What does color have to do with it?

*I want to preface this by saying that this blog post will deal with sensitive issues regarding race, racial ignorance, and racial identity.*

I grew up in a ‘mixed’ home as some would call it, my mother is Caucasian while my father is Hispanic. Although I really wasn’t aware, or rather I didn’t place much emphasis on it, until I went to school. I never saw my mother as being different than me; honestly I didn’t see color. But kids were quick to point out that my mother looks entirely different than me with her red hair, green eyes and fair skin while I have dark brown hair, matching eyes and needless to say I am a few shades darker. I was constantly asked if she was my babysitter or stepmom. I didn’t understand why people questioned me or why it even mattered at all.

Fast forward a few years to middle school…this would be when I really started to struggle with racial identity. Many are probably wondering what that term even means and to put it simply it is the race one most identifies with. We have all been confronted with the question on medical forms and job applications, “Please check the box of your race (select only one),” or something along those lines. But what do you do if you are equally two races? I can’t deny half of myself. Yet sometimes it was just easier to identify as Hispanic since I look more so. Then I was confronted with which group of people I identify most with. As I told my mother growing up, I am too brown for the white people (based on my looks) but too white for the brown people (based on the fact that I am not fluent in Spanish); it really was a struggle. It was only made more difficult by the comments I heard from others…

In 6^th grade a fellow student, who was a refugee from Somalia I might add, told me to go back to my own country. Umm yeah I am American citizen, I am in my country. He went on to say how “‘my’ people were beneath him and someday ‘my’ people would be kissing his feet as his servants.” No joke that is a direct quote from someone who wasn’t even an American citizen himself. A year later in 7^th grade a girl who proclaimed to be a Christian (I think that is the part that hurt the worst) stood up in class and said in front of everyone, “the only reason there are dark people is because they were burned in hell.” Yeah I must have missed that verse in the Bible somewhere. Again I didn’t understand. How could someone that proclaimed the name of Christ be so hateful and hurtful over something that doesn’t matter?

I often wondered why I had been chosen to look this way while my sisters inherited my mother’s fairer skin but more often than that I just cried. People were so cruel. I was downright outraged when a girl in 8^th grade had the nerve to suggest that racism had ceased to exist since the Civil Rights Movement; yeah easy for her to say as she sat there with her blonde hair, blue eyes and white skin. What could she possibly know about racism?? She had no idea what I had been through, what I was going through and what I would face down the road.

High school got easier but I constantly had to deal with the questions: where are you from? Um Denver. Colorado. The United States. Do you speak Spanish? Uh no, do you speak French? Is that your real mom? Yes, wanna see her c-section scars? I mean seriously why do people think it is ok to ask such personal questions, it blows my mind. I’ve seen my dad have to go through it too. He gets the dumb questions, the rude remarks about being an immigrant (which he isn’t), being told to go back to his own country and even being racially profiled by the police in some instances; all because of the color of his skin.

Baby Jasmine at 18 weeks

As I’ve gotten older I have learned to brush it off or maybe I’m just more immune after all the scars, either way I don’t let it bother me as much as I did when I was a kid. However now I face a new challenge and more ignorance. Our daughter will be mixed race (one fourth Hispanic and three fourths Caucasian), there is no telling what color her skin will be. To me it doesn’t matter because she is my daughter, she is made exactly the way God intended her to be. But other people seem more preoccupied by it. I’ve been told that ‘it would be easier in society if she was just white.’ I can handle hurtful words, I’ve been doing it for years, but my daughter should not be subject to such ignorant things. Every time I hear a racial joke I literally have to bite my tongue. Hearing the word “wetback” makes my skin crawl with anger. Such things are not funny.

I want to educate others a little bit on definitions for a moment because I feel like they are often misused and misunderstood. Race refers to a large group that includes all the ethnicities of that group for example Caucasian, Hispanic, Asian, Native American or African American. Ethnicity is the sub category of a race for example German, French, Ugandan, Mexican or Chinese.

My parents

For the record, my race is Caucasian AND Hispanic. My ethnicities are Spanish, German and Swedish. My racial identity: human being. So please think twice before you laugh at a joke at another race’s expense, use a racial slur, ask a question that may potentially be hurtful or make an assumption based on someone’s skin. After all, what does color have to do with it?

<3 JT