How Could I Be White If I’m Latina?
“What about the Hispanics? What about the Salvadorians, the Puerto Ricans, and the Dominicans that are harassed every day? What about the Mexicans like you when they say they need to go back to their country for being rapists and murderers? You don’t care about your own people so why should you care about them.”
In the Latin community, there’s this notion among certain groups that race doesn’t exist. If you’re Latinx, that’s all that you are. The color of your skin is a mere afterthought, and the only thing that matters is the Latin blood that runs through your veins. It seems like an inclusive sentiment, but the constant struggle for representation within the community casts doubt on that claim. They forget the immigrants that travelled to their countries for a better life, as well as those who had no other option than to arrive on their lands.
If you look a little too dark?
Pretty sure you’re not Latinx. Black people weren’t even on the Mexican census until this year, so how would we know?
You look slightly Asian?
Definitely not Latinx. Why would there be any Asians? Never mind the 4 million spread throughout Latin America.
As a culture that prides itself in its sense of community and unification, it fails to recognize the people it pushes out.
My appearance in particular never matched the stereotypes that surrounded my ethnicity, and as a child one of my favorite games to play was “Guess where I’m from?” When I would reveal the answer, I would get confused looks.
“But aren’t Mexicans supposed to be darker? You’re white!”
At the time I didn’t understand how anyone could guess I was white. I was Latina obviously, so I couldn’t be white. I would think it was impossible because I feared white people; ICE officers who would raid the jobs where “my people” worked, the rich men and women of Long Island who employed those from my country to scrub their bathrooms, and the ladies of Manhattan with their teacup Yorkies. I wasn’t them, not even close. So how could I be white if I’m Latina?
Unbeknownst to me at the time, my younger cousin was playing the same game: “Guess where I’m from?” When she would reveal her answer, she would get confused looks.
“But Mexicans aren’t black.” How could you be Latina if you’re black?”
She would respond by saying she was Mexican and Guatemalan but again, she would get confused looks.
“So how are you black?”
She explained the concept of interracial relationships and the children began to laugh.
That day she was labeled “halfie”.
If race doesn’t exist in the eyes of the Latin community than why are there no afro-latinx actors shown in the addicting novelas so many of us watch every night? Why was the one episode that featured an Asian-Latino on Rosa de Guadalupe only about the dangers of anime? Why is my hair full of lovely curls while my nephew has pelo malo?
In particular, the “us versus them” mentality of the Latinx community against the Black community has never made sense. It’s as if they’ve forgotten that we coexist as one. Just as there are White and Brown Latinx’, there are also black. We acknowledge the influences of the Europeans who have left their mark through the colonization of our indigenous, but we fail to acknowledge the influences of the slaves brought along with them. We see their history reflected in so many of our dances, our food, and our features, so why do we deny their existence among us?
In our own history we’ve seen attempts to “mejorar la raza”- to improve the race. The racial whitening in Brazil and in the rest of Latin America to “improve” our features is just one of the many attempts to remove a part of who we are. It’s the community itself that alienates the colors it doesn’t desire.
I was watching Telemundo late one night as background noise. The rise of the Black Lives Matter movements and evidence of racial injustice was sweeping the nation, and on this night, they decided to cover a “protest”.
But you would’ve thought the reporter was in the middle of a war zone.
The reporter was running, breathing heavily, reporting on the looting and the vandalism done by the…protestors?
But the protesters were protesting.
Who were the ones looting and vandalizing? To them they were all the same. The fear and destruction they showed on-screen only helped to solidify the thoughts of the older Latin community who would routinely watch them.
The messages that, “Black people are bad” or that, “Black people are not like us.” created a larger divide.
It was us versus them.
Throughout this period, I would stare in disbelief. We had black cousins, nephews, and maybe someday I’d have black children. The words coming from my family members shocked me but were unsurprising. Their responses when I asked, “What of them? What of those individuals who were our blood but didn’t look like us?”
“They’re Latino.”
With new generations of the Latinx community and the blending of families, there can no longer be an us versus them. The injustices those of darker complexions face because of our own ignorance should no longer be continued. We must remember that within the Latin community there are a variety of people with different backgrounds and histories unlike our own that we must respect and recognize. The saying goes “El Pueblo Unido Jamás Sera Vencido”-The People United Will Never be Defeated. If something as minuscule as skin color can tear apart the Latin community, what else can we expect to penetrate the bond?
