The complicated measure of being Hispanic in America

Agreed Jo. One of my favorite movies of all time, hated that they remade it and turned it into a sitcom. Very sad.

You are correct also in that hate knows no color, social class, or religion. Sad part is that I have had some people tell me that they can be racist because that’s a white persons thing. As is racism is inherited like eye color or something

You explained yourself very well, Instinct, but did you notice that all the groups you identified as having merged successfully in to the concept of “American” are white? There is a book called “How the Irish Became White” which addresses the assimilation of white immigrants into American culture. People of color aren’t white and I believe they won’t be fully accepted or able to be assimilated into white american culture until the term “American” is defined in a way that includes them too.

*off my soapbox now* 🙂

There are definitely some activist groups out there that want to maintain a wall of separation between “us” and “them” as they define it based on ethnicity. (Read about those people recently ripping Ken Burns over the World War II documentary? Just stupid.) That’s how they make a living and they won’t go away however much it embarrases those of us they claim to represent.

I think there is a big difference between people saying “we are Hispanics” simply as an acknowledgement of a heritage that is still part of our lives (by virtue of native language, family connections, etc) and being one of those who want to be here but not honor the culture and country they are living in. Most Hispanics belong to the first group, even if some loud activists would have people believe otherwise. A love of one’s Hispanic heritage and a love of America can coexist quite nicely within the same person.

I too always have people ask me where I’m from and what I am. (Which I think are pretty rude questions, but we can’t control ignorance unfortunately). Even when I’m with other people of color, they will inevitably say, well you’re not this and you’re not that (they don’t know this) so what are you anyway? Or they’ll say, you don’t ‘sound’ like this or ‘act’ like that. It’s hard to celebrate how much we’re alike when it’s constantly pointed out to you how different you are. Does this make any sense?

It’s sort of difficult when you have people coming here to America that treat you like dirt because your skin is dark.

Everybody looks down on the dark skinned people. Even in different cultures, I’ve noticed that the women equate beauty with fair skin.

(p.s. – I’m not very dark at all, but still not light-skinned enough to ‘pass’, though I have relatives who did in the past)

What you said makes a lot of sense, HM. I have a friend who is of Korean descent who describes people’s reaction to her as keeping her “forever foreign.” As American as she is, she is still not accepted as being truly American. I know that there is bias within cultures as you’ve described. The notion that being lighter/whiter is a good thing tells us something about our stereotypes of what is beautiful. There is an amazing video done by an African American teen filmmaker in New York City that shows how deeply imbedded this is in America. You can watch it online (about 10 minutes) here:

http://www.reelworks.org/watch2.php?classs=Spring%202005&title=A%20Girl%20Like%20Me&filmer=Kiri%20Davis&fName=a_girl_like_me.flv

It’s not that I mind it, it’s just that I can’t get behind this ‘we’re all the same’ thing when clearly we’re not. At least not according to most people anyway. It’s for the most part, lip service.

But people try to boil this down to skin color. That’s not it at all. It’s a matter of experience. We’re just products of our environment. It’s what we know. Some of us grow beyond our environment. We cross lines. And we run into people waiting at the line to tell us we’re different. We can stop at the line, or we can cross it.

I grew up in Miami in an international neighborhood. I went through a phase when I wanted to be a Jew. Then I wanted to be Cuban. Then I wanted to be Black or French Canadian, or Japanese. My 80 year old mother and I had a conversation about this the other day and we laughed because in retrospect, we realized I wanted to be part of those groups because of the good and wonderful and interesting and beautiful parts of them I saw through childish eyes. But then we grow up and aren’t so inclined to cross those lines anymore. We stay where we feel safe.

If I were to go to the ER and need blood, they wouldn’t give me white folks’ blood. They’d just give me blood. Know why? Because it’s all red. Yours. Mine. MeezerMoto’s. It’s all red.

Do any of you do any geneology? I do quite a bit of it and have been amused to find all the different lines that came together to make me “ME”. At last count, Bohemian, Dutch, Irish, Scots, English, Assiniboine, French Canadian, Macedonian, Italian….I like the stew idea. I’m proud to be an American, but I’m proud to be all the others too.

Geneological research is very addictive! 🙂 It sounds like you have a rich and varied heritage, PJ.

I can get pretty intense on this topic, Jo. I hope my thinking out loud didn’t come across as a personal attack on you. Not my intent at all, my friend. 🙂