Since the emergence of Donald Trump as a political force in the United States, foreigners with legal status and undocumented immigrants have faced intense scrutiny. Their plight is one of the reasons Tony Hyde revisited a traumatic experience 27 years ago in Florida.

Hyde, a Jamaican, says he was the victim of racial harassment after a freeway incident involving a US immigration officer. It resulted in a year of turmoil which he recalls in The Day Racism Walked In My Door, his book which was released in February through Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

A chef by profession, Hyde is proprietor of Sattdown Jamaican Grill in Studio City, Los Angeles. He told Observer Online that his story had to be told.

“I wrote this book to tell my truth. That no matter what, your past doesn’t define who you are. And always bet on yourself, even when the odds are against you,” said Hyde.

According to Hyde, while driving along the freeway in West Palm Beach he inadvertently crossed a vehicle driven by the immigration officer.

Even after admitting his error, Hyde says law enforcement searched the restaurant he operated in that city at the time, as well as his home.

A green card holder, he migrated from Jamaica with his family in 1973, initially living in New York City. Hyde, who moved to Florida during the 1980s, said his only legal indiscretion was “a minor marijuana conviction” 20 years earlier in New York for which he paid a fine.
It was not until October 1999 that his stressful episode with the police ended.

“I wasn’t charged, but the simple fact that I had three minor marijuana convictions, that’s what they used to hold me in jail. At the time I had dreadlocks and I believe that is why I was targeted and stereotyped,” Hyde said.

Born in Kingston and raised in Manchester, Hyde decided to leave Florida after the dramatic West Palm Beach saga. He relocated to Los Angeles where he has operated the popular Sattdown Jamaican Grill since 2009.