How Real ID can exclude 'real' Americans from flying, voting and more

[douglas9]

At 98, my father’s paper trail was long — in addition to his U.S. birth certificate, there were his discharge papers from his service in the Army Air Corps during World War II, his house deed, his children’s birth certificates, his Social Security, Medicare and business cards.

Yet in 2023, when he applied for a Real ID identification card, a security-enhanced, federally accepted form of identification that airports require as of this month, his application was declined because the names on his passport (Vicente) and driver’s license (Vince) didn’t match. Instead, he was issued a California Senior Citizen Identification Card — which wouldn’t let him board a flight, enter a secured federal building or register to vote.

My father’s succession of names testifies to the ways American culture coerces and seduces both natives and newcomers to comply with its norms, promising social and political inclusion and upward social mobility. But paradoxically, that same evolution, which pushed him from Vicente to Vince, from “Mexican” to American, rendered him effectively “undocumented” with his declined Real ID application.

Born in Nogales, Arizona, to Mexican immigrants in 1924, my father’s first language, like his original first name, was Spanish, a vestige of the viceroyalty of New Spain and the Republic of Mexico in southern Arizona. I suspect his American teachers changed his name to Vincent when he was a boy. By the time he was a teenager in East L.A. in the early 1940s, Vincent had morphed into Vince.

https://calmatters.org/commentary/2025/05/real-id-excludes-real-americans/

[hunter]

1. My grandfather reinvented himself a few times in his life...

... and had different names and birth dates on various "important" documents. His Army Records, Social Security records, and California Drivers license did not match.

When he died this complicated the settling of his estate.

He was born at home somewhere around 1900. His father was a mining engineer in Montana. My grandfather hated small town Montana, quit school, and left for the "big city" of Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Severely disappointed with city life he joined the Army to see the world. By this time the original records of his birth had been lost so the Army accepted him on various letters of affidavit. My grandfather wanted to be a pilot but he was a klutz so the Army trained him to be a mechanic instead. ( He was clearly on the autistic spectrum and one of the most terrifying things me and my siblings witnessed as children was him riding a bicycle. Grandpa is going to die! It's impossible to imagine him piloting an airplane. )

In the prelude to World War II the Army sent my grandfather off to college to get his engineering degree. The war started in his final year there. During the war my grandfather mysteriously acquired a knack for metals that were then considered exotic but he never talked about the war. As a kid my great aunt told me he looked very handsome in his uniform, had a car, a driver, and carried a "Get out of Jail Free" card for those deemed essential to the war effort.

When the war ended my grandfather got a job with an aerospace contractor and was later an engineer for the Apollo Project.

Apparently as a white guy living in the U.S. Wild West of the early twentieth century nobody was checking that all your documents were in order. The Army, the Social Security Office, and the DMV simply accepted you at your word.

Real ID isn't going to make us any safer but will be used for voter suppression and the harassment of minorities and people living in poverty.

The percentage of Real Bad Guys who have Real IDs is going to mirror or exceed the percentage of the population in general who have Real IDs.

It's a farce if people without Real ID cause chaos in the airports. It's a tragedy if Real ID is used to disenfranchise and harass women, minorities, the elderly, and the disabled.