#hispanic identity

something ive thought about a lot. even though i know no ethnic experience is the same, i always find myself struggling with thoughts like this, so i decided to make a vent comic about it

image id under the cut!

“Latinos believe in the rewards of hard work. More than eight-in-ten—including 80% of Latino youths and 86% of Latinos ages 26 and older—say that most people can get ahead in life if they work hard.” (Pew Research Center)

I chose this quote above because it supports my findings within my interviews and how looking good makes one feel better about themselves. In relation to the quote in which Rosendo Medina makes in that many Latinos still feel inferior to Americans and one way they rebel against this feeling is by dressing nicely and looking good overall. It becomes a way in which those still along the poverty level can feel successful and remind them that working hard will allow them to achieve their own personal goals.

They're confused. That isn't how I identify ethnically. I grew up with my mother, who is white, and therefore lived in an ethnic group that was just about all things Southern white. But they don't understand why that doesn't extend to where I mark on sheets what race I am. I fill in Hispanic. Why is that?

Simple. Because I have never been treated with white privilege. 

Sure, people have told me that I could pass as white from time to time; I've been told I don't look Hispanic or anything else but white. It changes based on which group I'm in. If I'm with mostly white people, I'm told I look mixed, or I get asked if I'm Mexican. If I'm with people who are Latino or Hispanic, I get asked if I'm white (though again, Mexican is the most common guess). Put me in either group alone, and I stand out.

But here's the thing: if I go to a restaurant that specializes in Latin or Hispanic cuisine, I will be addressed and spoken to in Spanish first before English, even though English is my first language. If I go to the bodega by my house (that's like a little 7/11 or CVS), the cashier gives me my total in Spanish and asks if I need anything in Spanish.

On the other hand, if I go to the Publix near my house where predominately white people shop, I will be watched. If I go visit a friend in North Georgia in her small town where mostly white people live, I will be watched with suspicion and treated as if I'm ignorant. 

When I was nine or ten, my mom took me over to one of her friend's houses for a get-together. There were other kids from about my age to the oldest boy and girl, who were around 15 or 16. There were maybe ten of us. I was the only one who wasn't white. The people had a huge front yard, and because it was summer and it was dark, we decided to play hide-and-go-seek-tag. Now the youngest son of my mom's friends was about my age. He was typical Southern boy white: dirty blonde hair, blue eyes, tan face and freckles on his cheeks and shoulders, straight, square teeth. He got mad when the game was suggested, pointed at me and complained to his older brother (who was the oldest at 16) that he didn't want to play with me.

I'll never forget what he said. 

He said, "I don't want to play with a little brown girl."

Everyone around me froze. I didn't know what to do, or what to say or if I could breathe. I didn't know what racism was then, and sure I'd noted that most of the kids of my mom's friends didn't look like me, but that had never bothered me. 

But once he said that, I knew it was bad. I had never considered my darker skin to be something to be ashamed of, something to be fixed or something so inherently wrong as to cause others discomfort. 

I began to cry for reasons I didn't understand at the time, and I ran into the house and told my mother, who was socializing with all the other adults, what he'd said. The room, much like the kids outside, went dead silent. Again, I thought I had done something wrong. I thought that my telling them what had happened was the wrong thing to do. And then the boy's parents and my mom and a few other parents stormed outside and brought the boy in and made him apologize and asked him what the hell he was thinking. His father apologized to my mother and told her he didn't know where he'd heard something like that, because they certainly didn't tolerate that in their home. I have no idea if he was lying or not, but after that day, I stopped expecting to be treated like anyone else.

I started looking for the signs when people would treat me like I was ignorant or when they meant to treat me unjustly. 

I got a ticket for running a red light about a year ago, and the officer was white. Now, that may not matter in other counties of Georgia (for any international followers I may have, counties are just smaller provinces or towns in the state), but in the one where I live, majority of the force is white, and they are extremely prejudiced and racist. The cop came up to the window, took my license and registration, wrote me the ticket, and sent me on my way. It wasn't until I looked at the details so I could pay it off online that I realized something was wrong: the officer had put my race down as Black. 

Not Hispanic.

Not Latino.

But Black. 

The fact that he had marked anything but what I am (even though it's stated clearly on my license: HIS), was wrong. But Black? I could never in a million years, even at my most tan and dark, pass as Black. I just can't. Yet that was what he marked. Because it was obvious that I was Not White. 

That is why I will never identify as Caucasian. It is why I will be sexualized as some kind of exotic flower. It is why prejudiced white people, and prejudiced white men especially, will treat me as if I cannot speak English or like I'm ignorant and speak down to me. It is why Hispanic and Latino men will think that they can order me around and treat me badly and think that I will take it. 

I identify as Hispanic because the world will never let me forget it, so I might as well own it. I am not ashamed of being Hispanic. I am proud of my heritage and my history, and I will not be ashamed of the color of my skin, nor where I come from, nor my ancestry. 

You’re Jewish?

 She’s Jewish

 She looks Jewish

Our lives…

I guess assimilation is not for us

On the bright size with mugs like this we will never be white trash