Amelia’s account strikes a chord with me–a loud one:
This list is a small selection but gives you an idea of how my racial identity was formed. I was not flesh-coloured. Not brown. Not white. Not clean. Not Asian. Not like them… but not comfortable mocking or belittling them either. After some time I had a good idea of what I wasn’t. It took that night, seeing a group of Indian women my own age, to realise for the first time that there might be a racial identity I am. But that identity was not – could not be – Indian.
I’m not exactly white*. Not exactly Filipina. Not even comfortable calling myself mestiza**, since I live in a part of the world where the term is associated with Native American heritage.
I’ve never seen anyone on TV who looks like me. This has never bothered me, at an emotional level. (I used to think there weren’t many of “my people” in the USA! Eventually, I learned about the Filipino-American community in the city next door.) My ethnicity shouldn’t matter, but I live in a world where it does. To ignore this is to surrender power over my life, and to perpetuate the disempowerment of others.
I don’t know how to live my values and not be obnoxious about race/ethnicity stuff. But I’m trying. There is always more to learn.
We of the Ethnicity: Other category are like anyone else, that way.
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* Full disclosure: I do have light-skinned privilege, and a certain amount of economic privilege via white relatives.
** Please let me know if that was a slur or a usage error somehow. English is my only fluent language. And, uh, my dad may well have neglected to mention if he taught me an impolite word.
The (The paradox of) representing Ethnicity: Other by Lee Salazar, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Terms and conditions beyond the scope of this license may be available at leesalazar.com.