#ToThatPriviledgedWhiteWoman

Feb 25, 2017 · 6 min read

I was born and raised in Spanish Harlem, now called SpaHa from what I hear. *Shrugs*

I was raised in the projects with the piss smelling elevators everybody hated but were used to. I sat on the benches in front of the projects most of my adolescent with the funk of fish that oozed from the Marqueta a block away, up the hill. We played spades and rummy 500 till the sun rose on most summer nights.

But during summer days, it was different for me. I used that time to drift. I ventured freely into a fake life I had created for myself both in my head and outside “the block”. In this world there were no drug dealers on the corners, there were no tecatos, no habían alcolicos. There were no bochinchs, there were no cat fights and there were no trace of Puerto Ricans or Blacks. This place was downtown Manhattan; a sea of white.

I got pregnant with my son at a young age, a month shy of my 17th birthday. Once I had him I no longer wanted to sit on the benches or keep him within the same 2 mile radius I grew up on. I wanted him to see the same world I never knew existed but yearned for. I wanted to him travel unknown territory with me. I wanted to expose him to everything I was never taught. I only really knew of downtown. I really never knew the other boroughs other than what I was exposed to as a kid.

As a kid, my mother, because of my Titi Ruthy, would take us to Los Seite Lagos, seven lakes, where we swam and I’d get sun burned every time and had fun till the sun set. Or City Island, where my uncle Tabin and my dad taught me how to eat seafood. While the other primos ran rampant in play, my uncle and dad would force me to eat raw oysters and clams with just the right amount of freshly squeezed lemon juice with a single drop of hot sauce and the little fork to teach me how to rip them off their shell. That part was torture then.

Aside from the occasional visits to Action Park and Six Flags Great Adventure in Jersey, other boroughs seemed like such a far away place for me. Like an island or country I was unfamiliar with but I knew my son wouldn’t be confined and unfamiliar with the world.

Back then i didn’t know nor did I understand the meaning of being socially diverse or diversity but I knew that’s what i wanted my son to be.

My son’s father was in his teens too but he went to college full time (he was so smart *smirk*) and worked a full time job to allow me the opportunity to be an at home mom. My dad and my uncle helped us financially too because they too wanted me to be home with the baby.

I had a weekly allowance for me and the baby and every time he gave me money I would go shopping for whatever our son needed. More often than not ALL the money was spent on the baby. There was always an abundance of clothing stores on 3rd Ave. 3rd Ave was the main Ave where we’d go to get everything. But I didn’t like shopping for the baby on 3rd Ave. I didn’t want him to have the same clothes most the kids on the block were going be wearing. That’s where downtown came into play in my life.

Every time I wondered off to downtown, it was there that I experienced the “nice” libraries, the ‘nice’ bookstores, the “nice” and expensive clothes i knew nobody from the block was wearing and even the coffee tasted so much “nicer”. I started spending more and more time in Downtown.

I noticed the obvious- I stood out like a sore thumb. Not because it was predominantly white, because downtown was extremely diverse, but because of the way I dressed and spoke, because of my limited vocabulary use, because my project accent coupled with my Puerto Rican accent was strong as hell, because my facial expressions said everything my mouth was too afraid to speak and because I was a triguena with a white ass baby. My son was so white when he was younger. I’m talking about blonde hair and blue eyes white. Red hair and hazel eyes white. This boy’s psychical appearance changed so much I had a hard time catching up.

After a while I felt at home in downtown. I knew at a very young age that I didn’t want to stay stuck in the projects. I knew there was so much more I wanted both me and my son to see. I knew that I hated every night I spent sitting on those benches even if today I have great memories of them. I loved the atmosphere, the delis, the hot dog and pretzel stands and the kenish drizzled in mustard. I loved that life but I knew it wasn’t my life.

My real life was being a Puerto Rican from the projects. An uneducated drop out, teen pregnancy statistic who had no business in an upscale downtown. But something in me didn’t give a fuck. I reminded myself about all the A’s I use to get in school before I dropped out. “I could be smart”, I told myself but hardly believing it.

One day while sitting on the grass in Central park with my fair skin baby, a white woman smiled at me and stared at my 2 year old son. I smiled back, confused as to why she was staring at him. She looked at me again and asked me if I wanted another babysitting job. “Excuse me?” I asked. But now she seemed confused by my reaction. “A babysitting job?” I repeated. For 2.2 seconds I honestly thought this white woman saw in me, without knowing me, what a great mother I was to my son and was trusting me with her child too. Reality hit me hard about who we both were when she then asked me if I was his Nanny.

Me. The trigueña. The Puerto Rican who couldn’t possibly have birthed a white baby. The uneducated high school drop who couldn’t be just enjoying a day at the park with my white baby.

Her. The privileged white woman who exercised her privilege to ask me if I was a Nanny. The white woman, “helping” a minority by offering her a job that is stereotypically offered to Latinas and Black women. The white woman who reminded me that downtown was no place for my Hispanic ass.

Dear privileged white woman:

I was not his Nanny. I was not the help. I was not afraid of you but rather embarrassed for you. I was his world. I was his protector. I was his mother and you will recognize it and respect the womb he lived in for 9 months and the scar across my stomach that proves it. You made me cry for days in my room in that project building. You made me laugh as well, the nerve. You made me realize what your life was like. How free you were. Free enough to humiliate me by assuming that offering me a job, taking care of your kids and household, was the most of I was capable of. But, white woman, I will never forget the look on your face nor the blue in your eyes when I said…

No. I am not his Nanny. I am not looking for a job. I am his mother and my job is taking care of him!!!