What Does It Mean To Be Latino? The 'Light-Skinned Privilege' Edition

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In certain Latino families, there's a broad color spectrum. My Dominican grandfather is black and my aunt, which is his daughter, has pale white skin with freckles. Maybe you're the one with pale skin and freckles. Oh she's the white girl of the group or you know she's the white Latina. How do you identify? Do you think of yourself as white, as a person of color, or just Latinette.

It's difficult when I'm a light skinned Latino. Code Switch listener Brandon Mogrovejo wrote to us about a tense discussion he had with his wife Christina when she told him she filled out the census for their household. He had this feeling that she might have messed up because he is a lighter skinned Latino and that might make things confusing for her. Yeah, so he works really long hours, um,'cause he's a medical resident. So first I did mine.

And then I did his. But you know, we got to the topic of what race do you identify as? I'm very particular about how I fill out the census. So I was like, Oh, well what did you put? And she's like, Oh I put Hispanic Latino for ethnicity and I put white for race. I was like, but you know I don't identify as white.

It for for me it's confusing because I know he doesn't identify as white. So I think when I was going through the question I almost didn't know what to put because they don't really give you an a good option. I'm trying to remember back but you know, obviously they have like white Caucasian, they have African, African American, and then I think they also have Asian. Mm-hmm. Right? But they don't have very good options if

you don't really identify as any of those categories. And so I kinda didn't really know what to do and I didn't think about checking the box that said other. And it just well it prompted a very good conversation I think. Brandon said he explained to Christina that he's not treated like a white guy. Most people assume he's Latino. They live in the Bronx and he says other Latinx people often address him in Spanish first.

And white people often treat him like he's the help. They're like, Oh, like you must be the valet, like you can't be anyone else. And it's like explaining those experiences. That that was where our conversation went. That's what I remember. Um So on the census if there had been an option for Lat Latin or Latinx um Race? I I wouldn't have even thought twice. I would have I would have checked that behind

Brandon insisted they redo the census. This time he checked Latino as his ethnicity, and for race, he checked other and typed in. Latino. For me it was important to submit my correct identity. But it was also important in the context of the Trump presidency and me being like, no, like I'm Latino, I'm here and I want to be represented that way.

I'm Shereen Marithol Maraji and this Is code switch from NPR. Jean's out this week. And if you're a regular here, you've probably already guessed that this is the latest in our occasional series of conversations. About what it means to be Latina, Latino, Latinx, Hispanic, Latin, Latin, Latinx.

Last time we did one of these I talked to the kid Marrow. It was so much fun. He's a comedian, podcaster, and late night talk show host from the Bronx. My mom pulled me out of public school, put me in a Catholic school. There was a lot of Irish kids, I yeah. And they used to be like, Yo, you're black That's very confusing to like a seven year old, like Yes.

But then it's like, I'm also Dominican, I speak Spanish. This time around, my two guests discuss identity formation in the United States when you're also a Mexican immigrant who speaks Spanish. And has light skin. But before we meet them, I want to point out that you're gonna hear us use a few different terms in these discussions. So the Kid Maro told me he likes the non gendered term Latine. Uh others prefer Latinx, Latinx.

Latino is an old standby, and I know a lot of people are gonna hate this, but Hispanic. is still the most popular. I I don't use Hispanic. That's Maria Hinojosa. Welcome to Latino USA. I'm Maria Hinojosa. Maria's the host of the longest running national public media show focused on all things Latinx. founder of her own non profit media organization, Futuro Media. The author of Once I Was You, a memoir of Love and Hate in the Tour in America, and about

Maybe fifteen other jobs. Because I'm a Mexican immigrant and I never say no to work. Maria Garcia. I'm Maria Garcia. I'm the creator and host of Anything for Selena, the podcast, and the managing editor at WBUR. How did you meet? How did you get to know each other? Well, I actually met Maria when we were doing a live event outside of Boston and it was a very small group of people. It was a pretty terrible rainy night.

You were there, Maria, right? And you came up to me and you were like, Hey, I'm and I was like Oh hey, what's up? Yeah, it was exactly like that. And so I didn't in that moment say Oh wait, you're Maria Garcia who's gonna be the future creator of anything for Selena? This is anything for Selena. A podcast? About belonging. So, to make a long story short, Maria Hinojosa's futuro media group ended up co-producing Anything for Selena.

a podcast where Maria Garcia examines the late pop icon's impact on Mexican Americans and US society at large. and in it she talks a lot about race and latinidad and how exploring Selena's racial identity made her think hard about her own. I mean I knew that I had light skin But I thought I was relatively light skinned compared to my brown mother and my brown brother. That I was not white white, but a Mexican who tanned less.

