Let me start this by stating two facts. First, I am Latin. Second I look like I’m white (with this I mean my skin is white, I still, for my consideration, have very defined latin features).
Im from Ecuador (little country on South America) and this week I traveled to the United States in a never ending search for colleges I could apply for next fall, therefore I had to attend multiple interviews, and generally, they went great. Until I mentioned where I came from. Now, don’t get me wrong, people at the universities were really nice, and the change in their attitude or behavior towards me wasn’t drastic, but it was there. As soon I mentioned I came from Ecuador I received a condescending “oooh” and what seem to me as a pitiful smile. When this happen for the first time, I was rather curious, and couldn’t pin-point why the sudden change on the way I was treated, specially because, my aunt who was accompanying me, (and is latin as well btw.) received exactly the same treatment I did before I mentioned my origin. She was bring asked questions and responded kindly, while I, the one who was looking for colleges, was constantly left aside and frequently ignored.
When I was talking to my aunt and asked her about this situation, she had an interesting answer, you see, during the interviews, she never said she was latin. She told me she had noticed the change on people’s treatment towards her when she bring up the topic of where she came from, so she stopped doing it. She told me also she had cut everything from latino origin from her, that meaning no expressions on the way she speak, a different way of dressing, a different way of acting and even a new way of thinking. A new way of carrying herself. In a nutshell, she would completely change herself. She got rid of her culture, and therefore her identity, in order to fit in in the american society. And she suggested I should do the same, so I can too be treated nicely, in other words, I should use a privilege I wasn’t aware I possessed, my white passing privilege.
I would have to stop talking about home, change the way I dress, talk and express myself, and to be honest, I was considering that option. But then a thought came to me: What if I don’t want to change any of that? What if I actually enjoy being a Latina? Would that give anyone the permission to treat me badly or being consider less than my peers? Was my social worth linked somehow with my cultural identity? Do I actually had to keep hidden a part of myself in order to be respected?
And so I came to the conclusion that no, I did not, or I shouldn’t have. I am latina, and you know what? I love it. That’s me, my origin and culture comes with the package , and I shouldn’t have to hide that in order to be treated with respect and be taken into consideration.
I refuse to be extirpated of my own culture to fit your standars. I refuse to change a big part of myself for your comfort. I refuse to exercise a privilege I am not comfortable possessing, so I can be treated as an equal. I am not the one who should change, but the society who has reached new levels of intolerance. Because you know what? I am a latina, and I love it.
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