I have this way of dealing with things that are really really scary – I close my eyes. I’ve always been that way. Whether it be hearing my parents argue, trying to fit into a crowd (physically or culturally) or raising kids to be Latino enough, shutting my eyes makes everything right. Ignorance can truly be bliss.

That’s exactly what I did after Trayvon Martin was gunned down by a vigilante. I closed my eyes and kept raising my Spanglish babies to be confident members of society. On my blog, De Su Mama, I am raising my beautiful babies to be proud of their heritages and varying hues of brown that make up our family’s skin colors. As my three year old daughter embarks on life outside our home, in a middle class, suburban area where she is not likely to see many African Americans or Latinos, I assert self love. “Brown is beautiful!” I tell her. “To speak Spanish grants ownership to your Cuban heritage”, I remind myself. “Soy Latina like you Mama!” Alina says.

How foolish of me.

The last day and a half since the verdict came in, coupled with the last hour where I inadvertently glanced upon an image of Trayvon’s lifeless body, face down on the ground, has forever changed me. My blinders are off. By force, my eyes are opened to see how the world views my family, and my children. They’re black. My husband is black. They don’t see tax paying, lower-middle class parents with two well behaved kids. They see blackness, which apparently in this country is something to be terrified of. And shoot dead in the streets.

I see no other reason why a man, whose own mother is a dark skinned Peruvian, would stop to bother a kid walking in the rain. One tweet I saw after the trial asked why Trayvon wasn’t offered a ride home, versus a bullet in his body. As did the verdict, that tweet numbed my insides – why exactly was this kid killed?

This is when people who watched the trial weigh in with responses, saying that Trayvon fought back. He stood his ground. He beat his attacker’s face into the concrete. Trayvon did what I would have told him to do, if I was his mother – fight! But, to be black in America means you can’t fight back. Being black means holding your hands in the air, apologizing for being and always remaining aware of the fear you exude by your blackness. My blinders were up, so I just didn’t know.

As of today, my blinders are off. Trayvon is dead because, as a black kid in America, he had way too much self confidence. He probably believed in fairness. That no one would gun him down in the streets of a gated community. Maybe he even believed in equality. Trayvon is dead because he thought he was safe. And for so long, I thought my son was safe too.

This trial has taught me to wake the hell up. My kids are black, not Latino or mixed or even American. As their parents, it is our responsibility to prepare them for life. So, to hell with confidence and self image. Who cares if they speak Spanish. As a black boy in America, lessons on how to avoid chance encounters with people like Trayvon’s killer is a matter of life or death. I won’t be a foolish mom any longer. My kids deserve the life I gave them. When the time comes, right before Sex Ed and how to properly put on a condom, I’m enrolling my kids in Being Black 101: Ways to Stay Alive in America.

Nowadays, that is way more important than language skills or self esteem.

One day when I was teaching ESL, I was working with a group of students from Mexico and Central America. Pencils scratched the paper, the energy was electric, the excitement palpable: we were filling out their applications for a program at a community college that would allow them to take a class over the summer.

And the, we got to the demographic section:

“Miss, am I white, black, Asian, or American Indian?” asked a young girl from El Salvador. The group burst out laughing and some said she should write in “brown,” while others told her to check the “Hispanic” box. I read over the sheet… The EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) that collects federal data on race and ethnicity in the workforce uses five racial distinctions: American Indian or Alaska Native; Asian; Black or African American; Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander; and White. Separately, they include one ethnicity category: Hispanic or Latino.

I didn’t know which race the students should mark, so I called the college later that day for clarification. The person who answered told me that the students should choose from the choices given. I explained that the students were from Mexico and Central America, and didn’t feel they fit into any of the categories. In a hushed tone, she told me “if they’re not black, have them mark white and then Hispanic for ethnicity.”

When we reconvened, the students were outraged:

“How can you tell us we’re white when our whole lives in the US we’re told we’re not!?”

“Teacher, look at my skin!!! Does it look white?”

“I’m marking American Indian. México es parte de las Américas, no?”

“I’m not putting anything for race!”

The race conundrum is not new, and it’s not going anywhere. Many Latinos view this categorization as a question of culture and language, not of race. A percentage of the population will leave the race box blank, while some will check the “other” box. Others ask “why is it important for the U.S. government to know the racial background or ethnicity of their citizens?”

