Examining what it means to be a person of color

I don’t recall exactly when I started hearing the phrase “person of color.” I remember hearing about being “brown” and “brown people” when I was younger. But of these two, and especially the latter, I never felt any personal connection.  It wasn’t until I got to college that I started thinking about why that was.

Lets start with a definition of a person of color: a person in a minority group who is perceived by him-or-her-self and/or by the dominant group as the “other,” or an ethnic person. Many Latinos in the U.S. are of racially white ancestry (Whites comprise the largest ethnic group in Latin America in general). However, the overwhelming majority are of mixed racial background. Most Mexicans immigrating to the United States are not going to look like the ones on Mexican TV, who are usually racially white, for reasons that can be explained through examining history (most Mexicans who immigrate here are from the lowest classes, the brownest folk, and that's why people mistakenly consider 'Mexican' a race and so are shocked when they meet a Mexican who "looks white" or "looks black", is Asian or Jewish). Most Cubans in the United States are racially white, descended mostly from Spaniards and to a lesser degree, from other Europeans, as well; but does this mean they’re “White?” They may think of themselves as such, but the common perception will be that they’re not. Unless they fully assimilate themselves and identify themselves as part of the dominant Anglo culture, they will remain people of color. 

To put it in context: in the United States, it’s easier to see what a person of color is because of its history. The English created very racialist societies in its colonies, aspects of which we still see today. The people who were “White” then, were the English and their descendants. Therefore, the Irish, Germans, and Jews, for example, were not “white” when they arrived to the U.S. Furthermore,  we see an example of racialism with the one-drop rule, which legally made someone with even only 1/16th black ancestry a black person, for the purposes of preventing interracial breeding and thus maintaining a white population. So the idea of “white” and what isn’t white is deeply rooted in American history; and yes, I do maintain that “white” is a socially constructed idea in the United States and other Anglo societies.

Why is this important? You have to compare Anglo America with Spanish America, where my family is from. The Spanish were just as racist as the English, lets make it clear. However, their colonies’ societies were different. The Spanish, as Latin Europeans (that is, Catholic Europeans) were very much assimilationist, paradoxically accepted the Indigenous and Blacks as their catholic brethren, while simultaneously rejecting them as non-white heathens. The Spanish and the Portuguese ultimately accepted interracial breeding in their colonies; in fact, in Brazil, the Marquis of Pombal actually encouraged interracial breeding between Whites and Natives in order to increase the population in the late 18th century. One example of assimilationism in Latin Europe from contemporary times is the French model for assimilation, where everyone can become French (but it’s difficult if you’re not a racially white person). So in the colonies, there existed a complicated caste system, with Spanish-born whites at the top, American-born whites next, Mestizos (people of mixed White and Indigenous ancestry) after, the Indigenous at the bottom, and blacks at the very bottom – and then everything else in between. In this society, perception determined your place. That is to say, a poor white person, even if European-born, could be perceived as a mestizo. On the other hand, an economically well-off mestizo was usually perceived as white, unless he looked “too Indigenous.” This still exists. In most of Latin America, social and racial divisions are in the guise of great inequalities in wealth and education: the whiter you are, the richer and better educated you are (not to say that poor whites don’t exist).

Why is this important to know? Because my family is from a country whose society is Spanish-based (built on the backs of the Indigenous, the Blacks, and even poor whites, no less) that immigrated to a society that is English-based –two different formerly colonial systems in the same continent; meaning, they brought with them attitudes from their old country to the United States. In Spanish America, the effects of the caste system vary from region to region. In Central America (not including Belize or Panama), the “Whites” are racially white people and mestizos, and the people of color are Asians, Blacks and the Indigenous. The independence movements here were headed by both Whites and Mestizos, and not just white like in Mexico and Venezuela, for example. Costa Rica designates “Whites/Mestizos” as one ethnic label in their census, as does Guatemala; meaning that I would be part of the dominant group, had I been born and raised in El Salvador.

I have a feeling my family, on both sides, descends from the rural landed classes. I have to research this, though. But if true, it would explain a lot. Anyway, my aunt-in-law recently told me that her father would repeatedly tell her that she and her maid, a Mayan, were socially not equals. It’s common among middle-class Guatemalans to have trophy maids, who are usually Mayans. When I was in El Salvador in 1998, I remember asking my paternal grandmother about why all my cousins attended private schools and not public schools, she replied “Public schools are for the poor,” who, usually tend to be the darkest. That was very peculiar to me, seeing as how she as well as several others on my dad’s side of the family in El Salvador was economically poor, with the other half being middle-class; the operative word here is ‘economically’, because SOCIALLY they’re middle-class. Another time, when I was in Guatemala with my grandma, mom, younger cousin and sister, we were walking to my aunt’s home. We saw a Mayan woman in traditional dress with a baby neatly tucked in a traditional back-pouch. My grandmother thought the sight to be adorable, and so she excitedly told my sister and cousin to look. The woman was very startled, and my grandmother—who has a very Mediterranean phenotype—tried to comfort her and reassure her that she meant no harm. If this isn’t a clear example of differences in status, I don’t know what is.

Evidently, I’m a person of mixed racial ancestry. But I have never felt “brown” in my life, it’s such a foreign concept to me. I was not raised to think of myself that way, but that I was different –culturally – from “los Americanos [white Americans]” was made clear to me and has always been clear to me; that’s why I’m a person of color.