Stories of Self-Definition

What follows are excerpts-called “Stories of Self-Definitionw-from a number of case studies in Clara E.
Rodriguez’s Changing Race: Latinos, the Census and the History of Ethnicity in the United States. The studies, conducted in the early IiBOs, asked a sampling of Latinos to fill out a copy of the 1980 census’s race question, and then to answer a series of questions meant to ascertain why they answered the way they did. All of the respondents below, whose names have been changed, identified themselves as “other race. “
At the time of the interview, JP perceived himself to the census question on race, he assumed that the cate-
be (and was understood to be) assimilating into gories represented other major social-cultural-raciai- white corporate America. On the census race question, political groups in the United States, and he supplied his
JP checked “other” and specified “Puerto Rican Ameri- own (hyphenated) group. Although he clearly saw him- can.” He explained that he attributed his Puerto Rican self as physically white, he identified himseff as “other heritage to his parents but that he identified as Ameri-
(Puerto
Rican-American) race.” can because he was born in the United States. He added Even though JP identified as “other race,” his adapta- that he was bicultural because “various aspects of both tion to the U.S. racial system followed the familiar immi- the American and Pueno Rican cultures” influenced him. grant assimilation model. He answered the questions in
When he understood the questions to be asking much the same way that second-generation European about his physical appearance, JP consistently answered Amerrcans usually answer them. For example, Greek that he was white. But he did not feel it necessary to Americans or Italian Americans would see themselves as explain why he did not then select the white race cate- culturally the product of both the old country and the gory. When he understood the questions to be asking United States, as JP did. But earlier immigrants probably about his cultural identity, however, he said he was a would not have mentioned that their grandmother had “hyphenated American.” In effect, when
JP answered Indian blood. REPORT ON RACE
declared, “non-Hispanic whites are officially a minori-
ty in California,” while “Texas may soon become,
after California, the second biggest state in which non-
Hispanic whites are no longer the majority.” 6 One of
the Post’s earliest headlines
on the topic trumpeted that Cella: Latina, B
nationally, Hispanics have And Not Afri
“drawn even” with blacks; elia identified herself
a subsequent Times article census question, she
reported that “black Panamanian.” Celia lived
Floridians…risk being ty of the 1950s, the raci
overshadowed.” 7 and the renewed racial ha
Accompanying the bar says that throughout the
graphs and commentary in she always knew “who
these stories was the con- that she is both Hispanic
stant reminder that “His- roots in both identities
panic is a demographic Celia realized that most
group, not a race.” 8 Thus, be like “any other blac
Hispanics are an excep- uneasy with American-bi
tional ethnic group, indeed they strongly disliked blac
the only U.S. ethnic group illustrate, Celia described
that may be of any race. a pyounggrund with two of
“Non-Hispanic white” is black American woman h
not the same as, say, verbally abused her, and
“non-Eastern European Celia is a black Hispanic P
white” or “non-West But she is not a black Am
Indian black,” because herself as black according
“Eastern European” and ness. So she did not check
“West Indian,” as ethnici- the census question.
ties, are not recognized as
racially heterogeneous categories. Despite the fact
that a plurality of Hispanics-46%-identified them-
selves as white only, the comparison of Hispanics and
non-Hispanic whites as distinct groups is considered
viable. The implication is that white Hispanics are
not quite white, not “really” white. This corresponds
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to the stereotyped image of Latinos, as Rodriguez
understands it, as “tan.” “Within this perspective,”
she writes, “Hispanics are often referred to as ‘light-
skinned,’ not as white…. Seeing Hispanics/Latinos as
‘light’ clearly restricts
ck and Proud… their ‘whiteness’ and
“an American thus makes them non-
, : : i:: white by default.’9 “other race,” and on the ite by default.” wrote in “black Hspanic Caveats and technicali-
rough the racial insensitivi- ties aside, the news
awakening of the 1960s, media treatment of the
reds of the 1 980s. Yet she census results, especially
constant racial turbulence, in regional instances in
ie was.” She emphasized which whites are or are
and black and has strong swiftly becoming a
minority, continue the orth Americans saw her to demographic metaphor but noted that she felt coined by Time magazine n blacks. She sensed that following the 1990 cen-
s from other countries. To sus: “the browning of
experience she had had at America. 0 lo
er children when they were
.she began talking and a The story of this coun-
ard her accent, the woman try’s “browning,” the
Celia left the playground. nativist’s nightmare, is
namanian and proud of it, an old one, entrenched in
ican, and she does not see U.S. popular, literary and
o U.S. definitions of black- cinematic culture. Eighty
ff the “black” category on years ago, the father of
U.S. eugenicist demo-
graphics, Lothrop Stod-
dard, feared “the rising tide of color,” as he titled one
of his books, and the consequent “race suicide” of
“slow-breeding whites” outpaced by the immigration
and fertility rates of “inferior colored peoples.” It’s
worth worrying whether the latest demographic
“explosion” of “colored people” in the United States
Mr. Arco Iris’ Rainbow Identities
M r. Arco Iris’ name means “rainbow” in Spanish, and he is always addressed as “Mr.” because at 62, he
has a respected and established position as a professional
in the criminal justice system. Born and raised in East
Harlem and the South Bronx (predominantly black and
Hispanic neighborhoods), he is the son of parents who migrated from Puerto Rico to New York before World
War II. In response to the census race question, Mr. Arco Iris
checked “other” and wrote “Puerto Rican” in the space
next to it. But when answering “How would you
describe yourself racially?” and “What do you consider
yourself to be?” he stated, in both instances, “I am a
mixture of black, white and possibly Indian.” He noted
that his racial identity had changed over time. “As a
child, I perceived myself as a Puerto Rican and distinctly
apart from black and white. But as I grew, I understood
Puerto Rican as a mixture, and I could identify with both
blacks and whites.” The way he viewed his ancestry also
has changed “I would have considered myself more
white up to the age of nine. As I got older, I developed a
broader definition of race and acknowledged greater
mixture.”