It all comes down to money: $400 billion of federal money (from our taxes) that needs to be allocated annually, based on population demographics to pay for schools, transportation, public health and other vital social programs, such as English-language education and job training. When people do not check a box, a computer “guesses” their race, based on the neighborhood and other factors.

In 1977, the federal government declared “Hispanic” would be considered an ethnicity, not a race. They decided that citizens could identify with being “Hispanic” or “not Hispanic” and after identifying themselves as one of the five recognized “races” white, black, Asian, American Indian or Pacific Islander. (note: though indigenous people are genetically related- from the northernmost point of the Arctic to the southernmost point of Argentina- the American Indian box was reserved specifically for the 564 tribes residing in the U.S. that are federally recognized).

Multiple ethnic groups felt misplaced: which box should a Bedouin from North Africa or Egyptian check? Where did a Peruvian of Quechua descent fit? (the U.S. Census said both should choose “white”). What if your mom was Japanese, and your dad was Jamaican? (at that time, the U.S. Census said “pick one”).

For the first time, on the 2000 U.S. Census, multiracial people were allowed to check more than one race, and about 3% of the nation did so. In fact, multicultural families are one of the fastest growing demographics groups in the nation, as interracial marriage is growing.

In the same census, about 18 million Latinos (around 37%) checked the “Hispanic” box and when asked about race, self-identified as “some other race.” Some other race… In fact, Latinos have a mixed heritage that might include European, indigenous, African, and Asian ancestry.

Latinos were perplexed again by “race” choices in the 2010 census: White, Black, American Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Native Hawaiian and Samoan. With these choices, where did Latinos fit in?

Now, for the 2020 U.S. Census, the Census Bureau is thinking about combining ethnicity and race questions into a single “race or origin” category. If so, “Hispanic” may be a choice. While some groups argue that “race” is invented by man, a social construct, others are thrilled the Latinos are being considered and included. As a multicultural family, we will be marking several boxes on the next census, though knowing that we are all truly one race: the human race.

What do you think about the possible changes to the census?

{Photo by  moodboardphotography }

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}

I don’t know if you’ve watched it, but it was really difficult to watch a bunch of both white and black 6-year-olds — in other words, kids Vanessa’s age — talk about how the color of your skin matters when making friends. It was even harder to realize how unrealistic it is for parents to think that little kids are color-blind. The way these children were speaking about race, it’s obvious that they can totally see that we’re not all the same color and, sadly, many of them start having negative views based on skin color at a tender age.

If you haven’t watched the first segment, I hope you do, so you can see for yourself what’s on the mind of these first-graders, whom I believe are a good representation of all children in this country.

The one point that I found extremely interesting is that the majority of black kids had much more positive views on race and believed black and white children could be friends. While the majority of white kids felt the opposite. According to Dr. Melanie Killen, a renowned child psychologist contracted by AC360˚ to explain how race influences a child’s world, the reason behind this disparity is that most black parents talk to their children about race early on, whereas most white parents think that it’s better not to talk about it so that their children grow up being color-blind.

I haven’t spoken extensively about race to Vanessa, but we have had a few conversations. Sometimes I feel like she’s still too little to understand but, as evident from the CNN special, I might be wrong. What Vanessa and I have talked about mostly revolves more around the fact that the color of our skin doesn’t make us better or worse than anybody else. I’m not sure exactly how Vanessa sees herself. I mean, I’m sure she’s noticed that she’s the only dark-haired girl in her very non-Hispanic white kindergarten class, but I don’t really know what she thinks about that.

Race is an interesting topic within the Latino community. Many non-Latinos mistakenly think Latino is a race, but we know we come in all shades and colors. For many of us, in fact, it’s actually difficult to identify with just one race. That’s definitely the case with my own children who have traces of all races (except maybe Asian) running through their veins. After watching this first segment, I think I might be talking about race more regularly at home.

I’m really looking forward to watching the rest of the series (it didn’t air tonight because of the presidential primaries). Tomorrow’s segment on the judgments we make about other people based on their race and how early we start doing that shall be real interesting in the wake of Trayvon Martin‘s killing.