IBARW [At the end of the day, the racial iguana is white]

[mao4269]

So I'd been thinking of writing a post about how imperisalism, nationalism, classism, and racism all mix together in one big mess, especially 'cause it sort of fits with an interesting conversation last night (worth both exploring further and sharing) about the distinction or lack thereof by people observing Tisha B'Av between mourning the

Comments

[koshiii]

Wait, I didn't know you were Latina!

[mao4269]

Yeah, didn't you know that Austria and Ukraine are part of Latin America, so what with all our great-grandparents being from one of the two we obviously must be 100% Latina! Which explains why I know no indigenous American language and the majority of my Spanish is, "Hola, Paco. Que tal? Coma estas? El helada es moy feliz." (though granted neither of us knows any Yiddish so I'm not sure ignorance of the languages is really evidence).

Seriously, though, Chicago being the highly racialized place it is, I was asked repeatedly by near-strangers if I'm Latina. And there have been a few times (both in Virginia and in Chicago) when someone asked me a casual question in Spanish, I answered, "No hablo espanol", and the person thought I was pulling his leg (it's only men who have ever argued the point, the women either just find someone else to as or, if it's something basic like asking the time, pantomime).