Like Code Switch listener Brandon Mogrovejo, who we heard from earlier, both of these Marias have light skin, but their thoughts on how they identify They don't always align. Because of my skin tone I will never be in danger the way like actual people of color might be. And so I don't wanna take up space there. I absolutely want to own my space as a woman of color, as a feminist woman of color. I'll go even further, right? No te vayas.

Good question. That's a really good question. It's a great question. This is free therapy. Thank you for asking me that. God, that's such a good question. That's an interesting question. But what fresh air interviews are really about are the interesting answers. Listen and subscribe to Fresh Air from W H Y Y and NPR. Gesturine Gesturine Code Switch.

It's the mid-1950s when Raúl Hinojosa boards a bus leaving Tampico, Mexico and heading north to Chicago. After traveling for hours, he finally gets to stretch his legs and use the restroom at a bus station in South Texas. In the back of the small station there were two bathroom doors. But it wasn't one for men and one for women. Rickety door was a sign painted on a wooden panel hanging by a wall. One said white, the other said color. My father sighed. Was he white?

In her memoir, Once I Was You, Maria Hojosa writes about how having to make that choice And disgusted her father. She writes that her dad knew deep down he'd never be considered white in the United States. He was also well aware of the horrible And humiliation inflicted upon those ladies. Colored. At the desolate bus station, Dad realized he needed to make a decision.

So in an act of self-preservation or complicity or fear, but one that also felt deeply deceitful, my father chose privilege and walked into the white bathroom. In that moment he realized he didn't fit in this country, and that maybe he never would, Whiteness became an unspoken privilege that always felt like it should never have been his or ours. We were not Americans, but if we kept our mouths shut, sometimes we might be able to pass.

There's so much in that passage. By the way, I didn't know this story at all until I was in my fifties, um, and my dad was j a few years from passing away from Alzheimer's. One of the beautiful things that happened in the writing of this book was that my father came to me a lot, which was like, Wow, okay, I wasn't expecting this. Uh oh, I'm getting emotional. And I felt the The sunkenness in his chest in that moment was

And then this notion of erasure, I was like, bruh, that was what it was. Like it kind of r I mean, my father wrote about this to my mother in the ten page letter written by hand. And as I wrote about this I was like, it's it was a central part of how how we understood our reality. I mean again, I didn't learn this until I was in my fifties. Um so I think that's that's part of the work that we as Latinos and Latinas have to do is to find the history and it's very traumatic and very sad.

And often racialized and we don't talk about it because we don't want to go there. So do you consider yourself white? No, I don't. There were there were members in my family who Who have blonde hair and blue eyes? Yo no era blanca así. One I was seen as the other and then it's like, well were you seen as the other because of race or were you seen as the other because of ethnicity or immigration? It was all of it. It was all of it. So um now

I'm very lucky because, you know, Skip Gates from Harvard called me and said, Hey, do you wanna find your roots? And I was like, Oh my God. All right. And so I do know my roots and I have had to come to terms with the fact that I have conquistador blood in me. And I'm gonna do the lineage and I'm gonna go back to Malaga and Spain and wherever I'm I'm about to do that. I'm gonna in fact I'm gonna try to get my Spanish citizenship if I can.

But it turns out that what I do have is one quarter of indigenous blood, my matrilineal line. And I am going to honor that and as a result I will not define myself as a white woman because I'm gonna honor that matrilineal line, which by the way, is silenced in history because the history is recorded through the experience of the men. And I'm not gonna let that part of me be silent.

And even you know, of course I look at myself and I'm like, you know, are you dark enough? And I'm like, Iskid don't I'm I'm doing the work to own this part of myself and also I'm a product of a historical moment. And I own that too.

All right, I'm gonna turn to Maria Garcia because this is a perfect transition. Maria G, in your episode Selena and Race, you talk about your grandmother. My Mamanena's presence looms large, even now, twenty years after her death. She comes up at every family toast at Christmas. We put up an altar for her every Día de los Muertos. She's become mythologized for the kids who never met her, like my own son. Her story is our family lore. She is undoubtedly the matriarch of our family.

For people who haven't listened to the podcast or haven't listened to this episode, how would you describe your mama nana? My mama nana is very much the guiding light in our family. you know, as I was thinking about Selena and Race, I knew that we had to have an episode where we really dug deep. On what Selena's legacy reveals about race in America, because the entire podcast is rooted in this idea that.