Mr. Arco Iris described his color as “brown” and
explained that North Americans tend to see him as a
“brown-skinned Puerto Rican or a light-skinned black.”
His interviewer described him as “not white/not black.”
On a five-point color scale, Mr. Arco Iris labelled his
mother as a one (light) and his father as a five (dark), and
he identified himself as a four. This was darker than the
interviewer’s view of Mr. Arco Iris, as a three (intermedi-
ate in color). When asked why he characterized himself
as darker than North Americans might see him, Mr. Arco
Iris stated that “four is more biologically accurate” and
further explained that he identified himself as dark out of
respect for and loyalty to his brown-skinned father.
42NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 42REPORT ON RACE
Jos6 All: The Pressure to Be Black
os6 Ali is a Dominican, 24 years old, single and a full-
time student at a public university, Jose Ai answered “other, Hispanic” to the census race question and
explained: “By inheritance I am Hispanic. However, I
identify more with blacks because to white America, if
you are my color, you are a nigger. I can’t change my
color, and I do not wish to.” He consistently alluded to
his identification as black when answering other racial
items in the interview, for example, “Hispanic, yet identi-
fies as black” and “I describe myself as black.” When
asked what the word “black” meant to him, he replied, “As other people see me.” Finally, when asked, “Why do
you see yourself as black?” his answer was, “Because
when I was jumped by whites, I was not called ‘spic,’ but
I was called ‘nigger.”‘
During the interview, Jose Ali noted that he assumes
everybody at his job assumes he is black and he does not
“want to burst their bubble.” He said that he goes along
with their assumption as long as he is treated well but
admitted that he accepts this identity because it would
take him too much time to explain why he is culturally
not an African American. He pointed out that “when you
are seen as a certain race, you are also seen culturally the
might occasion a recrudescence of Stoddard’s
language.
“In many states,” The New York Times reported in an
article on the burgeoning Latino population in the Mid-
west, “there are already signs of public unease over the
role of immigration in crowding schools, burdening
hospitals and depressing wages. It may not take much
to turn those worries into a nativist backlash. Parox-
ysms of anti-immigrant fervor, after all, usually
accompany recession. Histori-
cally it starts with calls for a
crackdown on illegal immi- She describes jt grants and sometimes, indeed
as recently as 1996, the back- as the period lash produces laws that take
services not only from illegal from being a “s
but also from legal nonciti- a “sma zens.””l Time featured an arti-
cle on the Iowa governor’s
plan to boost the state’s sag-
ging number of laborers by stimulating immigration.
“‘Do we really want to become another California,
with all of its immigrant problems?”‘ asked a retired
Iowa lawyer, apparently one of the many residents of
the country’s “fourth-whitest state” who, the article
says, “want it to stay that way.” 1 2
Robert Samuelson, in his column for The Washington
Post, noted a “subtle and useful shift in tone and mes-
sage” in the press’s coverage of the census. Citing arti-
cles from the Times, USA Today and the Post on the
“new social problems and tensions” that immigration
Vol XXXIV, No 6 MAY/JUNE 2001
same.” But when people assume he is an African Ameri-
can, “they are disregarding my own feelings. They don’t
ask. They simply assume.”
Asked if his identity had changed over time, Jose Ali
answered yes. “I realized that though I feel Hispanic, I
was not seen as Hispanic or Latino, but as black. Now I
agree with whoever thinks I’m black. There is no point in
trying to prove that I’m not black…after being practically
attacked by whites because of the way I look. I decided
to accept the fact that no matter who I feel to be, I am
categorized as black.”
