The Race Card Project
By Michele Norris
Sidney,
Katy, TX
My name is Sidney and my last name is Rodriguez, based on my last name you can assume I am Hispanic. My whole life I have had people who say “Wow your name is so White, but your last name is so Hispanic” and even said, “You need to marry a man with a White last name so it matches better.”
To be honest, and probably because I grew up listening to the combination, I greatly like my name. I don’t want it to be any other way.
Liam Llerena,
Los Angeles, CA
Growing up, people used to ask me why my last name had two L’s. I myself never understood why nor did I like. I don’t know, I used to tell them. I was not proud of my heritage nor did I understand its rich history. After having traveled more, and honing my Spanish skills, I am more than proud of my Latin roots.
Allison Patel,
North Chesterfield, VA
My boss’s boss’s boss asked me this question at a big event where I was introduced in a place of honor. He thought it strange that a white woman would have an Indian last name.
J.P,
Tampa, FL
Growing up in a largely latin community of Florida, I’ve always struggled to fit in. My mother is of Spanish heritage with family coming from Spain as well as Cuba, however, my father is from eastern Europe, thus I have a non-spanish last name. This has troubled me forever because everyone looks at your last name to try to determine what you are. Someone could have a father who’s 1/2 hispanic, and a mother who’s 0% hispanic but just because they inherit their dad’s last name, they are more accepted into the “community” than someone like me even though they are less hispanic by blood. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t feel like explaining my identity to others, so I just tell people that I’m completely of my dads culture, sweeping my mothers under the rug because people are likely to laugh considering someone with my last name would be hispanic at all.
Ma. Lexa Dayday,
Katy, TX
Houston Community College
Sam Smith,
Stafford, TX.
Ya I figured that would catch people off guard. I’ve been a salesperson now for about 10 years in Houston. Love the city and the culture, made a pretty good career out of it too. I’ve sold cars and motorcycles for a living.
One thing I will readily acknowledge is I’m a bit racist. Now I don’t mean that in a “White supremacist” or “KKK” kind of way. I mean that over time you tend to recognize certain patterns of people and how to best sell to them or to simply cut your losses because there is no way in hell a sell can be had.
If you think I’m a jerk now…..you’ve never been in sales. I can promise you that most who are in commission sales do have “to a degree” a bit of racist thinking. Ask a car salesman how he feels when 4-5 Indian customers come in to the show room floor with the last name “Patel” and all are in support of one family member buying a vehicle. Guaranteed the salesman reading this now is laughing his butt off because he knows exactly what I mean. The Indian will ask for everything to be at cost, point fingers in your face and say that you are not giving a good deal. You will waste hours with him and stay till damn near midnight if only in the hopes of getting that guy to commit.
Asian people tend to be very similar, they act much more polite till you get to the commitment in the sale. If things don’t work out 9/10 the asian customer will always try to have the last word and save face, they feel the need to show how right they are and how wrong you were in not taking care of them exactly as they saw it.
Latino families usually come in droves as well, similarly they argue on the price….while pretending to know very little english until its time to commit to the sale. The man of the house will push on the numbers, not for the sake of savings but to show how macho he is that he forced the salesman down on prices. At least with these folks you shake hands and you can remain friends and he’ll probably send you his business again.
Black families are more interesting, specifically the men. They prefer keeping all their cards close to the chest as if someone couldn’t read them from a mile away. Guy gets out of his Escalade that he’ll later pretend to tell me he got at 0%APR with a 480 credit score that plummeted when he stopped paying child support. He’ll haggle over the price, not because he can’t afford it but because he is trying to squeeze his monthly payments in with his past due bills…..am I saying this is most people…no, but it is definitely a decent amount of this community…..
The black man will ask me to show all the numbers before we run his credit, again not for the sake of the bottom dollar but because in his head he thinks he knows better when using the calculator to divide the amount into monthly payments. Him and I will argue about this later 🙂
The white person isn’t that much better. We tend to hold our cards as well, but its because we think we’ve been screwed too many times and vow that it will never happen again. We think driving up in that supper clean Honda Accord or Chevy truck that we just washed an hour before….will suddenly increase the value of the trade in. Before we came in we did all the freakin research that google could spit at us and then ask our salesperson the same questions only to correct them in mid discussion because we feel we know better and will try to use it against the sales person later.
We don’t trust black people because we think they won’t be honest, we won’t trust indians because we know they aren’t honest, we will usually work with latino and white people cause we think they really understand what “hard work” means and earning your own money.
Truth is, I think we are all racist to a degree as humans. As a sales person I know I am because life has taught me all to often the usual ways of dealing with any particular people group. Does that bother me, not necessarily. It means I’ve learned how to tackle each issue that comes up and I know how to correctly sell to the black, indian, latino, asian or white man.
Rohini Harvey,
Amherst, MA
I get so many questions about my last name- wondering how someone who looks like me came to have the last name Harvey, if it is my married name, why it doesn’t seem to match my first name. This is the name I was born into, though.
Lani Broederlow,
Salt Lake City, UT.
I am Polynesian. I have been told that my appearance does not reflect my last name. It is of Dutch descent and the funny thing is, it’s not even my last name; it’s my husband’s. It’s strange how we tend to sort each other into categories and labels. I don’t know that we will ever stop.