Selena's legacy is like this vessel to understand Latinidad and we can't ignore that a big conversation the last several years around Latinidad is how we perceive race. And thinking about Selena's race made me think about race in my own family. You know, I realized that my grandmother, you know, if I saw her now in the context of today's moment. I would look at her and think that she was Afro Indigenous or Black and Indigenous.

But growing up, we never ever talked about her heritage in this way. And it made me question, what does it mean? that the matriarch, my guiding light in my family, um, was somebody who was allegedly Afro indigenous and yet um we never acknowledged her ancestry, we never investigated it. Um and we She and my Ants and other family members like exalted whiteness and I've heard all of my life how happy she was. that I had a light skin. And how much she boasted about that.

And so I I had to really grapple with that. But you came to a very different conclusion than María Hinojosa for yourself personally. You know, Maria Hojosa just talked about how she learned that um on her matrilineal side that she was indigenous and and you know this, but yet you no longer wanna use the term woman of color. Which I just I find that is so interesting because you're you you're coming at this from very different places and and so so why is that? Why are you saying an identifying

Not as a woman of color any longer. Well if and saying that you're white. Right. Well if you listen to the podcast, I don't say I'm white. Oh okay. I did listen. What what am I missing? Because that was definitely my takeaway was that You were you're saying you're no longer a woman of color. I'm saying uh Yeah, yeah. You know, and it's so interesting in the last few weeks, um, or since more people have been discovering the episode.

I get this question a lot. I I did um a Facebook live recently with um Julisa Arce. The author And uh she told me like so after I heard this episode I Instagram stalked you. I just like went and I looked at every single one of your pictures. So did I and I was like, This girl is crazy.

She is a woman of color like this girl is now. And I've heard this from from various other people and some of my friends. And and the thing is I don't say in the podcast like I identify as a white woman now, but I say like while I am figuring this out. it does not feel right for me to identify as a woman of color because I know That I have benefited from whiteness in my life. I benefited the moment I was born. And so I can't deny that whiteness

has favored me. Just like Mexican Americans cannot deny that there is a history in this country of Mexican Americans co opting whiteness for themselves at their convenience to access rights and that, you know, there's a history of that. Just breaking in here for a minute to say there is most definitely a history of Latinos making claims to whiteness in the courts to access rights. And this is something that I hope we get into in a deeper way in a future code switch episode.

And this isn't just a Latinx thing. There's a history of Native Americans having done this, black and white biracial people, Middle Eastern people, East Asians, and South Asians. Many of those cases were a way to get US citizenship because for a long time, getting citizenship was tied to proof of whiteness. And while that's no longer technically the case

Whiteness is still synonymous with full acceptance and the privileges of equality that this country claims to offer. And the attempt to harness whiteness to gain access to equal rights. That hasn't just happened in the courts on this big macro level, but in everyday, very personal choices. Like choosing which bathroom to walk into in the mid nineteen fifties. Alright, back to our conversation. There's this fraught history.

in this country of how to grapple with whiteness. And and what I will say is that our racial ambiguity has some privilege, that proximity has granted us rights that black Americans especially you know, in the early parts of the twentieth century and and before that, like were not granted, they were not able to engage with whiteness in the same way that we have because of our proximity to it. The way we identify racially is about how other perceive us based on the color of our skin. Is that what

Not entirely, no. I don't think that it's entirely based on that, but I do believe that legibility plays a factor. Systems often treat us in by the way that we are legible to them or not. So I don't think that the way people perceive your race completely determines how you should identify, but I do think that it plays a role. If if we look at like w why we use the term person of color. It's to create spaces of solidarity and it to create resources for people who have historically been

ignored and underrepresented in this country. And with the privilege that I have accessed um because of my light skin, like I've realized that I I I don't feel comfortable taking up space with that identity. Because of my skin tone I will never be in danger the way um like actual people of color might be. Maria Ino Holsa. What did you think when you heard that episode? What did I think? Oh my I had so many fe oh my god, I had so many feelings.

I was just like, Oh man And I was th I was thrilled though because I was like okay, let's go there. We need to have these conversations. Yeah, it's thought provoking I do think that um Latinos and Latinas, we we kind of have to own who we are to. You know, there's many Latinos and Latinas who may be darker than Maria and I, but who actively are going to identify as white. Because there is a pressure to be white in this country.

But um but yeah, I I I absolutely want to own my space as a woman of color, as a feminist woman of color. I'll go even further, right? Eh and I want other women to join me in that as an act of solidarity and to think about that also a la par junto sin separar with what Maria Garcia is saying which is

But I also have privilege because of my lighter skin. And for me too, Maria Hinojosa, I I feel like I do have lighter skin privilege and I think that's an important thing to say, but I also identify as a woman of color. I it it was shocking to me to hear somebody say that they no longer wanted to identify as that. It was hard to hear. I it just it was very hard to for me to hear. Oh my god, it was it was so hard. I was just like, wait, what? Ha ha ha.

