Margaret Lyons,
Bellingham, WA
Race? Ethnicity? Culture? My mom was from Chile; her parents’ families were Castilian-Basque (i.e. white) immigrants from Spain to Chile. I grew up speaking Spanish and eating Chilean foods, in St. Louis, MO, where my white American dad was from. In the 1970s/80s, demographic surveys were problematic – the only question was “What is your race?” and we could choose only one of three or four categories including “white” and “Hispanic”. (My mom, an immigrant to the USA, always wrote in “human”.) I was confused because I was both white and Hispanic. As a literal kid, I chose to answer “white” since I’m 100% white and 50% Hispanic, but as I got older I tried to figure out what would be most anti-racist – e.g. applying for college, I chose “Hispanic”; for food stamps, “white”. I was glad when demographic categories were added, multiple choices allowed, and ethnicity became its own question. But just looking at me, no one guesses that being (half)Chilean, Latine, is foundational to my identity. My dad affectionately called my brother and me “half-breeds”. (My dad was insultingly considered a half-breed, too, because, despite several generations in the USA, his mom was all German and his dad all Irish and their marriage was frowned upon as interracial in the 1920s.) I have so many stories but in short, the entire concept of race is so narrow-minded, damaging, and wrong.
