York City, California, and the District of Columbia. Since the mid-20s, the racist attacks have escalated. Racist rhetoric has divided the United States, literally separating pro-Trump states from those who reject his white supremacy. For many Asian-Americans, things did not get better after the 2020 Pandemic. They have gotten worse. Racists used the COVID-19 Pandemic to attack Asians in particular, and areas of the United States started preventing Asians from visiting their states. These restrictions expanded to include any non-state residents of color. The southern states have officially become “Trump country,” The Anquan Book listed all the cities and states that people of color should avoid when traveling and had become an essential part of any road trip. As always, looking at the book filled me with despair and disappointment at how our country had progressed.

After studying the book for a couple hours, I called my friends back, reminding them that we would have to shift our travel plans in order to avoid the worst places. We knew that taking the trip would be a risk, but they all agreed to go anyway, and we each studied our individual copy of The Anquan Book and began planning our trip from there. We met the next day for lunch and reviewed our plans. “Well…ok, to be able to drive from one state to another, we will have to drive through some of the unrecommended roads in the book, but I guess there is no way to avoid that,” Amy said with concern. Lily responded, “We will just try to work our way around the roads as much as possible. I just hope we can have fun without dealing with all the painful

and fearful parts just because we are Asian, you know?” I had thought the same. I just wanted to have a good time with my friends and remain safe.

After several days of planning had passed, we began to pack for our trip. We knew that we would be relatively safe until we hit Missouri. However, the book had listed the safe areas for Asians to travel in—even in Missouri. Lily, Amy, Jennifer, and I rented a large modern Sprinter van conversion and left Saturday morning. From California, we drove through Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Kansas. The trip was absolutely lovely. The scenery in every state was breathtaking, and I was so excited to continue this road trip. We had not faced any road blocks or large challenges thus far, and I was so relieved when I was reassured by my friends that the rest of the trip would be a breeze. The fresh wind blowing against my face while driving felt so freeing and relaxing. However, everything changed when we hit “Trump country.”

After crossing into Missouri, we drove in relative silence until we had passed through Jefferson City. Whenever I glanced in the rear-view mirror, Lily and Jennifer were constantly turning their heads to see if anybody was following us. Luckily, Amy was helping me navigate the road the entire time to ensure that we were following The Anquan Book. Suddenly, Amy shifted uncomfortably in the passenger seat, glancing at the cars around us: “Well…at least it looks really pretty outside, but it’s a lot of White people.” We all laughed nervously. “It is gorgeous countryside,” I said.

It was an uneventful two days until we hit St. Louis City, which is when all the trouble began. We followed The Anquan Book’s directions throughout the day when we suddenly found ourselves confronting a road closure. We pulled over to talk about what we should do. I looked at my friends and saw the worry on their faces, “Ok, well this is not what we planned, but we are going to have to find an alternative way to get to our destination,” I said, starting to think that

coming to Missouri wasn’t such a bright idea after all. Then Lily stated, “Hmm, but the book says that this is the only safe way in Missouri to get to our next location, which is Illinois.” Jennifer chimed in, “Ok well, we don’t really have a choice then, right? We can’t just turn back now. Let’s just get out of here as fast as possible.” Never failing to provide the logic in our conversations, Amy assured us, “I bet we will be fine. I heard Missouri is one of the more moderate states compared to the Deep South, so how bad could it possibly be? I mean...we haven’t even faced any blatant racism during our trip thus far.” I guess Amy had a point. We had only confronted occasional looks of disgust and people distancing themselves from us as if we were still in some kind of pandemic. However, maybe I was being too paranoid. I nervously chuckled and said, “Haha ya you are probably right. This is just a road closure. It’s nothing big or traumatic yet. Let's just keep driving using another route.” I tried to keep myself cool and collected, hoping that I wouldn’t push my friends to get scared for nothing...but I did not have a good feeling about this.

It was about 6:00 pm, and as we continued the drive on our new course, Jennifer remarked, “I’m getting really hungry. Could we get something to eat for dinner really quick?” Lily immediately knew the perfect place for us to eat: “Ya sure! I heard there is this really good place called the White Knight Diner in the College Hill neighborhood. I checked it up on Yelp and it has awesome reviews. Let’s head over there. Sound good?” We all simultaneously exclaimed “yep!”

