Hi, everyone! I'm the girl with the generic "American" first name (one that's most definitely intended to be pronounced in English), the conspicuously absent tan and the names of punk rock bands scribbled on the front of my composition book. At first glance, I'm the perfect basic white girl, as I walk into class clad in yoga pants and a sweater, clutching a mug full of something that could very well be vaguely pumpkin-flavored. As I raise my hand to ask a question in a voice devoid of any trace of a "foreign accent," no one would guess the dirty secret I'm hiding...
Hi, everyone. I know I don't look it, but I'm Cuban-American.
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As our modern society continues to struggle onward in the name of tolerance and acceptance, one of the biggest enemies of this goal is ignorance, defined not as a single offending action or phrase but as a genus of misinformation that only serves to fuel the fire of stereotypes. Looking back over the course of my short life, I can't even enumerate how many times I've heard phrases such as these:
"Oh, but you don't look Hispanic."
"Are your parents illegal immigrants?"
"Hey, what artist wrote [insert the name of a song that sounds vaguely like salsa, kind of]."
And that one comment from the more lecherous-minded male very well aware of cultural stereotypes (and willing to take advantage of them): "So... you must be really passionate, huh, [insert a mildly derogatory term that rings of mere sexualized slang]?"
Don't get me wrong - these sorts of discrepancies do not only come from non-Latino Caucasians, but from other racial and ethnic groups as well, including fellow Hispanics. I'll often find myself engaged in a conversation about America's long history of discrimination with, say, an African-American; or about how stifling traditional cultural values can be with an Asian or Indian-American? In these scenarios, my opinion often doesn't seem to carry it's own weight up until the moment I state my ethnic background. Until I identify myself as a member of an ethnic group that has also experienced a long history of discrimination at the hands of "whites," my views about racism and even class struggles are received as invalid, spewed thoughtlessly from a privileged perspective.
Similarly, many of these "white people" are often surprised at my level of education, the fact that I'm not an illegal immigrant, the fact that I speak not one, but two languages fluently (I wonder how they even handle the shock) and the fact that I have eaten food outside the general realm of pork and black beans. The fact that these generalizations and assumptions are so prevalent in our modern day, birthed out of the mouths of the children of a politically-correct culture that claims nothing but respect for members of racial and ethnic groups different from their own, leaves me not so much with a sense of disgust or anger as one of shock. How is it that so many members of such a diverse and transient society as our own persist in ignorance about those with whom they interact on a daily basis? One would think that the overtones of such an open-minded society can reach beyond face-value comments such as these.
My complaints are not against my lack of a tan. They are not against any particular racial or ethnic group (whether or not they are easily identifiable as such by the color of their skin). The nature of this issue stems from the cultivation of false information, from the willingness to pin labels on others even as we speak of breaking the paper chains that hold them (or us). The common experiences that bind those of a certain identity are some of the strongest links known to man - I'm not calling for their dissolution. Rather, I hold that the long-term effect of a society that recognizes only stereotypes and blatant manifestations of one's ethnic (or racial, religious, political, even national) identity is not to draw individuals closer together, but rather serves to give them those first-day-on-the-playground butterflies... the sinking feeling of being scrutinized and excluded by everyone around them.
