The Unspoken Light-Skinned Latino Experience
Gavin Zaletsky
My name is Gavin Zaletsky. I am a white Hispanic. Just this statement alone is enough to turn the heads of many who hear it, thinking I just stated some sort of contradictory statement. In a time where race and nationality are brought up perhaps more than ever before, it seems many people don’t actually know what they are talking about in regard to these topics.
To begin, let’s establish some baselines. ‘Race’ is defined as, “a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society.” Essentially, it groups people based on physical attributes. Currently, the United States census names 7 races, those being white, black, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, Pacific Islander, ‘some other race’, and ‘2 or more races’. Notice how ‘Hispanic’ is not one of these races.
‘Latino’ is a term that describes a person from Latin America or of Latin American descent. It is a geographical term, not a physical term. This means somebody from Brazil is Latino because although they do not speak Spanish, the place they are from is located in Latin America. This is not to be confused with other Latin-based nations, which include France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and others.
‘Hispanic’ refers to somebody who is from a Spanish-speaking country. This terminology refers to language, rather than physical or geographical attributes. In this case, somebody from Brazil would not be Hispanic, as they speak Portuguese, yet somebody from Spain would be considered Hispanic because Spain is a Spanish-speaking country.
Why does all this matter? Similar to my fellow writers in this piece, and I’m sure millions of others just like us in America, I have found myself questioning the validity of my own heritage not only because of physical assumptions and stereotypes but also because of stigma and decades of misunderstandings and ignorance.
Imagine a black man telling a light skin black man they aren’t actually black because they aren’t dark-skinned like they are. Imagine Chinese kids laughing at a Japanese kid saying he isn’t ‘Asian enough’. Imagine Irish kids laughing at an Italian for not being ‘white enough.’
First of all, all of those scenarios are almost laughable because to anybody else, we see the light skin as black, we know the Japanese kid is just as Asian as the Chinese kids, and the same for the Italian and Irish kids. Despite this almost satirical example, this exact scenario happens every day to Hispanic people of all races. “You’re not Hispanic, you’re white!” As we’ve already learned, these terms are not mutually exclusive. Somebody can be a black Hispanic, a white Hispanic, even an Asian Hispanic, because remember, Hispanic refers to the language of the origin country, not the physical attributes.
Like I said earlier, I am a white Hispanic. Where this gets complicated, however, is that I am also a white Latino. My father is Ukrainian, and my mother, along with Colombian and Cuban (Latin American), is also Spanish. Despite this, I have found myself on more than one occasion being told I am not ‘truly Hispanic’ due to my whiteness.
Story time.
A couple years ago in college, I was driving one of my friends, who is Dominican, to pick up one of his friends from the train station. I didn’t know this person yet, so upon meeting them for the first time at the station, I introduced myself. I was met with a not rude, but pretty cold and disinterested greeting from this person. After a few awkward minutes of this person telling a story about a cop they had run into, they at one point said something along the lines of disliking white people, then turned to me and said my bad while laughing, almost mockingly. Once my friend told this person I am Hispanic, they immediately started apologizing and literally reintroduced themselves, this time shaking my hand and being much more friendly than before.
While this person can be chalked up as simply a jerk, the sheer difference in attitude only after discovering my ethnicity shows not only how hyper fixated, we have become on race, but also the amount of ignorance that continues to be present today. By this I mean, nothing about my demeanor, behavior, or physical appearance changed at all during that conversation, it was only upon finding out we shared ethnic origins that I was treated with respect. This, in my opinion, is not only a form of racism but also indicative of a larger problem today of Hispanics and Latinos being stereotyped as only darker people, which is anything but the truth.
Hailey Bieber, Anthony Bourdain, Mark Anthony, and Cameron Diaz are all Hispanic. Cardi B, Roberto Clemente, Mariah Carey, and George Lopez are also all Hispanic. While the first and second group of people listed look almost nothing alike, they are all Hispanic.
However, if photos of all these people were shown and the average American had to categorize these people into who is Hispanic and who is not, based only on looks, I think nobody would be able to guess all of these people share Hispanic origin. What we would find is that people like George Lopez and Cardi B would easily be classified as Hispanic, and those like Hailey Bieber and Cameron Diaz not being recognized as such at all. This type of thinking is not only incorrect, as all of these people are Hispanic, but also perpetuates the stereotype that all Hispanics look a certain way, have brown skin, or whatever else it is.
Even if we bring this further into only classifying Latinos instead of Hispanics, look at people like Julio Cesar Chavez compared to Danny Trejo as just one example, who are both Mexican and look almost nothing alike. Latinos are one of the most racially diverse groups on the planet, and the current trend of trying to shove Latinos into one physical box only serves to disservice the real experiences of all Latinos from all racial backgrounds.
White, black, light skin, dark skin, native, afro Latino, whatever it is you may identify yourself as, take pride in it. Nobody can tell you “How Hispanic” you are., Nobody can discredit your work. Most importantly, and nobody can take away from where you came from. If you are someone who has found yourself making these types of comments towards your lighter-skinned Latino friends, take a minute to think about how you may be making them feel and how you would feel if someone tried to tell you that you were not Hispanic because you looked a certain way.
