I live in Central Texas and had a long-term girlfriend who was Costa Rican. She was a teacher by profession, and she drove a stock Honda Accord, with absolutely nothing about it even hinting at illicit activity. She was as straight as a whistle and had a 4 year degree in English. and while I'm certainly no shining beacon of English mastery, it's worth noting that her grammar was better than mine. In any case, she used to get profiled and pulled over routinely for no reason whatsoever. It was very frustrating to hear about someone I cared about experiencing this as often as she did.

Flashback a few years prior to that in the late 90s when long-distance companies (remember them?) used to (illegally) bump you off of your selected company and plan onto theirs (which was of course staggeringly expensive). My friend's wife is of Spanish (from Spain) descent, and more importantly had an easily identifiable Hispanic last name. At the time they were still dating (but still living together) and hadn't consolidated everything into one set of finances yet, and every month there was some unknown long-distance company that would bump them and they always ended up paying sky-high phone bills, targeted just because of her last name. Of course that practice stopped when they put the bills in his German name. My friend grew up in NYC and loved a fight, and he'd tear these guys a new one and would demand proof that he'd authorized a switch, even going so far as threatening legal action. I actually looked forward to hearing the stories.