Being a TA for Collaborative Leadership and focusing on the diversity unit has caused me to think about my own identity especially in terms of race and ethnicity. I feel that many people in my class find me to be a liberal biased brown girl- maybe I am, but reflecting on it, I don’t think I ever was socialized to be that way. I can’t remember the first time I started thinking of myself in terms of being Hispanic. And even today, I still don’t think of myself as being Hispanic.
It took me awhile to pinpoint my beginnings of identification with a group- what I came up with is that I associated first as being a cowgirl and also with the Native American culture, maybe even as being white. I grew up being taken to the Taos Powwow and watching westerns, believing in respecting nature and feeling my feet sink into the earth with beating drumbeats. I grew up in a family of white, Hispanic, and Asian people; people who were poor and wealthy; those with liberal and republican believes; grandparents who were Catholic and others who were Buddhist and Atheist. I don’t think I fully saw myself as Hispanic/Latina until fairly recently. My closest friends in my youth and now are not Hispanic (except for Emily and her family, and Cara and Elizabeth who are half Hispanic). Perhaps it was going to Mexico in the 8th grade that I finally thought of myself as being connected to that culture.
Prior to visiting my family in Mexico, I yearned to learn French and thought of Spanish as a wretched unbeautiful language. After going, however, I wanted to learn Spanish so I could communicate with my family, so I could write to Alejandra and Laila in their language and they could write to me in my language. Speaking of Laila and Alejandra, I wonder how they are doing. I miss receiving letters from them. I miss receiving letters in general. I would look forward each month to getting my letters from Mexico packed with random Mexican brochures and friendship bracelets. *sigh* I should start writing letters again- that would make me an exciting person. Hmm- Minga! project- letters to orphans!!!
I’m also going to admit something right now- I have my biases- we all now that. When I was younger I don’t think I ever had such strong biases, but I think one event in particular made me more wary of older fundamental Christian white people. One time when I was with my family in Crested Butte- my family meaning Grandma, Grampa, Aunt Margaret, Uncle Frank, Francisco, Marisa, my parents and siblings- and we were in a bookstore. All of us, with the exception of my sister and my mother look Hispanic, or at least non-white. We were browsing, looking at the books. I didn’t know anything unusual until I was up at the counter looking at those little 3x2 inch books and the store owner looked at me and said: “your parents just left”. I looked around and my mom was still in the store, my dad and my aunt, however, were outside. I nearly explained that my mom was still in the store, and started doing so and she remarked firmly “you might want to go”. Well, I decided to leave- she obviously assumed that my aunt and father were married. I mean, and this is my bias coming out right now, how could a brown man marry a white woman. That would be impossible right? I left the store nearly in tears. I hadn’t done anything wrong and I was being kicked out. I thought I was overreacting, but then my siblings and cousins came out. My sister and cousing Marisa walked into the store chewing gum and the store owner told Marisa to get rid of her gum. My sister saw this so pretended she didn’t have any. Once they got rid of the gum, they went over to look at books with my brother and cousin Francisico. The store owner went to Francisco, Antonio, and Marisa, didn’t even look at my sister, grabbed the books out of their hands and said, “what are you doing- you can’t look at the books if you’re not going to buy them”. Well, they were all hurt and decided to leave the store. A white woman who was standing nearby when this happened also walked out with them and when they were outside said “you shouldn’t let anyone make you feel bad about looking at books- that’s what a bookstore is for”. After hearing what happened to us, and sort of observing it, my aunt, uncle, and parents as well as the women went in to speak to the store lady and sort out the situation. Well, emotions were raging and eventually people just started leaving the store. I think it was after that that I started realizing that people could treat me differently, and would treat me differently for being brown. Previously I think I associated more with white culture and expected white people to treat me like one of them. Wow, that’s weird, I just had that realization now.
Oh, okay, here’s a different (probably more accurate account of the same story that I wrote about for HE 301 Collaborative Leadership last year):
The second instance of discrimination I can think of right off the bat occurred a few years ago. I was with nine of my family members and I went into a bookstore with all of them. Let me just say that 7 of us, including myself do not look white, we look Hispanic. However, my mother and my little sister are really fair skinned with blue eyes and light hair. Well, we were all browsing and looking at books we might want to buy since we are all major book junkies. My sister was sitting on the floor next to my brother, and two cousins. They were all looking through children’s books when the store owner walked over to them and grabbed the books from everyone’s hands (everyone’s except for my sister’s – who as I’ve said, is white) “You can only look at these books if you’re going to buy them” she said. And then, she walked back to the counter where I was looking at miniature books. “I think you’re mother’s outside” she told me, pointing to my aunt. I didn’t dare contradict her- apparently she assumed my dark-skinned aunt was my mother when my real mother was still in the bookstore looking at books. I fled that bookstore immediately, something my cousins and siblings had already done. We were all in tears. Why did she treat us this way? None of her white customers were treated this way. We spoke among ourselves and eventually the parents who were still inside begin to spill out. They wanted to know what was wrong with us, so we told them. And soon, a white woman who had seen what happened came out and told us that the storekeeper “had no right to treat us that way”. At that point, our parents, and that women who had witnessed our discrimination barged into the store and started telling the lady that what she had done was wrong. As we watched through the store window, we saw the remaining customers slowly pouring out of the store. We told her how we felt, but we never received an apology, just the sympathy of another person who witnessed this injustice and made us feel we had no right to feel as though we were inferior to this ignorant bookstore lady.
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