I am an immigrant from Latin America. Darker skin, strong accent, black hair. An American citizen. And yes, white.
White? Why not Hispanic, or Latino, or Hispanic-American?
Because, if you push me, I choose to be white.
Question: Is George Zimmerman, the alleged killer of Trayvon Martin, white or Hispanic? The police called him "white" when they arrested him, while his own father called him a "Spanish-speaking minority." His mother is from Peru and his father is "white." So, which one is Zimmerman? And, more importantly, who decides?
The ethnic/racial undertones in this case go well beyond Zimmerman, and speak to the identity of us all here in America. And ultimately to the question of whether people that look different can live together, and not destroy each other.
So, why is it important to be white in America? Because "white" means power, wealth, majority, opportunity, success, competence, access, you call the shots, you are on top, you are the best.
Consider this example. In Blink, #1 National Bestseller author Malcolm Gladwell, relates a "test" conducted by psychologists Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson, in which they asked "black college students" to "identify their race on a pretest questionnaire" using 20 questions from the Graduate Record Examination. The result: "that simple act was sufficient to prime them with all the negative stereotypes associated with African Americans and academic achievement -- and the number of items they got right was cut in half" compared to the group of black students that was not asked to identify their race. Similar negative stereotypes are associated with "Hispanics," which, coupled with what I call inertial racism (the unconscious proclivity to associate and prefer people that look like yourself), has detrimental effects on many.
It was 1976 when the U.S. government passed a law requiring that federal agencies lump together data on people tracing their ancestry to Spanish-speaking countries. Thus, language became the defining characteristic of the newly created "Hispanic" or "Latino." And federal forms and policies specifically exclude the possibility of "Hispanics" being able to self-define as "white," reserving the latter category to people with origins in Europe, not Latin America.
Now, language can be used as a means of communication and connecting, or it can be used to differentiate, segregate and even discriminate, especially when it is connected to labels. Gordon Alport, in "The Nature of Prejudice" observes that language is always the first step in the process of separating an individual or group from the larger society. The use of words that identify a person or group as being different creates a focus on that difference. It defines that difference and communicates that difference to increasing numbers of other people. And that is how we get the separated and often-times segregated "minorities."
And don't get me wrong, I'm not talking victimization. America is the land of opportunity, and has as its highest value the idea of fairness. No, I am talking mainly about self-inflicted segregation. Yes, unless we accept labels, people cannot impose them on us. Minority is a state of mind, and if we change our minds we can change who we are.
Take celebrity actress Raquel Welch, immortalized as the all-American blond in One Million Years B.C. Lately she was seeing on TV playing a Hispanic aunt in the PBS series American Family. Her mother was a white American, her father from Bolivia. She was white then, "proudly Hispanic" now. Her choice.
And our beloved Ray Romano? Good guy, blond kids, all American family. White? Well, he looks so Latin he could be my brother! Peter D. Salins, argues in his book Assimilation, American Style, that Italians and Jews were considered non-white in America, but due to the wonders of assimilation, they have now become white. Could the same process apply to so-called Hispanics and other "minorities"?
Of course, I am not talking about bleaching our skin or dying our hair blond. Not even Anglicizing our names necessarily. But I am talking about assuming a winning attitude, feeling you have not only the opportunity but the right to succeed. Feeling empowered to compete with anyone. Being part of the mainstream, and being determined to excel, to be the best, to be the leader of all.
Not long ago I asked a friend who had just been selected as an "up-and-coming leader" by a national magazine, if he could be the leader of all. He was born in California, of Mexican ancestry. His response was: "I can be the leader of my Hispanic community." I pressed and asked again, can you be the leader of all, whites, Asians, Hispanics, anyone. And he repeated that he could be the leader only of his Hispanic community. He obviously had a mental block to overcome. I am convinced that he can be the leader of all, and as soon as his mindset changes he will be.
