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.