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America was in the middle of the Gulf War as my friends and I planned our spring break trip to Cancun, Mexico in 1991. Despite the fact I was in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, from Iran and living in the epicenter of U.S. politics, all I cared about was finding the perfect outfit to take on the trip—should I take the lipstick-red miniskirt or was that too risqué?
At 14, my Iranian parents shipped me off to a Catholic all-girls boarding school in California from our home in Vancouver, Canada. I loved my boarding school in America, the country I had dreamed of coming to since leaving Tehran at 8 years old. In Iran, I had watched American movies and TV shows and longed for all things they portrayed as the ideals of life: freedom, independence, equality.
At my boarding school and later in college, I was free to be bold, opinionated, and strong, without fear of retribution, like the kind I'd experienced with my Iranian community, which preferred a well-mannered girl who understood her place.
The one downside of boarding school, however, was that I didn't get what I thought was the quintessential American teen experience—no homecoming dances, no boys to have crushes on in class. Instead my girlfriends and I would spend our Friday nights watching Cheers and Family Ties with bowls of popcorn and M&Ms.
So, when during my sophomore year of college my blonde, bubbly friend, Sophia, asked if I wanted to go to Cancun for spring break—the classic American college vacation—I was thrilled.
On the flight, I watched a rowdy pack of boys from Jersey who had already started celebrating with tumblers of who-knows-what, presumably ready to make mistakes their parents would be mortified by.
When we stepped out of the Cancun airport, crammed with tourists, the thick heat engulfed us and we got our first glimpse of the palm trees and the blue cloudless sky. We were quickly loaded onto buses to our hotels. It turned out the already inebriated guys were going to the same place. The bus ride was the second act of their rambunctious Jersey Shore parody, which both scared and excited me.
Within a couple of days, my friends and I hit a routine; wake up for a late lunch at the tourist-packed pool, walk around sucking in our stomachs while taking quick dips in the water, spend hours adjusting our outfits and hair, and finally, far too late, squeeze into a decades old cab, smelling of cigarettes, to go to a Mexican-themed franchised bar.
This restaurant of Americanized binge drinking and debauchery was nothing like I'd seen before. You could hear the percussive music thumping from blocks away, see the neon lights glowing, and smell the mixture of vomit, body spray, and spectacularly large and sugary margaritas with overtly sexual names.
On the fifth day of our vacation, we decided to head out on a booze cruise. I had no idea what that was, but it sounded classier than the bar we'd been hanging out in all week. I decided I'd wear my cutest outfit: thigh-high black suede boots—the wisdom of which is unclear to me now—a black skirt and a long button-down white silk shirt.
Joining my friends at the dock, I quickly realized I was wrong about the cruise and my outfit. Everyone was donning skimpy beachwear; the boys in their Caribbean-pastel shorts—most shirtless to show off their bulging biceps and six-packs, peeling from their fresh sunburns—and the girls in bikini tops and short shorts, wearing bracelet-sized hoop earrings and caked-on make-up.
The small salt-water-rusted boat, made for maybe ten people, carried over three dozen of us across the choppy blue-gray waters to an island where there would be a dinner buffet and show, including a singing competition.
The impressively agile Mexican crew navigated the movement of the boat as they passed around trays of Jell-O shots to stumbling girls woo-hooing while knocking back their non-liquid drinks, and guys high-fiving as they downed as many shots as they could stomach.
On the island, warm salty air encased us as we filled up on the buffet of charred fish and chicken with tortillas and rice. We were then summoned to the outdoor theater for the evening's entertainment. My friends and I sat in the front row.
The emcee, a handsome Mexican man with salt and pepper hair, announced in an enthusiastic tone that barely masked his disdain for us American college kids: "Who wants to come up here and show us what they've got!"
One of my friends nudged me to go up on stage, so I raised my hand. As I took the stage with a cohort of other volunteers, the emcee told the crowd we would all be singing Frank Sinatra's (Theme From) New York, New York. The winner would be decided by applause.