Thus, even though Jose Ali says he is “other race, His-
panic,” his responses reveal the pressures that some Lati-
nos feel to identify as an American black. This imposition
of the black-white racial order on Latinos separates them
into “whites” and “blacks” and in the process attempts
to create new African Americans and so-called hyphenat-
ed (European) Americans. Latinos understand this phe-
nomenon as their being identified racially but not cultur-
ally. Other Latinos in the sample felt similarly confused or
pressured to be “white.” Consequently, today Latinos
are pressured to be categorized according to their color
rather than their national heritage and culture.
brings-many of which are borne by immigrants them-
selves–Samuelson concluded: “To benefit from immi-
gration, we may need a little less of it…. We may also
need to favor skilled over unskilled immigrants, further
improving the odds for assimilation.” 1 3 The National
Review felt that “the United States should restrict the
currently high inflow,” since “Hispanics come here
because it is better than home,” and it will only “stay
attractive as long as less than everyone comes.” 1 4
Items in The New York Times
nior high school
when she went
mart chicana” to
t white.”
on Arizona, which had the
greatest Hispanic population
increase, also reported on
swamped social services,
such as a $49 million peak
last year in “uncompensated
[health] care to illegal immi-
grants and other uninsured
county residents.” But in a
perspective absent from
mainstream editorializing, Tom Rex of Arizona State
University, quoted in the Times, contextualized
Phoenix’s “rusting manufacturing plants…giving way
to bustling strip malls” by suggesting a relationship
between border enforcement and labor control. “In a
sense,” he said, “[illegal immigration] bailed the coun-
try out. Otherwise, a labor shortage would have had a
real effect on our economy.”l 5
It remains to be seen if immigration policy and pop-
ular attitudes will swing rightward as a result of the
new census findings. The New York Times noted that
43REPORT ON RACE
in California, “Republicans are
not going to be successful
statewide unless they can come
up with some way to rebuild
and repair the damage they’ve
done among Asian and Latino
voters with the anti-immigra-
tion crusades of the 1990s.”’16
George W. Bush’s more strate-
gically savvy politics in
Texas-in which “Hispanics
were incorporated into [the
Republican] party and [its]
agenda,” if only through his
rejection of “harsh rhetoric”
and “symbolic gestures”-
seems a more likely tack. 17
Three years after its “brown-
ing of America” piece, Time
published a special issue titled
“The New Face of America.”
Lauren Berlant and Michael
Women selling tacos at the Loisaida (from “Lower East Side”) street fair in downtown Manhattan. Mexicans are New York City’s fastest growing Latino immigrant community.
Warner have called its cover girl-a computer-
generated image of what the ideal, racially mixed citi-
zen will look like once whites in the United States
have become a minority-a “divine Frankenstein.”
The fantasy’s aim, by representing the USA as “a
happy racial monoculture made up of ‘one (mixed)
blood,”‘ they say, was “to help its public process the
threat to ‘normal’ or ‘core’ national culture that is cur-
rently phrased as ‘the problem of immigration.'” The
“crisis image of immigrants,” linked to “white fears of
minoritization,” is a “racial mirage” that in “supplying
a specific phobia” avoids a “substantial discussion of
exploitation.” 1 8 This papering over of massive social
inequalities with feel-good multicultural images and
gestures-such George W.’s “colorful” right-wing
cabinet-may be the ideological maneuver to beware
of in these postmillennial days, even as the old
nativism whispers in the press. E
Victoria: A Celebration of Color
Sictoria is a single, 30-year-old Chicana graduate stu- V dent who was born and raised in a small town on
the U.S.-Mexican border. Almost all the town’s resi-
dents are Mexican and work in the fields, although her
parents do not. Her father has a working-class occupa-
tion, and her mother is a homemaker. Victoria has sev-
eral sisters, and her family is Protestant. She has been
to Mexico only once, when she was 23, and she
described this trip as consciousness raising.
During her interview, Victoria consistently placed her-
self in an intermediate position, choosing “other” on
the census question and specifying “Hispanic.” She
gave her color as “brown” and said that North Ameri-
cans saw her as “other,” not “white” or “black.”
When Victoria finished elementary school, she went to
a junior high school where she was placed on the accel-
erated track. Here most of her classmates were Anglos.
She describes this period as when she went from being
a “smart Chicana” to a “smart white.” Most of her
friends were white, and her sisters would make fun of
and mimic her “whiteness.”
When Victoria went to ria went to the local community colege,
she continued to excel academically and was very active
in student government. She also recalled the following
experience that subsequently made her feel very
ashamed: One day the dean patted her on the shoulder
and told her, “I’m so glad you’re not like the other
Mexicans,” considering this a compliment. Asked how
she felt about the remark, Victoria said that it made her
uncomfortable but remembered that she looked up and
smiled.
Until she went to another college, in California,
Victoria did not realize the significance of the dean’s
remark. When she did, she first reacted with fury at
having denied her her heritage and having accepted the
implication that her accomplishments were an excep-
tion to the rule. She later also resented what she per-
ceived as the limitations of Mexican culture. As she
explained, she travelled a long road in a short time,
from being identified as white to being proud of being
Mexican to being angry at Mexican patriarchy. In
essence, Victoria saw her education as a vehicle that
helpedher escape certain sexual and racial boundaries,
but she also felt that while doing so, she had had expe-
riences that damaged her self-image, such as when she
was treated as a credit to her race.