Overall, Latino and Hispanic Americans are one of the most underserved groups of people in our country, and if we want any chance of improving ourselves as a whole, we must work together and unify to achieve strength in numbers. United we stand, divided we fall, let’s start building each other up for our Latin roots and working together to create a better nation for the next generation of Latino and Hispanic youth.
Owen Hackett
America is easily one of the most diverse countries in the world, with all cultures around the world represented here it seems. With that comes people from different cultures meeting and starting families which in turn created more diverse Americans. The number of Americans that have different or multiple cultures within their heritage is cast and ever-growing. Okay, I can only really share my perspective.
My mother was born in Colombia and moved to this country at a young age, and my father was born in America to an average Italian-American white family. Ethnically speaking this would make me half Colombian and we will just call the other half White.
Growing up I was very involved with my mother’s side of the family, often seeing them and spending many holidays and vacations together. A large majority of my mom’s side are Colombians besides the ones that either married in or are born mixed like me.
As a child, I was shown a lot of Colombian culture while being with my family, as well as even spending multiple summers in Colombia with my Abuelo. Whenever the World Cup came around, I always root for Colombia over America because my family would. I loved being Colombian as a kid and I would tell everyone I met that I was Colombian and almost never really mentioned that I was half-white, I just thought my Colombian side was more interesting. As a kid telling other kids this they almost never really cared but they just accepted that that was my heritage and moved on. It wasn’t until I got older where I started seeing treatment that I felt was for lack of a better word, disrespectful toward my heritage.
My name is Owen Hackett which isn’t really the most Colombian sounding name on the planet. In fact, it is an Irish name. My appearance skews more toward the caucasian side for some people, although I do usually have a pretty sweet tan. Also, my Spanish is very poor besides a basic understanding of simple terms that can get me by.
Due to these factors along with other aspects of profiling, as I have gotten older, I have gotten less and less acknowledgement of my Colombian heritage. In fact, it feels like it’s been getting harder and harder to simply say I’m Colombian; I have had people question just how Colombian I am.
“Well you don’t speak Spanish,” “Well you weren’t born there,” or my favorite “You don’t look Colombian at all kid, you look white,” are all things I have heard many times throughout my life. I used to fight back at these remarks almost trying to prove that I am Colombian but now I simply just say, “Look man I’m Colombian I don’t know what to tell you.” The whole situation is very interesting to me from a mental standpoint.
One thing I have noticed is that more often than not the people who can’t accept that I’m Colombian are white people. Denying that I am Colombian for whatever reason they could come up with, believe me, I have heard it all. They come at me with a tone that seems like they are appalled by the fact I would consider myself Colombian, likely because I don’t match the profile of what they would consider a Colombian to look like.
“Wow I would not have guessed at all that you were ethnic in any way,” is literally something somebody has said to my face. The surprised faces don’t stop there because even other Hispanics can have a hard time believing me. Many times, I talk to another Hispanic either in public or anywhere really, I am excited to find out where they are from and whatnot. Eventually, I like to reveal that I am in fact Colombian to see if there is any common ground between me and them.
Unfortunately, many times I do this I am given very similar treatment to what I previously mentioned. Shock that I’m Colombian or what I think is possibly worse is when I tell them I am mixed and their response is “Uh, so you aren’t really Colombian.” My response to this crazy statement is a stern, unwavering “I am just as Colombian as any mixed-race person is anything else.”
What is upsetting about all of this is that I now am in a part of my life where I don’t know what to do with my Colombian heritage. I either have to defend it or just not even bring it up to avoid any confusion. I don’t feel accepted by many Hispanics because of the ways I’m different compared to many of them. I feel as if white people desperately want me to just be white like them as if there is something unfair about me calling myself Colombian.
I won’t say I feel discriminated against because I feel like that is such a big word to use in today’s age but I will say that the whole situation makes me feel very alone. I honestly feel like I have a large portion of my life and my heritage that I have nowhere to either share or talk about. Moving forward, I am planning on practicing my Spanish and I will continue to represent my heritage the way I have, regardless of the reactions.
Jessica Montalvo
Try having Mexican parents and being asked your entire life which one of them is white. They ask because of the color of my skin, convinced that I have a white parent because I’m not the “right color.” Not only are people completely unaware of Latin American history and its story of genocide, but being taught about culture is either minimal or simply non-existent in American classrooms.
Growing up and even into my adulthood, there have been Whites, African Americans, and Latinos who would tell me to my face that I’m not Latina enough and I don’t represent the BIPOC community.
Don’t get me wrong, even though I’ve been consistently criticized about my skin color and how privileged I am, it doesn’t mean I’m any less proud to be 100% Mexican. I have always taken those criticisms as an opportunity to use my unique privileges to serve my Latino community in ways that I knew contributed to the advancement of our people and our community, even if I didn’t fit into their expectations of what defined their perspective of what I should look like. And I’m not missing the point. But what isn’t talked about is the fact that whatever color or shade, safety will never be a sure thing.
Those who have criticized my skin color have no idea of the experiences I’ve shown up for. The tables I had been invited to required me to pick and choose my battles, witness institutional elitism firsthand, tokenism, bias, and racism, and required me to be a spokesperson, a scapegoat, and a loner with no known allies.
My takeaways are to take up space, own my identity, and accept that I won’t be accepted by everyone, but I will still be rooted in mi cultura. It is important to tell our stories so that perhaps, our communities can begin to experience solidarity by looking at all of our challenges as opportunities.
