Tibetan Buddhist immigrant told: ‘get the f— out of my country’

Tenzin Dorjee is from Bhutan, the tiny kingdom in the Himalayas made famous by its adherence to the idea that Gross National Happiness is at least as important as Gross Domestic Product. He is a practicing Buddhist, for whom “being peaceful is a huge part of his religion and identity.”

As an immigrant in America, he has faced racism and discrimination, but nothing like what happened to him last week.

On November 9th, the day after Donald Trump’s election, he was accosted outside his local Walmart by two men in camouflage jackets. One came up to him and said, “Hey chink, get the f— out of my country. Go back to where you came from.”

“Then it happened again,” he says. And then again.

After all of this, Tenzin contemplated getting a firearm to protect himself and his family. “It was a dark, low moment,” he said. His friends and community rallied around him though, leading him to reflect, “when I look at that kind of support, then I do not feel the need to bear any kind of firearms, because that is my firearm.”

Instead of a gun, he will install a security camera and organize a forum about racism and xenophobia.

Dorjee plans to fight back with compassion. In a Facebook post about the car, he wrote, “Bring it on. Your hate is not going to change me into you.”

Read the full story at North Country Public Radio or listen below: