I Will Never Be All White

This is something I wrote in response to Loku:

As for my being white, you always try to take away the part of me that wasn't born in Europe, that did not come here on a ship, the part that is connected to this land in a way that you will NEVER understand.

I am not all white.

I will never be all white.

I can never deny who and what I am.

I will never be what you want me to be.

You can't steal my heritage from me, no matter how hard you try.

I really think that his attitude is part of the undercurrent of American society, that if you LOOK white, then you surely can't claim or affirm the REST of your heritage, the part of you that doesn't belong to the predominately white culture, the part of you that is connected to the land, the part that connects you to your Brothers and Sisters of Color.

As Claudine Chiawei O'Hearn said in the introduction of Half + Half, "Skin color and place of birth aren't accurate signifiers of identity. One and one don't necessarily add up to two. Cultural and racial amalgams create a third, wholly indistinguishable category where origin and home are indeterminate... What name do you give someone who is a quarter, an eighth, a half?"

She's right. What name do we have?

In America, we are automatically classified upon the first perception of the masses.

Our culture insists on placing a label on everyone.

Because my skin color is white, my hair is a funny reddish gold, my eyes are teal, I am classified as "white".

Yet, yet, yet, there are those moments when I am recognized as not being all white.

A party where a Latino/Aztec man I'd never seen before walked up to me and asked what kind of Indian I am.

My daughter's [Black] friend who hesitated, and then asked me what ethnicity I was -- because whites don't have the kind of hair I have.

High cheekbones, long coarse hair, there are identifiers for those who wish to see.

And I guess that's the issue, those who wish to see.

White American culture doesn't wish to see.

Individuals, yes, often individuals are willing to step outside of the box. But the inertia pressing us all down the path of assimilation doesn't permit us to be different. America doesn't permit us to be different.

When we self-identify, hold onto that part of our lives, our culture, our heritage that doesn't lead back to Europe, then we set ourselves apart from the mainstream culture.

We are aliens in our own land.

I identify more with Fredi and Isabel Washington, who in the 1930s could have easily passed into white society. Who chose to embrace their African and Native American heritage rather than become white movie stars. Who chose to be and remain who they were, despite their outward appearances of being "white".

I identify more with Julia Alvarez, from the Dominican Republic, yet perceived as white by not just white America, but by other, darker Dominicans.

I identify with my boss, who married into a Latino family, converted to Catholicism, immersed herself in the culture of her husband.

Some of us, despite our skin color, will never fit into white society. So we reach out, join our Brothers and Sisters of Color. We reach out for our heritage that is more, so much more than white America could ever understand.

Yes, we are aliens in our own land.

Yet, I could never trade who and what I am, just so I could fit in.

I would rather be alone than deny myself, deny my grandparents, deny my gggrandmother, a free person of color.

In the words of the immortal cartoon character, Popeye, " I am who I am".

No more, no less.