Ultimately, shouldn't we all just be Americans? What is the need for labels? Why do we insist in looking for differences rather than commonalities?
On the brighter side, the Pew Research Center recently found that people are not accepting the labels wholesale. In their 2011 Survey, only 24% said they identify themselves as "Hispanic" or "Latino." Some 21% said they call themselves American, a figure that climbed to 40% among those born in the United States. This is particularly important since there is a demographic revolution happening in the United States, with Americans of Latin descent numbering over 50 million today and expected to grow to 128 million by 2050 becoming almost 30% of the American population. For our own sake, for the sake of our families, our community and our country, we need unity, E Pluribus Unum, out of many, one.
I would rather call myself an American. But if you press me, if you really want me to adopt a label, for the sake of equality and freedom I will tell you: I am white.
Follow Pedro C. Moreno on Twitter: www.twitter.com/PedroCMoreno
Race: Despite what most commenters seem to think, this is not a scientific or even clearly defined social classification. The closest one gets to a clear definition is: A local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics. It's very fuzzy, so there's zero point in insisting that anyone belongs to one race or another, particularly in the US where almost everyone can trace roots to multiple spots on the globe.
Ethnicity: Also soft and fuzzy, impractical to argue because there are few Americans with a clear ethnicity: relating to or characteristic of a human group having racial, religious, linguistic, and certain other traits in common
Nationality: One must be careful with Nationality because one common definition of Nation is a politically organized group in a legal Nation (like US American is a Nationality) but a second common definitition is a very similar to Ethnicity: a group of people with common culture, genetics, language and a shared land. This leads to problems like those in the Balkans in which people's historical nationality is not equal to their current legal nationality.
Citizenship: This is clear, happily.
So, people need maybe to stop being so assertive about who belongs to what race or nation. They are soft concepts.
Further, I am Brown !!! -- While true, many "Latino/Hispanics" may not have an ounce of native blood and may rightfully label themselves "White"; MANY MANY MANY of us share the DNA of native peoples. (Meshica, Olmec, Toltec, etc..)
When a person of African descent calls him/her self "Black", does that take away from their "American-ness"? - Absolutely NOT. Why then, are some suggesting we call ourselves JUST Americans?
-- This has nothing to do with Nationality, and everything to do with paying homage to our native American ancestors and being "balanced" internally.
As far as “blue-eyed” Indians, yeah, there are a lot of them. My mom has blue eyes, but Cherokee features and coloration. Her parent’s family names are both on the Cherokee role in Oklahoma, where she was born. What percentage Cherokee is she? Good question.
But if the majority of Hispanics were checking accurate boxes they most likely would be checking both the Native American box aswell a the white box for their Spanish ancestry, sometimes the black box for their African ancestry. Hispanics don't make up the majority Native American group. They make up the majority multiracial group.
My family has been free from the casta system for two hundred years. I for one won't betray my forefathers in both Mexico and the US (US citizen here) just to "get goodies". The system in the US is not as complex as the old Spanish one, but its similarities are eerie, and it only takes one administration to turn that right around on *anyone* in majorly evil ways.
So I just don't fill it.
-"But you must put something".
-"Other"
-"You must be more detailed"
-"Human"
- "It's a LEGAL form"
- "Do I need to call my lawyer over this? Because I will."
You want to be friendly and hang out with me? I'm as Mexican as they come, head over to "tu casa" and let's hang out. You want to govern me? Govern me as a person, like anybody else.
What's my *actual* race? Be my friend for a few months, *then* maybe I'll tell you, depending on your character, but odds are if you care so much about that question you're not the type I want to get too friendly with anyway.
Why? Mexican 1810 independence included the elimination of the "Sistema de Castas" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casta - the derogatory casta picture on the wikipedia page was in my local museum.
So even if it "benefits me", *any* self-identification by race to get something of relative value is a reliving of the Casta system and an offense to my very Mexican sense of justice. Having grown up in Mexico, I just don't have the ideological baggage to identify with that (heck, everyone around me was equally Mexican since 1810).