On stage, it was three of the Jersey Shore-esque boys and me. The boys were first. With each, the emcee asked where he was from, they chatted briefly and the guy did his rendition of the song. Each one was worse than the next, with the performer staggering around the stage and gyrating. The worse they got the greater the applause. I was the last one.
The emcee gave me a warm smile, put his arm around my shoulder and asked my name and where I was from. While I felt like the all-American girl, I was technically still a Canadian citizen so I said: "I'm from Canada."
No applause, just a smattering of laughter. The emcee looked at me and without skipping a beat said: "No, where are you really from?"
"Ummm," I said, a bit nervous. "I'm originally from Iran."
Total silence—except for one guy in the audience who let out a long angry sustained "Booooooo." Feeling sorry for me, the emcee tried to help by saying, "Guys, it's Iraq we're mad at not Iran!"
But it didn't help. The same guy, now joined by a few others in the audience, continued with their long loud boos. The emcee ignored the crowd and handed me the microphone "Okay, Rebecca, show us what you've got," he said.
I walked to the middle of the stage and looked out at the throng of college kids. I started singing, kicking my thigh-high booted legs diagonally, like a member of The Rockettes.
"Start spreading the...news. I'm leaving today," I sang with lackluster. Any confidence I had early when I leaped onto the stage had drained out of me. After getting out that first shaky line of the song, the small smattering of boos became a chorus of hateful jeers, interspersed with "you sucks" and "get off the stage."
Devastated by the idea I wasn't seen as an American, I wanted to melt into the ground, disappear, run away. Then a red-hot fire climbed up my body to my face and without thinking, I walked to the front edge of the stage and zeroed in on the guys that had started the booing.
I began with the one closest to me. Tightened my grip on the microphone with one hand, I pointed directly at the guy's face with the other and yelled with gut-wrenching anger: "F*** you!"
Once the words left my mouth, a euphoria swept through me. I scanned the audience; pointing to each person I'd seen booing and shouted, ""F*** you!" at each of them, marking them separately. ""F*** you! "F*** you! "F*** you!" Again and again.
Silence spread across the crowd as they tried to figure out how to react. Their mouths were agape, and their eyes bugged out. As I continued, I heard someone clap, and then a second person joined in, and then the audience decided they had found a direction—they had an answer to the confusing turn of events. Within seconds, the entire crowd was cheering me on. Shocked and still shaking, I stopped and stepped back from the edge of the stage.
The emcee, trying to finish the night's entertainment with some semblance of order, came back on and told a few jokes. My head abuzz, I didn't hear any of it. He had the four of us stand in a row and put his hand over each of our heads as the audience clapped. The crowd's applause for me was almost as wild as the other kids. I didn't win, but I came damn close.
As I got off the stage, my friends circled me, shocked and laughing. As we got on the boat, a trickle of young men and women came up to me and told me how sorry they were about what happened and how much they loved my reaction.
Later, a few of the ringleaders came over and half-apologized, in their drunken dude way, "Hey listen, sorry about that, you're cool," and "that was awesome, man." I was exhilarated and relieved about the turn of events with the crowd and their newfound admiration.
I told the guys it was fine, happy they had changed their perception of me and, maybe in a tiny way, Iranian immigrants. My friends and I spent the rest of the evening recounting the insanity of it all. The experience didn't fundamentally change how I thought of my new homeland, but it did wake me up to the fact that my American identity would always come with an otherness.
Three decades later, I wonder if I'd still react like that if faced with an angry booing crowd? I'm not sure. I was young and naïve back then, not recognizing the possible consequences of fighting back against a crowd whose intentions I couldn't have predicted.
But I'm so glad that young fearless girl stood her ground and fought back. I admire her and hope she's still ready to stand up for what's right, no matter how many boos she gets. That's the gift this country's given me; the freedom and right to stand up for myself, as a woman and as an American.
Rebecca Morrison is a lawyer and writer living in the Washington D.C. area with her husband and two boys. You can find out more about her at rebeccakmorrison.com.
All views expressed in this article are the author's own.