[IBARW] Red and Green and Mostly White.
I'm going to just start writing things for International Blog Against Racism Week (ibarw), and hope it all comes out in the end.
I've been trying to say something about race for a while, but it's a bit difficult. See, I'm white, and my parents are both white. My mother's family is from Ireland, and my father's is from Mexico.
Very few people in the United States seem to have a problem anymore in considering the Irish to be white. There's a whole book about how that happened. But the idea of being white and Mexican is too much of a mindbender for a lot of people. Part of that has to do with the idea floating around the American consciousness (including among enlightened, urban liberals) that brown people who speak Spanish are Mexicans. 1 As someone who is not brown and does not speak Spanish, I am usually assumed to be Italian, with some people going so far as to try to convince me that my last name is a common Italian family name (it's not).
It's hard to write about this because it's an issue I don't have a great handle on. I identify as white because, for better or for worse, it most accurately represents where I am in the racial power structure of the United States, my Mexican heritage notwithstanding. But when it comes to the complications to my identiy, I have a horribly obscured picture of the what and the how and the why.
Recently, my father, who plans to retire to Mexico soon, threatened to sneak into the house to teach my future children Spanish. It didn't explain why my father, who had studied Latin American history as an undergrad, had let the bilingualism of my sister and me end with the smattering of words on Sesame Street, or why our education was left to to the U.S.-centric textbooks in our schools.
I think that's a part of whiteness-the assumption that you don't have to do anything different. But however white my Mexican family is, being Mexican doesn't offer the same security in American whiteness.
I can still remember the time I heard a child-playing a game of looking at people and imagining what they were going to do-happily exclaiming , "Look at those Mexicans, they're probably going to get drunk!"
I mostly remember it because I said it; and because I remember the look on my mother's face (and my father's, in my memory, even though he was driving in the seat in front of me); and because I don't remember what they did to remedy the situation.
These are questions I've meant to ask before writing about it publicly, but what the hell: I know my dad has a blog, and I know he and my mom read this one, and IBARW is supposed to open dialogues. Why not use it to open one in my own family?
WedNYTX: 5:45; WedLATX: 6; WedNYS: 6:15.
1 In this usage, of course, "Mexicans" aren't necessarily from Mexico; they could be from anywhere south of the United States. They're named "Mexicans" not because of the country they're from, but because of the border they illegally crossed.
I've been trying to say something about race for a while, but it's a bit difficult. See, I'm white, and my parents are both white. My mother's family is from Ireland, and my father's is from Mexico.
Very few people in the United States seem to have a problem anymore in considering the Irish to be white. There's a whole book about how that happened. But the idea of being white and Mexican is too much of a mindbender for a lot of people. Part of that has to do with the idea floating around the American consciousness (including among enlightened, urban liberals) that brown people who speak Spanish are Mexicans. 1 As someone who is not brown and does not speak Spanish, I am usually assumed to be Italian, with some people going so far as to try to convince me that my last name is a common Italian family name (it's not).
It's hard to write about this because it's an issue I don't have a great handle on. I identify as white because, for better or for worse, it most accurately represents where I am in the racial power structure of the United States, my Mexican heritage notwithstanding. But when it comes to the complications to my identiy, I have a horribly obscured picture of the what and the how and the why.
Recently, my father, who plans to retire to Mexico soon, threatened to sneak into the house to teach my future children Spanish. It didn't explain why my father, who had studied Latin American history as an undergrad, had let the bilingualism of my sister and me end with the smattering of words on Sesame Street, or why our education was left to to the U.S.-centric textbooks in our schools.
I think that's a part of whiteness-the assumption that you don't have to do anything different. But however white my Mexican family is, being Mexican doesn't offer the same security in American whiteness.
I can still remember the time I heard a child-playing a game of looking at people and imagining what they were going to do-happily exclaiming , "Look at those Mexicans, they're probably going to get drunk!"
I mostly remember it because I said it; and because I remember the look on my mother's face (and my father's, in my memory, even though he was driving in the seat in front of me); and because I don't remember what they did to remedy the situation.
These are questions I've meant to ask before writing about it publicly, but what the hell: I know my dad has a blog, and I know he and my mom read this one, and IBARW is supposed to open dialogues. Why not use it to open one in my own family?
WedNYTX: 5:45; WedLATX: 6; WedNYS: 6:15.
1 In this usage, of course, "Mexicans" aren't necessarily from Mexico; they could be from anywhere south of the United States. They're named "Mexicans" not because of the country they're from, but because of the border they illegally crossed.