Identity Musings

I am a white woman.

I also identify as Latinx.

Growing up I din’t think of myself as white because my family was culturally different from all the white people around me. We were Cuban. We spoke Spanish and our cultural beliefs were different. Our superstitions were also different or, should I say that we harbored many superstitions about the natural world that I couldn’t talk to my friends about or they’d think I was crazy. And, maybe I was but, as my mother would say: ‘Nunca se sabe, Elisita. Por si acaso.’

What I didn’t realize then was that my skin color afforded me privileges and opportunities that were not as easily available to people of color. And, it’s only recently that I’ve come to understand that because of my privileges, I also have responsibilities.

I struggle with my identity. Everyone looks at me and sees a white woman with access to all of the privileges afforded white women in our society. And, of course, they’re right, but that’s not the whole story.

There are more identities I connect to than what I’ve written about so far, but to include all of them here will muddy the focus of this post.

If truth be told, this could certainly be the topic of an entire book, memoir-ish or fiction. And although I’ve talked about this before, I’ve been exploring some of my own learned racism and how it sometimes manifests in my life.

For someone who considers herself progressive, these realizations have been hard to come by.

But before I go any further, let me clarify that this is my feeble attempt to muse about who I am, how others see me and how I then show up in the world.

Being white and Latinx allows me access into two very different worlds, and not always equally. However, I take this privilege seriously: I can blend in with white people and take advantage of this position to be an ally, an upstander, a disrupter. And, as a white Latinx person I recognize the internal racism of my friends and family.

So, I am perfectly positioned to fight back against racism, internalized or otherwise, by pointing it out, questioning it, listening to and learning from people of colour and by speaking up when they can’t.

I am at the beginning of this journey.

I’ve taken, and will continue to take, many missteps along the way because anyone who thinks they are not racist is in denial. We live in a racist society. In order to do better, I acknowledge and interrogate these mistakes.

I owe it to myself, my family and my students to stay steady on this journey towards a better, antiracist world.