The Race Card Project
By Michele Norris
Karlet Shakira Perez Kelly,
Puerto Rico, PA
The reason that I say this is because, when I was born they started giving me everything that I wanted just because I was the first girl that my dad had.
Eastern University, Esperanza College
Janet Jimenez
Washington, DC
Puertorriqueño(a) is the “proper” term used to address a native islander from Puerto Rico. Do not confuse with Newyoricans, or anyone else born outside the island to Puertorriqueño parents. A real Puertorriqueño(a) knows the words to “La Borinqueña”, speaks Spanish (FLUENTLY), has lived on the island, and cries to the words of “En Mi Viejo San Juan”. Other terms used to refer to a person from “La Tierra del Encanto” are: Puertorro(a) = a shortened version, Borinqueño(a) = after the island’s Taino name “Borikén”; and Boricua = a variant of the previous. The terms Boricua or Puertorro(a) can sometimes be insulting, particularly to an affluent person. However, average people, especially those from the “caserios”, do not typically mind these terms. I copied this from Urban Dictionary as its the one definition I like the best. People mistake me for Lebanese, or some mixed race Latina. Parents are straight up from PR. Gray eyes on the paternal grandparents side and white skin as well. It’s been an interesting subject to explore. What do you say?
Alanna Rodriguez,
Harrisonburg, VA
Puerto Rico is a place where corruption has been very marked, as in other countries of the world, and its people have had to struggle a lot to be able to be well in these times. But really taking aside what would be the government of Puerto Rico. The people, the people of this island, are cheerful people. People who despite having little enjoy every day as if it were the last. and well, not to mention that in Puerto Rico we have the longest Christmas in the world. And just by being there, it feels like home. although Puerto Rico is my home.
Laura,
Red bank, NJ.
Let me just start by saying that racial forms are the death of me. I keep clicking back and forth between non Hispanic white and Latin American. Here’s the thing. My mom and her family are from Puerto Rico. The language and culture are very important to her but here is the thing- she doesn’t look Puerto Rican or at least stereotypically Puerto Rican. She has brown straight hair, European features and light skin. And then my dad is white. But here I am. I look white. I have white privilege and I’m certainly not going to deny that. I tell people I am half Puerto Rican and they look at me puzzled and say “really I didn’t know that” or that must be where you get your curls from!” (Even though my hair comes from my European side).
I was raised very removed from the culture. I am currently learning Spanish but I was not taught at an early age. I really wish I knew more about Puerto Rican culture but I simply don’t, I think mainly because I was raised in a white community with a white father. But nevertheless being half Puerto Rican is very important to me and my identity. I want to learn more about my Latin roots but I don’t want to be accused of cultural appropriation. So hear I am caught in a limbo between Puerto Rican and white. It makes me so sad that society keeps telling me I can’t be both.
Jasmine Shabazz,
Beachwood, Ohio.
So, never once have I blamed the white kids and there families for slavery. Never once did I say there ancestors enslaved mine. And I hate to look like the girl who always plays the race card, or who always wants to cry about the struggles my ancestors went through. But when I feel like my struggle is being downplayed or overlooked I can’t help but too speak out. And to my peers it may seem like I’m always speaking, but that’s the result of being more than one minority. My mother is Puerto rican and black, My father is Saudi Arabian and black. Highly unfavored! And I would never put my struggle over anyone else’s but at my school it is a high concentration of Jewish people and its so amazing to me too see there culture thrive and how tight knit the community is. And so when you sit in a class of kids that are mainly Jewish it seems at times that there struggle is being put over mine. And that doesn’t go down easy for me because after there oppression they bounced back and I commend there community for being so strong. But my people are still so broken that we can’t seem to get ahead and this kills me because I wish after our culture has been erased and we have been stepped on that we can come back and unify and show how magic us ” Blacks” really are. But in 2016 it seems impossible. SO I’m sorry if this has offended anyone but I can’t hold my tongue when it comes to defending and representing my ancestors. I accept there struggle as my own and it will not be forgotten until the pain is.
Sofia Guerrero,
Orlando, FL
Everyone always assumes I’m Mexican or, because of my fairer complexion, Spanish. Often, they don’t even know where Puerto Rico is…
Sebastian Pacheco
Lancaster, PA
I will never forget the time when I was trying to save my father’s life. It was January 2006 and I called my father (he was 77) who lived in Puerto Rico. He retired as a Union Painter for a hospital in Bronx N.Y. for 30 years. He was not in the best of health following the death of his beloved wife. I offered him to stay with me so I can take care of him. With little resistance he agreed. I brought him to Long Island N.Y. to get the medical attention he needed with myself and my wife by his side. After many tests it was determined his body was shutting down, he would have only 6 months to live. I met with the hospital social worker and I was presented with little or no help for long term nursing. She knew the situation but still, the social worker asked with little empathy “is your father a U.S. Citizen?” My father did not reside in New York at that time and I knew what she was getting at. The social worker thought I was trying to get free medical and long term nursing care, because he resided in Puerto Rico. I looked at her with disgust and instead of correcting her I took the high road and simply answered her question “YES!” My father had medical insurance, pension, house, paid taxes, raised a Family in New York! He did receive some nursing care but it was with a fight. I felt very offended and that will always stay in my mind. Rest in Peace Mom and Dad.
