The Race Card Project
By Michele Norris
Wanda Luna,
Canada.
Wanda Luna. 41 years old. Mestiza, Chilean born. When I was 4 while playing with my little brother I over heard my aunt say to my mom how bad she felt that I looked indigenous. Many in Chile still favor those with lighter skin and will self identify as white.
Akira Uchimura,
Outside USA.
I was born in Costa Rica, raised in Paraguay, Ecuador, Bolivia, El Salvador, Suriname, Japan and Chile (3 to 4 years in each country). I didn’t notice any difference between my friends and I until the
“So where are you from”
“Do you have a foreign name too?” and
“Where did you grow up?”
started popping up a lot since I was 13. My sister was born in Paraguay and my brother in Bolivia. My father is Japanese and my mother is Chilean so imagine how I need to respond to these questions.
Normally I give a full explanation, which takes about 2 minutes and give a short one if I am tired, but I don’t mind because the person is asking out of curiosity and wants to learn more about me.
But I also notice that with questions like “do you have a foreign name too?”, people usually want to have a more exotic explanation of who they see in front of them. Depending on what I wear or how I act that day, I can be more Japanese or more “latino”, meaning that I can camouflage to a full “national” sometimes so when I start to speak, the person tries to look for that foreign part of me. During my teens, it was something that bothered me so much. I had found out that I am a foreigner wherever I went. I was a Latino or gaijin in Japan, and a “Chino” or “Japones” in Latin America, and a Hawaiian or Native American in the United States.
But after a while I also noticed that I had a choice. To see this difference as a negative thing, or to see it as a great potential to become the bridge between my two cultures. I chose se second one and feel very good every time I have to explain Japan to Latin Americans or American Latina to the Japanese.
Looking at this website and on so many half, double, mixed roots groups on facebook, I see that we are many now and the numbers will go higher and higher, until we all become beige regarding to skin color, but to understand cultures and ideas of “foreign lands” I think we are the ones that can best do it if we want to and am making this my life goal.
That is why we started an organization called Nikkei Youth Network and a crowdfunding site called Samuraidea, but that is another story.
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.
Angelina A.,
Allentown, PA.
I myself always get asked about questions about my racial and ethnic background and it never has bothered me. I usually always say I am half Dominican and half Chilean, then I go on to explaining that my dad is from Chile and my mom is from The Dominican Republic. Although I was born in New Jersey, I do not identify myself as being an American even though I know I am. This may be because my Hispanic culture is deeply rooted within my family and household, Spanish is my first language and I did not learn English until I went to school. Now it does bother me when people are amazed by that and say that I don’t have an accent or that I speak well. As if just because I spoke Spanish first they would EXPECT me to have an accent or not speak English correctly. That to me is actually insulting.
Nell Haynes,
Chile.
Sometimes it’s hard being the person that always stands out in a crowd, especially in an impoverished city in the middle of the Chilean desert (the driest place on earth). I get catcalled daily. I’m charged more for public transport and at the market. But I’m always surprised when people ask if I’m offended that they refer to me as a “gringa.” Especially because here it’s quite common to call people by the nicknames “Negro” [Black] “Gordo” [Fat] or “Flaco” [Skinny], such as “Oh my Gordo is so sweet, he cooked me dinner last night.” Having grown used to these terms, “gringa” seems pretty inoffensive. Of course it has colonialist connotations, but I also understand that as an anthropologist from the US researching people in Chile, well, I’m doing something that stems from colonial legacies, making “gringa” all the more appropriate.
Laura Hurst
Cleveland, OH
I’ve been living in Santiago, Chile for the past 4 months. The ethnic homogeneity has made me proud and appreciative of the U.S.’s diversity.
Francisca Ugalde
Akron, OH
I have been living away from Chile for over 18 years, and here in Ohio for 15. I certainly don’t get treated negatively, but jokingly I am referred to as “South Mexican” since, who cares about what is further south than Mexico. The part that hurts, is when I visit “home” I find myself being told how much of a gringa I am…what do they expect?…Reject 15 years of living within a culture?
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