I am one of six children. Like so many Latino families, we look like a spectrum of skin colors from very light/white to dark brown. Unlike some Latino families, we all have dark hair and eyes. Some of us get confused for middle eastern or european. My hair, with it’s big curls, is generally what helps people place my ethnicity as Latino, much more than my light skin. When I had a Salvadoran passport, I had to check either “negro” or “blanco” for my skin color. Skin color, with it’s connection to race, is a complicated facet of identity for many Latinos because it is a major difference between us. We might share a language, and even a country of origin, yet the color of our skin sometimes separates us.
This is something I never talked about with my mother, who is light-skinned, like me. But it’s something that I realized matters when a woman told my dark-skinned sister to “go back to your country” when my niece started talking during an outdoor movie. I had never been the target of such blatant and public racism. My sister had. The color of our skin shapes the way others perceive us and the way they treat us, whether as alien or familiar.
I haven’t talked about skin color with my girls, except in passing as we talk about our friends and pictures in books. We have not begun to discuss how color is judged by others. At this young age, it remains just one more physical detail, like hair texture or eye color which can vary, but doesn’t really matter. I know that we will have this talk, or many talks about this, because one of the lovely differences between my two girls is the color of their skin. Marisol’s skin in the summer becomes a rich caramel color. Lucia’s skin is creamy white and rosy. I think both of them are gorgeous, of course, but I have started to wonder how their skin color might affect them in school and beyond.
How might their color affect their sense of identity and power in different environments? They are growing up with a very typical Los Angeles multiracial group of friends and family, but if the world they enter as teens and adults resembles the world today, they will be minorities at their universities and in many of their potential professional workplaces. Will they, as even this light-skinned Latina did, encounter racism in the classroom? This is one of those parenting questions that I don’t know how to answer. Each question just leads to more questions…
Have you discussed skin color with your children? What do you tell them? What do they already know? Have they experienced racism? How did you help them process it? Please share your wisdom.
{Photo via mmolinari}
Great post, Elsie. This is so true. I may not be Latina, but I’ve experienced this because of the blend of children I go out in public with. My two stepdaughters are both obviously Latina but with very different skin and hair colors. My biological son, whose features are like his Puerto Rican/Cuban father’s, is assumed to be only white because his skin and eyes are like mine. People tend to judge whether or not someone is your child based upon skin color alone, and I often worry that this might separate my son from the other half of his family (because he “doesn’t look like he speaks Spanish”).
I’m not sure how this will affect him in school, but I do know that I’ve seen some positive signs in the adult Orlando community, with Latinos of various origins coexisting and sometimes joking about the skin-color determinant of race.
Maybe now that “minorities” are officially the majority in this country, people will start to shift how they feel about who belongs and who doesn’t.
What great food for thought Elise! We have talked about skin color with my daughter, but not what it means exactly. We tell her that her skin is Cafe con Leche! I expect that whatever racism she will experience will not be based on her skin but something else, being female, speaking Spanish or having parents that stick out in certain countries as being the minority. My guess is that she will hear someone making a racist remark about Foreigners and it will hurt her because she will see it as an attack on her familia and not necessarily on her. We’ve actually had someone scream obsenities at us from her car similiar to what was said to your sister, only with lots more of obsenities, but it was based on my husband’s accent and not his skin color! Sofia was in the car, but luckily she was too young and couldn’t hear the woman. Lucky for that women that I was in too much shock to pull out my cell phone and video-tape her! I guess our real challenge is in learning how to raise our children to be of sound character and strong enough to resist whatever obstacles come their way and be successful in spite of it all. Thanks for a great post!
Thanks Elizabeth and Chelsea: I dread that moment when they first experience racism:( I wish people could just be tolerant of differences, but I know that’s not reality and that even when individuals are tolerant, much of our culture is very oppressive of people who are different…your instinct that all we can do is prepare them by making them proud and strong is absolutely right!
It’s not like they wouldn’t experience it if they went back to our countries of origin, never forget that. Racism in Latin America is much worse than the U.S. in terms of opportunities. I would rather have a kid learn how to cope with racist episodes or even insults like those many of us have experienced, than learn how to make a living or try to succeed in societies where there is a more discreet but also more oppresive for of racism.
I agree with Carlos that racism is worse in Latin America than in the States. I am one-fourth Mexican and am pale-skinned, freckled, and blue-eyed. I really surprise people when I start speaking Spanish and sound native.
I grew up in Mexico and experienced prejudice because I was white. At street vendors, they would raise the prices because they thought I must have money. Kids at school didn’t accept me because I looked different. Yet others wanted to be my friend as their token American friend. I didn’t really fit in though. Then I moved to the States in high school and was lost because I no longer stood out when it came to skin tone. However, I did not fit in here either because culturally I was different. What a confusing time!
Standards of beauty vary from country to country. In the States, people pay to tan themselves. The darker the tan the more beautiful. However, notice how TV personalities on Latin American shows tend to be lighter skinned. In Mexico, my best friend with beautiful olive tone skin, spent a day in the sun wearing a heavy jacket so she wouldn’t get any darker. At the beach, I lay in the sun trying desperately to get a little brown (although it’s mainly from my freckles) while she hides under an umbrella.