Robb Pérez,
San Clemente, CA.
My mother didn’t speak Spanish to us when we were growing up in the Bronx, but I took enough Spanish in school to develop a decent accent. By now, however, I have what could be considered a six-year-old child’s vocabulary. Hence, it’s easier to tell people that I don’t speak Spanish at all. It’s especially troublesome now that I’ve lived in California for over 30 years.
I run into trouble when I see a Puerto Rican flag hanging from a rear-view mirror. I have to resist the urge to yell out, “Oye, Boriqua!” but cultural pride gets the best of me. Almost immediately after the words pass my lips, I cringe inside, knowing what’s going to happen next.
My new-found compatriot starts a conversation with me. In Spanish.
I nod and smile a lot, then, in English, excuse myself.
Rebeca Cruz-Esteves,
Philadelphia, PA.
I was born in Puerto Rico and raised in both the U.S. Although my first language is Spanish it’s hard to tell since I have no accent. Growing up it was hard to immediately blend in as I spent my childhood in a predominantly Caucasian neighborhood. As a teenager my family moved to a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood and once again I was a little different. None of this ever actually bothered me until I was an adult, I joined the military straight out of high school and came home to attend a pretty well-known business school. Once again I was in an environment where I was one of few, but it never got to me. I’ve heard it all as an adult I’ve been offered jobs solely because I’m a Hispanic business student who happens to be in the service and a women. Literally the company was trying to attract large Latin organizations and would use me as bait. I’ve been praised and scrutinized by my own community at times as well as others. Nothing will ever stain as much as the day I walked into an office and before even shutting the door in back of me I was immediately asked “Hey Do You Need an Interpreter?” I understand with a growing Hispanic population interpreters may be needed more often, but I could have at least been given the chance to introduce myself. Now I see more than ever that no matter how much I attempt to blend in some people will automatically have assumptions due to my national origin. We live in the U.S the melting pot of the world yet I can’t walk into an office without someone assuming I don’t speak English and God knows what else!
Irmie S.
Bristol, CT
I grew up in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood. Both of my parents were from Puerto Rico but were of Spanish ancestry, which caused my fair, freckle-prone skin. I looked so different from so many of my caramel-skinned classmates. So, in Junior High School, when one Puerto Rican boy began teasing all the white kids, it wasn’t long before his eyes landed on me. Not wanting to be a target of ridicule because no one wants to be the “white kid”, I told him I wasn’t white. “I’m Puerto Rican!” “No you’re not! You’re Hispanic? Prove it!” So I quickly said the first thing that came to mind in Spanish. “Que quieres que te diga?” (What do you want me to say to you?) I suddenly earned a new friend and protector for the remainder of the school year, even amid the saddened looks from the white kids who looked so much like me.
Luis E. Pacheco,
Ceiba, Puerto Rico.
As a Puerto Rican in my mid-60s, who has lived two-thirds of his life in the Continental USA, it’s become more and more evident to me that many white folk are really scared of becoming members of a ‘minority’ group (a notion we have to change; it really is sad and depressing to refer to any human being as ‘minor’ in any way). I’ve found myself wondering to what extent part of this anxiety comes from fear that they will be treated in the same way that African-Americans, Mexicans, Puerto Rican’s, Chinese, Japanese and others have been treated. Once you start digging into the historical treatment of these groups, and others, it becomes clear that the US’s legacy of treatment of non-whites is shameful. So I can see that white folk may be scared of losing their default status.
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.
Anthony Caraballo,
Philadelphia, PA.
Technically, American who is ethnicity is Latino. My family is from Puerto Rico.
Isaias Ortiz
Davenport, FL
Este hombre es un negro blanco! This man is a white black. The first time I heard that phrase was circa 1980, a family member said while referring to one of his friends, while they were singing and playing their guitars together. I was 20 years old by then, growing up in the country side, the central mountains of Puerto Rico. Both men laughed after, along with most people that heard it. I didn’t get the meaning then, but the phrase got stuck in my head, like when I think of a song in the morning and it stays with me for most of the day, whether I like it or not. Racism in Puerto Rico takes on a subtle tone. It isn’t as overt as it is in the continental US. We hear phrases like: “Mejora la raza” (Improve the race), which is said when a person of darker skin marries a person of lighter skin, or “Moro Viejo, mal cristiano” (An elder moor makes a bad Christian), which is used to describe a stubborn person. I moved to the US in 1982. A few years later, around 1993, while I was vacationing back home, I heard it again. This time I asked for its meaning. The person, a man I knew from my childhood, said it was simple. A “negro blanco” (white black), it’s simply a “nice guy”. A black man, that is so nice, that he could be considered a white guy, for all intents and purposes. To this day I don’t know how to feel about that….
Jose G. Martinez Flores
Mayaguez, Puerto Rico
The essential fact that we are all human, regardless of any difference.
Meghan Morales
Seattle, WA
Even though I’m mixed race (Latina with Puerto Rican & Dominican heritage & White), my lighter toned skin provides me the privilege to ‘pass’ most days. I’m often mistaken for someone whose sole race is White from those who do not know me. Because of this, it was especially shocking to hear from (what I thought was) a close friend in college say to me: “Meghan, sometimes I think you pretend to be Latina.” Being one of the few women of color within that close circle of girlfriends, it made me feel like an outsider and has haunted me ever since.
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