But again, this is Maria's journey and I'm right here with her in solidarity. And it's hard to talk about this'cause I don't you know, I don't wanna sort of languish in this and be you know, it benefits nobody to be like, Poor me, I don't know where I fit in, you know. But Um, but it is you know, it is a question that I'm that I'm grappling with. Maria, um so you were born that you say an and I first of all uh respect so I think that this conversation is really

um about recognizing the moment in history in which we are having this conversation. Okay. Twenty twenty one in in the midst of another moment of um solidarity for Black Lives Matter. I think we have to recognize that. at at the same time, I found it interesting you say, I'm I don't wanna take up space, I'm not in danger and I'm like, Well, actually, Maria

You know, you are. I mean less so now, because we're not living under, you know, essentially um an authoritarian tilting to fascist regime, right? had Donald Trump won. We don't know what the next step was gonna be for black lives, but also for immigrant lives. In the end when we are stripped down to it, even if we have our American citizenship, you and I could end up in a detention facility, in deportation proceedings. I'm talking about the extreme.

Because when you reduce it down to you and I are foreigners in this country, we were not born here. And that is an essence of difference. So I and I but I also appreciate what you're saying, which is let's not take up space where we where our role is actually about talking about solidarity and in my case because I'm so much older, historical solidarity.

Um and and that gives me a tremendous sense of rooting in my experience in this country. Aaron Powell No, I I I hear you, Maria. And you know, there were moments um during the Trump administration, particularly when we heard about naturalized US citizens who were being detained and deported, um where I was afraid. I remember I had to yeah, I was planning to go get a passport and and I just decided, you know what, during the Trump administration I'm not going to do it.

I I know that that I have faced discrimination because of my ethnicity. Um, my mom she was a single m she sh grew up in a single mother household. She worked in blue jean factories and at the overnight shift at Walmart all my life and she did back breaking work that um hurt her body permanently. And I saw the discrimination um that she faced.

um and and and that I experienced as an as an extension. Um So I'm I'm aware of the discrimination that my ethnicity brings and and I think that if when we stop looking at privilege as this binary of either you have it or you don't based on the color of your skin. And and there are there are systems that function this way, but there are also ways in which in which we carry privilege. There are also other ways in which we are um in in w we have access to rights or we don't.

Do you two think class? plays a role in how and if Latinos and how and if Latinaes are racialized in the United States. You know, you two have very different immigration stories. You come from different class backgrounds. Maria Garcia, um you know, you said in your podcast that you lived in a vecindad in Juarez, which was a tenement apartment situation and then

Your family moved to rural El Paso and you lived in in a trailer and mighty inojosa. Your dad he was an academic and he got a research job at the University of Chicago. Your family came over with green cards. You have a different kind of set of privileges. Does class, does educational background, does that play a role in how how you see your race and who you are and how you've been treated? Yeah. Uh

Yeah, that's a that's a big one. Yeah. Um so I I always like to c couch it that yes, my dad was a nerd who was a medical doctor who was dedicated to research. We lived grant to grant, much of the way public radio people live, grant to grant, year to year. Um, but we were not living in a trailer. Um So so I was

hyper aware that there was privilege but also don't get too comfortable'cause we're Mexican immigrants. Um Nonetheless, I think um, you know, yes, my father was at the University of Chicago, therefore I end up going to the University of Chicago High School, therefore I end up in the Ivy League. you know, here at Barnard College, part of Columbia University. Um, it's actually here in New York where um I begin to have uh deeper

thought process around race and latinidad. Um, because now I was in a community where there were many Afro Latinos and Latinas, indigenous Latinos and Latinas. So For me, privilege is really a central part understanding my privilege is a central part of my story and that I write about because it leads me to responsibility. So I could have taken my privilege, I think, and I could have said like, Yo soy blanquita

I'm never gonna speak Spanish again. Um I'm you know, I'm going to I'm I'm specifically going to look to marry a person who is not gonna speak Spanish with me. I could have done that. I could have. I end up marrying somebody who had no class privilege at all and who is Afro Taino and um so While I recognize I have this clash class privilege, I have made very clear choices about where I'm raising my kids.

i very consciously, we are living in a working class, very mixed community in West Harlem, New York City. I made that decision because I wanted my kids to have uh yes, they had privilege, but also rootedness. So for me, class privilege has always been understanding what your context is and then therefore what do you do with it? What is your responsibility? grew up in um

You know, I don't even like to say working class because middle class folks work for a living, you know. Um But like, you know, I grew up in a very poor community and you know, there were moments where I like I have felt hunger because of lack of money and so I recognize that um people from from working class roots are are often racialized in a in a deeper way in this country. Um, the intersection of um discrimination that is, you know, compounded by classism.