Answering it means betraying what my ancestors in Mexico such as Morelos, Aldama and the rest fought and died for in 1810, Madero in 1910, and what my other ancestors in the US like Washington, Lincoln and Rev. King fought and died for. Now both our populations sadly can behave in racist ways. But Mexico's presidential chair, though chaotic, has run the gamut of colors, from Spanish "Criollos" to Oaxacan prehispanic native Juarez to northern European white Irish-Mexican Alvaro Obregón. All before 1930. And I don't see why any of us should walk backwards just to get goodies.
So if pressed, I put "Other". If "Please specify", "Human". The only one that counts.
I have known Chinese, Japanese, Indigenous-descended, English-descended, Italian-descended and German-descended "Peruvians".
These political labels tell us as much as the label "Canadian" tell us about anyone's race...not much!
Men from Europe who came to America came without women. When Aztec and Inca men were killed or died from European diseases, African men were brought to the Americas to fill in the work gap. European and African men, thereafter, took indigenous women as mates or wives...and, "we" are the children of the conquest,
If we must have a label to separate us from "white people"...then, those who are white of skin and European lineage can continue to call themselves American. And, we, who are mixed and part of the mestizaje -- the blending of races -- can define ourselves as Americanos. After all the continent is America.
Americans and Americanos won't be too difficult to figure out. Easy fill of federal forms, and let's quit already, the privileged status of ruling elites and wanna-be ruling elites who consider white as being superior. We need to move on as a people to make this country better. We need to quit playing the racial Olympic game that draws us away from the current social issues that separate us.
Americans and Americanos...simple!
You wrote..."The Majority of indigenous peoples in Mexico and throughout Latin America have 3 roots: Indigenous, European and African"?
You obviously have not ventured out of your diversity workshop to see the REAL racial reality of all Latin American countries.
A statistician, a mathematician or a cultural sociologist with even a knowledge of basic probability would laugh at your outrageous claims.
For starters the indigenous population concentrations varied greatly from the tip of modern-day Argentina to modern-day Alaska and SO DID the number of European, Sub-Saharan (Equatorial) African and Asians that in one way or another "came" to the New World colonies.
Some of today's Latin-American political States have a very high proportion of Indigenous ...OR...European...OR Equatoria-African descended people and others NOT.
To make such specious claims is tantamount to telling Hassidic Jews in Manhattan, Russian Immigrants in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn and Italian American on Long Island that they are descended from Mohawk Indians because the original inhabitants in those areas.
Time to stop the "diversity" brainwashes. They haven't helped anyone understand the concept of "race" in America, no matter how many "Made-in-Korea" pinatas you smash with your plastic bat.
And that's the biggest flaw in the system because a lot, and I mean A LOT of people born and raised in Latin America (particularly South America), who speak Spanish are actually from European origins, hence technically they (we) are white and 100% caucassian (like myself), whiteout being any less Latino.
However the problem in the States is 2-fold:
1. There is a growing number of uninformed and deliberately deceitful "La Tinos" who will not or cannot identify along a racial line because they don't know their racial background or prefer not to stray too far away from the ignorant categorical rubric of one-size-fits-nadie "La Tino" category. Politicians LOVE these idiots because they just manipulate them as electoral putty to promote their fictitious "La Tino" agendas.
2. The American NON-"La Tino" population has very little real knowledge of Latin America or any of the peoples who came to settle in it. As a result THEY have been so brainwashed by #1 that they actually have come to believe that there really is a "La Tino" race.
For those of us who are of Hispanic-cultural background and KNOW our racial background and are not willing to pr*stitute ourselves for the sake of an extra slice of "La Tino" pizza, these forms are laughable.
Most Hispanic-cultured people i know (from Puerto Rico, Cuba, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile & Venezuela ARE white and are equally frustrated by the lack of intelligence we encounter in the US on the matter.