Race as we understand it and has been wrought against people of color is a construct of WHITE, particularly WASP, society but the experiences and cultural connections are not. Race as we feel it's presence is not immutable like gender and cannot be equivocated as such. You let your father down by not learning Spanish but learning a language and understanding it has nothing to do with race or your identification as latina. Your culture as latina was not stripped away from you and it is racist to insert yourself into space of other marginalized people. Rachel dolezal is not a black woman, she will not face the pressures that come with marginalization as a black woman does. Regardless of your understanding and views on this as an indigenous person you do not to rewrite and misinterpret race as something fluid especially for black people. Blackness, and race, are not based on pain or marginalization but neither is it based on the "euphoria" one gets when identifying with a race they have no connection to beyond aesthetic interest. Because that is what you are describing. Race is not gender, none of these things are equivalent.
Are you really saying that race isn't a social construct? Really?
What is race to you, then? Because race sure as hell isn't biological. Phrenology is a lie. There is nothing that makes a Black man's body different than a white man's (that isn't societal, such as lack of access to healthy foods). The people who will tell you that races are biologically different are supporting institutional racism.
Race is a social construct. I'm indigenous, but many people think I'm white or (cis) Latina. I often just let people think what they want in situations where it doesn't matter.
I have the privilege of being able to walk through the world and be seen as white in many situations. If I never mentioned being indigenous again in white society, I would essentially *be* white, because I'd be treated as white.
Race is a social construct, and you're going to have to deal with it.