Carlos Hernandez,
Seagoville, TX
I am a Hispanic of Mexican descent with an extremely stereotypical name. My first and last names are both common Latino names. So, when people figure out I can’t speak Spanish well, they don’t believe me and my fellow Latinos mock me for it. I can’t help that I wasn’t taught the language at a young age and I wish I knew it better.
Rosemary Brinson Siipola,
Kalama, WA.
Reflecting on growing up in Duplin County, North Carolina, my Grandma Cora was the matriarch of a large family. Inez was her helper, confidant, friend and nurse for decades. My sister and I loved her and we played with her grandchildren. Over 50 years later, I think about Inez and I realize I don’t know her last name. Why is that? I hope her beautiful family is carrying on sharing her caring spirit with their lives. Inez meant the world to Grandma and to me, too.
Brianne Hittenberger,
USA.
It is the end of me, and I of it. My German last name belongs to me, my disabled brother, and my female second-cousin. My brother and I do not necessarily expect that we will marry, or that our cousin will keep our name if she does. When my brother and I die, our family line will not. My great-uncle’s three sons have stepchildren and daughters. My father’s brother has a daughter with a son. My father’s sisters have sons, three Conaways and two Ortizes, who have two Ortiz sisters from my uncle’s first marriage. My distinctly all-American grandfather will turn eighty next year, healthier, fitter, and a better driver than myself. In sixty years, he’s barely changed, still the blue-eyed athlete, the loyal Republican, the bass in the barbershop quartet, the husband who built white picket fences for his family. All the grandchildren long for his good health to be our parents’, and ours. However, he does not speak German. He is trilingual, equal parts good-humored and charming in English, French, and Haitian Creole, languages he passed down to my father, uncle, and aunts, the latter of whom are fluent in these and in Spanish. However, they do not speak German. Nobody’s spoken German since my great-grandmother, Elsie, passed away. Immigrants who barely escaped World War II in their own country, my great-grandparents did not teach their native language to my grandfather. Germans were frequently assaulted with slurs and broken windows, even Germans who left before the NAZIs came to power.
I don’t know their motives, or what my grandfather thinks about his heritage. Except the blond waves he passed on to me more than any other grandchild, there is nothing I know to be German about him. Except that stupid name. Hittenberger may have been Hüttenberger, “people of the hills,” before Elsie met Ellis Island; or, it may have always been Hittenberger. We’ve found Austrian business owners who are Hittenbergers through snuck snatches of glances of Google searches. Our homeland is part of Austria now. We are not connected to it, however, or anyone. That name is all my great-grandparents allowed us to keep.
I will never know its importance; except that it is, and I am, here today.
Lyn Franklin Hoyt,
Nashville, TN.
I’m on a search, a journey for words, to figure out how my family heritage can be used for good to heal atrocities, rather than become a memory of evil. Not to hide that evil, but face it head on as recognition slavery was wrong and to talk about what really happened and how it resonates today. My family hid it. We were ashamed. Some in denial we have any responsibility for our past. I did not even know or understand that I descended from one of the worst slave trading families until I was in my 30’s. Now as a public school advocate I see clearly the generational impact that seems inescapable for some as legacy of slavery and the continuing racism and oppression that exists in this country. The Franklin family is well known in slavery history circles. Ironically my children carry the HOYT name, a family well known for their participation in the Underground Railroad in Ohio and leaders of anti-slavery abolitionist societies in Michigan. How can speaking out help heal rather than hurt? How do I honor my dead relatives while still recognizing they were very flawed? We are entering a time where people want to talk about this. For that I am grateful for this site.
Trish Broome
Baltimore, MD
My father is white and my mother is Korean, so I grew up with my father’s last name, Smith. On the first day of teaching orientation they called my full name, Patricia Smith, so I raised my hand. I clearly remember the woman sitting next to me say, “You’re Patricia Smith? But you’re Asian.” I politely smiled and continued with my day. I thought it was funny, and loved that I wasn’t what people expected. I’ve always valued being different and unique, and now that I’m married and my new last name is Broome, I can continue to confuse people (and be amused by their reactions)!
Nicole Rice,
San Juan Capistrano, CA.
I am more than just ‘white’ even though everyone looks at me and says that is all I am. I have a lot more in me than just white, but no one will ever know unless they ask. I have even received the nickname ‘white rice’ because of my last name and skin color. But the truth be known is my great grandmother from my father’s side is pure cherokee indian and my biological mother is 100% Jewish, my heritage comes from the trail of tears and the holocaust. This is my heritage and yet I am still looked at from society as plain white rice.
Annie,
IN.
We just got married about 3 months ago. I am Hmong, and he is white. During some sweet talk, the subject of my surname came up. My husband said, “It’s not [your last name] anymore,” with a smirk. I cried. It was the kind of tears that just came, the kind you cry when there isn’t anything else. I don’t know how he could have been so cruel. He later claimed it was meant to be loving, but I had no words for that.
Nedra Rutherford,
Bridgeport, CT.
People often think that I am not smart, my children have different fathers and last names. My husband is the father of them all.
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