The Race Card Project
By Michele Norris
Stephanie Connors
Eureka, CA
Music is one of my biggest reminders of the cultures that I grew up with. It fills me with nostalgia and pride, longing and love of the people who came before me. The people from: everywhere! I love all of it now. From day to day I swirl around in a delicious mix of American, Texan, Californian, Panamanian, English, Colombian, Scottish, Cuban, German, Irish and Woman!
Irlena A. Rodriguez,
Tucson, AZ.
Mexican is not a race, and not all Latinos are Mexicans. We have different cultures and ethnicity across Latin America. I am Latina and I am Colombian, Not Mexican. there’s a big difference.
Sandra Castañeda
Anaheim, CA
I have spent 42 of my 44 years in this country and it doesn’t make an ounce of difference, I’m still treated differently. My head says I’m American my heart says I’m Colombian, because that’s where I’m accepted.
Alondra Cabrera,
Justice, IL
Growing up in the United States after my parents immigrated here from Colombia, hasn’t been easy. They’ve been questioned for drug possession just for coming from a Country who once exported drugs. Many people see Colombia as a drug country, but
Colombia is so much more. Colombia is family and unity. Colombia is home.
Yessica Guarin Arias,
Boston, MA.
Yes, I don’t have the same accent as the actors and actresses on TV. The reason to why is because they were born in a specific part of the country in which I am not from. However, people only hear these people speaking “Colombian Spanish”. When in reality Colombia has many different accents depending on the area that you live in.
Daniela,
Oklahoma City, OK.
Are You My Mother by P.D Eastman was one of my favorite books growing up because I loved how graciously and lovingly the mama bird at the end confirmed her son’s pleading for a sense of belonging. I am aware that I am not the only multi-ethnic person out there who has internally struggled with belonging because we can look like everything and nothing at all. However, my biggest emotional obstacle growing up regarding race/ethnicity had always been that I didn’t look like my mother. When I was four, a woman asked my olive-skinned, green-eyed mother, “Are you her nanny?” Like a true mama bird, mom chirped with a bit of Colombian fierceness that she was my mama. Would the lady like to see her c-section scar? Encountering more ladies and gents like that, I grew up pleading to the skin and hair gods to change me. Give me super curly hair with a side of ultra coarseness, please. I didn’t like people wondering if my mother and I were related; I wanted people to know it. It would take one too many fake bake sprays and a couple of black hair dye jobs to come to terms that automatic association with my mother will never happen because it takes two tropic birds to tango, and I clearly didn’t get enough Rojas genes. But the bond between a mother and her child is unconditionally strong, no matter how many skin shades apart the two may be. I am my mother’s daughter, confirmed and loved.
J. Torres
Kansas City, MO
My father is from Puerto Rico, born and raised. My mother is Colombian. However, raised in Panama. They met in the 1950’s while my dad was in the U.S. Army. Us kids always called ourselves PanaRicans. Until my mother gave us her true background. I attended college in Michigan in the early 80’s. I was from a inner city, industrial area, mixed race, lot of culture..Flint. I went to college in what is considered Mid-Michigan. If you see the state as a mitten, as we all did. Mid-Michigan was about in the middle of the mitten. Flint, a little lower on the palm. And Detroit, for a reference point, is closer to the palm and wrist, towards the thumb. Michigan is very divided racially. Generally speaking, from the middle of the mitten going to the fingers (north) is very white. Below that (south) is more big cities Flint, Detroit, Lansing, Grand Rapids, Saginaw. I’ve always considered myself Puerto Rican. It’s easier. I didn’t want to get into the mix thing. I think some of you understand. I’m a darker skinned PR. I must get that from my mom, as all of my dad’s family are lighter skinned, olive in tone. My titi (aunt) has green eyes and blond hair. Growing up I never considered myself black or white. I was Spanish or Latin in most boxes I checked. And in the area of Flint that I grew up in, it didn’t really matter. We were all poor. That gives you a group to belong to right there. I fell in love in college. The prettiest girl in the dorm. Long blonde hair, green eyes, very pleasant, very nice girl.
It was the first time I had ever fell in love with a girl. I had plenty of girlfriends growing up. But love as a child, and love as an adult was a different emotion for me. It felt stronger. She was from way up north. Near Mackinaw Island, which is close to the bridge that separates the mitten from upper Michigan. A peninsula that is at the tip of your middle finger, for the sake of the mitten comparison or hand. I started going to her house on weekends. I would spend the night, we would engage with the family, etc. Her mom found a love letter that I sent her and she didn’t handle it so well. She told me that I “couldn’t be with her daughter anymore”. When I asked why? She said “we don’t do that up here, what you people do down there”. And i asked what do we do? She said “mix the race”. I told her I don’t understand. And I honestly didn’t. She said in a nut shell, that her daughter is white. And she will marry and be with a white man. That due to my skin color and race, “you wouldn’t even know what color your kids will come out”. To say it was devastating, is not even close to the scar that it left me, which I still carry some thirty years later. I have moved way on with my beautiful wife, and three beautiful children. I have attached a photo of all of us. They didn’t turn out green as her mother told me they would. They are very good, well behaved, God fearing, red blooded Americans….first! The rest will take care of itself.
Alexandra Garcia,
Long Island, NY.
My father emigrated from Spain in 1974, and we have been raised to be proud of our Spanish heritage and culture. In school, whenever I told people I was Spanish, they assumed I meant Mexican or Colombian or Puerto Rican. I’ve always been annoyed by that, because no one knows what it means to be Spanish and growing up in America, it’s been hard to keep our family traditions alive. It’s especially harder when people have been defining you externally with the wrong cultures: think of friends giving me straw sombreros, because “She’s Mexican, right?”. On the other hand, being a proponent of Hispanic culture with an olive-toned European complexion allowed me to see what some white Americans really think of “foreigners”; having white skin allows me to interlope and hear the things people say when they’re in the company of their peers. As for me, I’ve never felt truly at home with white America or brown America– We’re just Spanish.
Adriana M.,
Canada.
How about being the only-child black sheep of a Colombian mother and Irish/Ukrainian father? My mom could pass for Italian, but her Hispanic legacy is strongly expressed in me, all wrapped up in an Irish surname. I grew up without much diversity and didn’t even realise I looked different from everyone else until I moved to a big city for university. Getting asked what I am or labelled as purely Colombian gets so old at home, but when abroad I thrive in the confusion my appearance causes. I can “pass” for a lot of ethnicities – First Nations, Turkish, Hawaiian, half Asian, a dark Eastern European. Fun, but it still doesn’t quite make up for the identity-angst I often feel.
Cleo
Bedford, NY
Yes, I am white and Colombian.
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