Let me tell you what really drives me crazy as a fair-skinned Latina. It’s a question I get all the time, one you might have innocuously asked yourself, on occasion. When I tell someone I’m of Puerto Rican heritage they say, “Funny, you don’t look Puerto Rican!” Though this raises my blood pressure through the roof, I restrain myself from using the comeback some of my more militant friends use, “Funny, you don’t look like a bigot!” My new version is more subtle, but hopefully just as effective, “And just what do you think a Latina looks like?” After waiting out either a series of stammers or excuses I continue with, “We come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, you know.”
Now I don’t bring this up to make anyone feel bad. I know that more often than not there is no hurtful intent behind this comment; however it makes one feel that they are not ethnic enough, or somehow not fitting the “standard” for their given ethnicity. But the worse situation is when this question is asked as if it were a compliment, as I was asked by a loud man at a party in Brooklyn one afternoon: “Whoa, you sure are white for a Puerto Rican! Maybe you shouldn’t tell people your mother was one. You sure could pass as one of us.” As if being “whiter” is equal to better. As if I am not proud of my mother and our heritage. As if I would prefer to be “one of us.”
I taught a community college course in race, class, and gender in the United States a few years ago, and there was a woman from Germany taking the course who confessed she is often asked, “What brings you to Vermont?” She would tell them that her husband is a Vermonter and his work is here, and then she gets, “How long will you be here for?” or “When do you head home?” as if her welcome is expected to wear out, when in fact she was indeed a permanent Vermont resident just like everyone else in the class.
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