When we arrived at the White Knight Diner, I observed that there was nobody who looked like us. Everybody was White, wearing white-washed jeans and oversized t-shirts. As soon as we walked into the dinner, nearly everybody was staring at us as if we had committed some kind of crime or had tainted their “only Whites” environment just by entering. I felt very

uncomfortable and a little embarrassed to be in the diner. Lily, Jennifer, Amy, and I quickly ordered our food. As we waited for our food to be ready, I noticed a sheriff in the corner of the room starting to slowly walk towards us with his arms crossed. “Um...Amy what time is it?” I asked. “It is currently 7:18 pm. Why?” responded Amy. That is when I knew we were in deep deep trouble. I quickly stood up and blurted, “7:18?!! Get up! Get up! We gotta get out of here now!” “Wait what is happening? What’s wrong? Did you accidentally lock the van without bringing your keys again?” Lily asked. “No! Of course not! Just be quiet and go! I’ll explain later!” I said. The four of us got up, grabbed our food on the pick-up counter, ran as fast as we could out of the diner, quickly hopping into the van. I started driving as quickly as possible to get out of St. Louis, but we only had a few minutes before sundown. “I’m so confused. What is going on?” Jennifer inquired.

Glancing in the rear-view mirror, I noticed that the sheriff from the diner had started to drive behind us to chase us out of town. Frantically trying to reach the border of the town, I responded to Jennifer, “Basically, St. Louis is a ‘sundown town”, meaning that Chinese- Americans, Blacks, or other racial minorities are allowed to go about their day in the town, but we have to leave before dark, or else we could be arrested, beaten, or maybe even worse. “Ugh, I can’t believe I almost forgot!” I said. Still confused about what we were talking about, Jennifer said, “But it’s not sundown yet.” Luckily, Lily intervened in our conversation and responded, “But it will be in 6 minutes!” I was just focused on getting us across the midpoint between Missouri and Illinois—the Martin Luther King Bridge.

The police car sped up and forcefully rammed into our van a couple of times. Starting to feel the urgency of the situation, Jennifer said, “Oh no...we aren’t going to make it if we continue to drive at this rate! Can you go any faster?” By then, I was starting to get frustrated with all the

questions. “No, we cannot go faster. He's gonna pull us over, which is even worse because then he has a reason to arrest us or do whatever he wants with us! Someone please tell me how much time we have left,” I said trying to control myself. Pushing her wiry glasses up her nose and tightly grabbing the car door, Amy loudly said, “3 minutes. Everyone just calm down and let her focus on driving so we can get out of here before sundown.” I was so glad Amy was there to help me manage the nerve-wracking situation we were in. When I glanced outside the window, the sun slowly fell behind all the tall trees and mountains in my view, and the colors were fading into pure darkness. “30 seconds left!” yelled Amy. I could hear my heart pounding out of my chest. “10 seconds!” Amy cried. The midpoint between the border of Missouri and Illinois on the bridge was just within my reach, and just a couple of seconds later, we thankfully made it out of St. Louis town, out of Missouri, out of this nightmare. When I turned back to check, the sheriff had also suddenly stopped following us.

Relieved that we had crossed the border in time, Amy leaned back in the passenger seat and said, “Oh my gosh, thank goodness we made it.” Near tears and breathless from fear, Lily and Jennifer hesitantly asked “Is it over? Did we make it?” almost in unison. Trying to catch my breath and staring directly at the road ahead of us, I was still in shock and in distress with what we had just experienced. Never again, I thought to myself. I am never again coming back to “Trump country.”

Although that night we had finally made it to Illinois where we knew we would be safe, we all agreed that it would probably be safer to just sleep in the car because we didn’t want to risk facing that kind of trauma again. The rest of the night was quiet. Morning came, and we got up from our sleeping arrangements in the van to prepare for the ongoing trip. After going through Missouri, we knew we would need to avoid “Trump country” for the rest of our road

trip, so drove through Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland to get to the district I’ve been waiting for this entire journey: Washington D.C.

When we finally made it to Washington D.C. after a day of driving, the rest of the trip was a dream come true. Amy, Lily, Jennifer, and I visited the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, United States Capitol, and even The White House! Everything was absolutely incredible, with all the rich and historical sights I had been dying to see since I was a child. Washington D.C. had truly embodied everything amazing about America. However, despite its stunning beauty, Washington D.C made me realize the irony of how partisan the United States remains. Although the journey really was a dream that came true, the trauma I had faced on the way, due to my identity, still lingers with me till this day.

 

Newspaper Articles:

“As Lunar New Year Approaches, Many Asians Worry about Future Journeys.” Travel, National Geographic, 11 Feb. 2021, www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/will-travel-after-covid-still-be-fraught-for-asians.

“Attacks on Asian-Americans in New York Stoke Fear, Anxiety and Anger.” The New York Times, 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/02/26/nyregion/asian-hate-crimes-attacks-ny.html.

Farivar, Masood. “Hate Crimes Targeting Asian Americans Spiked by 150% in Major US Cities.” Voice of America, 2 Mar. 2021, www.voanews.com/usa/race-america/hate-crimes-targeting-asian-americans-spiked-150-major-us-cities.