In this case I’m talking about darker skinned or afro-latinos.
I thought rasism was gone, till my little brown boy hit fourth grade. Yea, sorry for your experience Carlos, but I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. There’s no benefit to condoning ingnorance and bigotry and the victim learns nothing while the bully grows up thinking it’s ok and carries on nasty. behavior.
My kid is homeschooled now.
Great post Elsie.
Recently, while at the pool my son stated, “Mommy you are very tan, I am very white…just like Daddy.” I responded, “Yeah, Mommy is very tan and so are you. You have Mommy’s dark hair and you tan too, which is a good thing since you don’t really get sunburned.” Not thinking much about what was said…my son than clarifies, “No, I look white like Daddy.” Mind you he is five years old. I didn’t want to make a big thing out of it but I did take the opportunity to explain to him that we come in all different shapes and colors and that it truly doesn’t matter. My husband and I are the pefect example of that. However, it struck me that my child already perceives the “color line” that exists and is fully aware of the “prestige” associated with color. So sad.
I, as an adult want to believe that it is true…that the color of your skin shouldn’t matter. I personally do not think it does. However, this past Wednesday, as I was picking my son up from VBS I came to the realization that people do judge and perceive too quickly based on the color of one’s skin. The man, who was a volunteer directing the pick-up traffic line at my son’s VBS, out of the nowhere asked me if I was “Spanish.” I am not a Spaniard by the way. Then asked me if I “comprende.” I was at a loss for words..didn’t know whether to giggle or just drop my jaw wide open.
These two recent past experiences have reminded me that “we” as a diverse culture/country have an obligation to teach acceptance and debunk prevalent age-old myths about the color-line. This is what I have done thus far:
1.) Introduce cross-cultural literature (I want him to see that the protaganist isn’t always one color..and that the book isn’t always about some generic version of what goes on in a specific type of culture.)
2.) We speak two languages at home. We want our son to “pick up” the notion that not one language is more prestigous than another.
3.) Lead by example. I think this is how we learn best.
Hope this helps. What are some other approaches?
**My husband just got back from the pool with our son. Strangely and ironically…he mentioned it was crazy down there today. He said the “N” word was being dropped by a group of 7-10 year old African American boys and was afraid our son might of picked up on what was going on.
We must lead by example. We must express to our children that they are all beautiful and equally as important.
Our son is too young (almost 3) to really understand racism or xenophobia, but I know that very ashamedly my husband and I both felt revealed when we brought our son home from the hospital with black hair and a dark olive complexion and he got progressively paler, blonder and his eyes stayed green-blue. His is literally the ‘whiter’ or more anglo version of his father. We live in the deep south, close to my hometown, and to be anything but white would have made his life very hard here. Luckily for us we are educated professionals with an exit plan, but we are both so tired of even family members of mine who shame our son because of his occasional code switching and make derogatory comments about his dual citizenship. The fair skin means that the most obvious and blatant racism from mostly strangers is avoided, but the more insidious kind that hits you when you thought you knew someone, or thought you were with friends that still flies in our faces. Our hope is that moving to a larger metro with more diversity will eliminate a lot of that for my husband and our son, but it doesn’t really sound like that is always the case.
I hope that when the time comes to answer his questions and have those tough conversations that we can adequately inform/educate him and also embolden him to call a spade a spade and not let anyone treat him or any of his friends disrespectfully because of what they look like or where they come from or any other arbitrary daftness that they might come up with as a excuse for their bad behavior.
I’m sure many of you saw the NY times article on how to read racist lit to your kids, basically glossing over the racism instead of confronting the problem. How do imagine the conversation on racism will go in your household? What will spark it? Will you duck out of it like the NY Times suggests or confront it and try to prepare your kids for dealing with it in the future, if so what does that look like for you and yours?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/magazine/how-to-read-a-racist-book-to-your-kids.html?pagewanted=all
This is a great topic to post about because skin color is still an issue in our country. My son, who is African-American, is very aware of it at 5 years old. He says that his skin is dark brown and my skin is light brown. My response to him is that all shades of BROWN are beautiful and that it doesn’t matter if it is light or dark. Since my son is one of only two African-Americans in his class, I try to reinforce at home the importance of him being confident in his own skin even though he may not see many his own color. I believe in exposing your kids to diversity beginning at a young age so that inappropriate comments won’t come out of their mouths due to lack of education/exposure. Even though my son may be a minority in his school, we attend a majority African-American church and he is involved in an immersion program to get him even more exposed to different cultures. Our city is small and not as advanced in diversity as I would like BUT it is my responsibility to let my son know that the world is BIG and that it is wonderfully colorful. The Summer Olympics was great to watch to expose kids to countries and skin colors and I am loving that my son does not know anything other than a Black president. I agree that having kids see that anyone, regardless of their skin color, can be successful in doing ANYTHING that they want to do, is so comforting to me. Even though racism will exist, it is a far cry from when I grew up and will be even better in the future if we, as parents, continue to do our part.