El Salvador Archives - The Race Card Project

Hispanic but also white I think

March 5, 2024 American, CA, don't speak Spanish, El Salvador, fluent, Hispanic, identify, proud, Speak English, Union City, white

Claysi Arevalo-Garrido,
Union City, CA

This is my race card because I never truly know how to identify myself. My parents are from El Salvador but I was born and raised here in California. I sometimes get embarrassed because I am not fluent in Spanish and it seems to come as a shock to many Hispanic people. But I seem to also get embarrassed saying that I am white but truly I am. I wasn’t raised with the Hispanic culture. My mother believed that since we are in the United States we must speak English and do things the way Americans would. This has always been my struggle and something to this day I continue to struggle with. I am proud of where my mother is from and proud of where I am from but I can’t seem to mix the two evenly.

Do you have a foreign name too?

February 12, 2024February 12, 2024 Akira Uchimura, araguay, Bolivia, Chile, Chino, Costa Rica, difference, Ecuador, El Salvador, father, foreign, Japan, Japones, mother, Nikkei Youth Network, Outside USA, Suriname

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.

Not white, but my kids are?

September 29, 2020September 29, 2020 Assimilation, bullied, bully, CA, El Salvador, heritage, Indo-Dutch, kids, not white, Oakland, Rob Silva, white kid

Rob Silva
Oakland, CA

First generation with Indo-Dutch/ El Salvadoran heritage. Family has seemingly always been the non-white in the group, especially when listening to the my parents’ stories of assimilation. So strange then when my son was bullied at his new school in Berkeley for being the white kid.

You can sit in the bar

September 10, 2020February 21, 2021 adopted, Alamosa, Anglo, assume, bar, be better, CO, Diane Graves, El Salvador, first experience, ranch, restaurant, San Antonio, stereotype, TX, waitress

Diane Graves,
San Antonio, TX.

My husband and I (both Anglo) were driving our adopted daughter (born in El Salvador, adopted as an infant, a U.S. citizen since she was 11 months old) to a guest ranch in Colorado. It was 2004; our daughter was 11 years old. Late on Sunday morning, we stopped to have lunch in Alamosa, CO. My husband entered the restaurant first, and my daughter and I busied ourselves at a postcard rack while he asked for a table. The white, male, college-aged host eyed our family, spotted our daughter, and said, “You can sit in the bar.” My husband asked, “Why would that be? I see plenty of tables in the main dining room.” It was pretty clear why. Fortunately, a young female waitress pulled up and said we were welcome in her station. We were stunned–and grateful that our child didn’t realize what had happened. She only learned about it this year, when I asked her if I could submit this story. We are glad we live in multiracial San Antonio, but still worry what kind of nation we are becoming–and if our daughter can ever be accepted as American in the rest of the country. Recent rhetoric would indicate that she will have to be alert for profiling and other forms of bias. My heart is breaking now as it did that day. How many other people of color experience this kind of bias on a daily basis? We all can do better. We can BE better.

We are not all from Mexico

April 18, 2017April 18, 2017 Charlotte, El Salvador, Hispanic, Katia Pérez Amaya, latinos, Mexico, NC, open-minded, stereotype

Katia Pérez Amaya,
Charlotte, NC.

Everyone that is not open minded see ALL Hispanic/Latinos that they are from Mexico and well of course that is not true because I am a Latina but from El Salvador.

But you don’t have an accent…

July 27, 2015July 27, 2015 accent, but you don't sound, CA, El Salvador, English, first language, language, Sandra Reyes, Santa Cruz

Sandra Reyes,
Santa Cruz, CA.

Response from some when they learn that my parents are from El Salvador and English is not my first language.

I thought you’d have an accent!

March 19, 2015March 19, 2015 accent, Boston, Colombia, El Salvador, MA, online dating, Sonia Paz, the King's English, you don't sound

Sonia Paz,
Boston, MA.

Would it make you more comfortable if I did? I was born in Boston. Raised in Boston. Educated in Boston. Did I mention that I was born here?

My mom is from Colombia, my father from El Salvador. When I look in the mirror, my facial features (along with my lack of height) scream Latina. This is what my features say to those who meet me. But for many who meet me, the assumption is that I couldn’t possibly have been born here. It’s automatically assumed that I either don’t speak English or that I don’t speak it well. I cannot tell you how many times in formal work settings people have started their conversations with me speaking slowly and loud. I can see them trying to hide their surprise when I respond in what I jokingly refer to as “the kings English.”

This sometimes makes online dating a little uncomfortable. You meet someone online, you text and you e-mail. You share your life stories, where you’re from, what you do, your goals. And then comes the first meeting. I’ve seen dates try to hide their surprise when I open my mouth and not only do I speak English, I speak it perfectly and I don’t have an accent. Some have even been disappointed, “I thought you’d have an accent!” Why? Because accents are genetic? Then I spend the evening correcting their grammar. Not a lot of second dates after that.

The whitest brown girl I know.

July 14, 2014July 14, 2014 ancestry, blood, brown, CA, Catherine Marden, check the box, El Cerrito, El Salvador, father, girl, Hispanic, KY, OR, rural, skin, white

Catherine Marden
El Cerrito, CA

My mother is from El Salvador. My father is from Kentucky. I grew up in rural Oregon. I didn’t know I was half-hispanic until I realized checking the hispanic box on college applications might help me get accepted.
To this day I struggle with my Salvadoran ancestry. I am white. What does that say about my brown blood?

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