At the same time though there's an ex there's there's a threshold. Like ultimately like money doesn't buy you whiteness. You know what I mean? Like you can um become, you know, the wealthiest, um, but ultimately like if you're walking down the street and you're racialized as someone other than white, um, that's going to

um really restrict your access to some rights. So it's it's complex and layered. It is. It definitely is. It it I uh and and I'm glad that, you know, we're framing this as a conversation because there are no clear answers.

Um so I'm gonna ask you a big question there that that there is not a clear answer to and it's one of the big questions we're wrestling with, which is what makes us this group? What makes us a group of people here in the United States? What makes Latinos, Latinos, Latinxes, Latinxes. You're going first, my dear. You know I'm glad this that that's a hard one. Um I think it's a medley of things. It is language to an extent, though it's not a prerequisite to being Latinx. Um

I also think it's sort of a solidarity of culture. Despite the fact that there are there's so much difference between our cultures, there is also sort of a flowing undercurrent of sameness. Like there is Something in each other that we recognize. And it's hard to describe because sometimes it's based in language, sometimes it's based in custom, sometimes it's based on sort of the ethos of the importance of family and of togetherness.

Um, but there is this like undercurrent of solidarity that we recognize in each other. Yeah. I mean I I I wonder sometimes if um if we had not been so attacked in this country over the last Uh well really, you know what the last several decades, would Latinos and Latin how would we how would we feel? How would we be as a quote unquote group uh uh i i if we hadn't been so attacked?

Donald Trump starts his campaign by insulting Mexicans and Mexican immigrants. So I love the term solidarity because I think it is a kind of awareness. And in this sense it is somewhat political. So I like this notion of a very hyper conscious act of definition of we are Latinos and Latinas, Latine, Latinx, X in in my in my dreams, right, it becomes something that in fact we work at it to create a sense of unity. But in the same breath I'm gonna say

Be very careful around a sense of nationalism as our only purpose. This is so dangerous. So on the one hand I'm saying like yes, we have to, we must because we're being erased, because we're being silenced, because we're being targeted. And on the other hand I'm saying, do that but with the hyper awareness that it is about creating solidarity and that that

notion of hyper identity as a community can lead us to exclusion and I want nothing to do with that. So we use our latinidad to center ourselves. Give us a sense of root history. But we use it to understand our extraordinary responsibility for solidarity across the board. And that it continues to be a conversation that we have to have. It takes work, difficult conversations, and an active commitment to it.

That was Maria Inojosa, author of Once I Was You, a memoir of love and hate in a torn America. She's also the host of Latino USA. And Maria Garcia, the host of the Anything for Selena podcast. She's also the managing editor of WBUR. Thank you. This is the highlight of

m weeks'cause I've been living with you two. Maria Garcia in my ears. I mean and Maria, you know how so you've been in my ears forever, but um and Maria like in my brain, like on the page. It's just it's so exciting to actually be able to put it together. So Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Shereen, thank you so much. I just have to say, can I just say? Yeah. To your producers, to your producers. I remember Shereen Marisol when she was like when she was a baby.

One that Leah Danella, our editor, has nicknamed Maria Maria, which has put that Santana riff in my head for weeks now. Boom no no no no boom. It's like an ear word. get out. Anyway, you all must have thoughts. Let us know what they are by sending us an email or a Memo to code switch at npr.org. You could end up in the next installment of the series. Like

Amber Alvarado. Who had very small cameos at the very start. And thanks again to Christina and Brandon Mogrovejo for sharing your marital strife with us over the census. We really appreciate it. I produced this episode with Kamari Devarajan and with help from SummerTamat. Leah Danella edited. And a shout out to the rest of the Code Switch crew.

Parent Greeksby Bates, Steve Drummond, Alyssa Jungperry, Jess Kung, Christina Kalla, Natalie Escobal, L.A. Johnson, and Sam Yellowhorse Kessler. Our intern is Carmen Molina Acosta. Jean's back soon. I'm Shereen, Mighty Sol Mirage. And don't forget, y'all, we want to hear your honest feedback on our podcast, so go to npr.org slash podcast survey to fill out an anonymous survey. It takes just a few minutes and it really helps us out. Check out the link in our episode notes as well.

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