I KNOW it's not a race, and I know we're not supposed to all look alike. Crap, this argument only starts because some American Internet users hate when not all of us look like George Lopez! when I see the same ignorance coming from other Hispanics, it REALLY makes me barf, but I'll focus on this first.
I have a Costa Rican/Mexican friend who's very Caucasian in looks and doesn't seem comfortable with the thought of having to call herself white. From my experience, most white people could care less what the heck she calls herself, it's these crap-spreading Internet losers giving light-skinned people like her and dark-skinned people like me a hard time. (I don't think people challenge her "authenticity" as much as they challenge mine, though, because she speaks great Spanish and I don't.)
My father is Puerto Rican & and my mother is African American. I'll admit that lately I've payed more attention to the former's heritage because it's no freaking secret that I'm black but I have to prove being his daughter -_-. To me, being Puerto Rican doesn't mean I am not or can't be black. But I don't feel that I AM African American like Martin Luther King or Malcom X because of the simple fact that my own mother and a quite a few black I've met don't consider me black. I can barely get away with making a black joke and when it comes to things that blacks consider common knowledge, I may sound like a total noob. I guess it's self-explanatory that I also don't quote-unquote "act black" (who came up with that lame phrase, anyway?) My point is, most black people don't consider me black. They don't care what I call myself as long as I don't act like being black is the worse thing that could happen to someone. So what's the deal with the government trying to tell me what I can and can't say about myself? My only problem with the old way of doing things was that no one could check more than one option. Now people can pick more than one race, but that only seems to work for non-Hispanic people who know their ancestry to the tee.
Here's the thing: You can argue about Dominicans being black & Argentinians being white all day long, but MOST Hispanics are biracial or multiracial & there's no immediate way of telling what they are, at least not in a way that would satisfy the government. The USA has always stuffed people into rigid little groups, & I can't see it making an easy transition into the way Latin America describes its people. Of course, it would be pointless to make a big deal of it by taking DNA tests & joining ancestry.com. Saying you're Hispanic is the easiest thing for most Latin Americans in the United States, and if someone doesn't look like the "typical" Mexican mestizo, tough beans.
There's more to being "white" or "black" than skin color & geographical origin because race is more of a social construct. "White" and "black" are both boxes that this society tries to shove you into, blinding you to the fact that culture does MUCH more for your identity than freaking skin color! "White" has come to mean you "have" to be one way, and "black" means you have to be the opposite. Since it becomes more and more impossible to lump Latinos together this way as their diversity manifests, you either have a choice of SEEING THEM WITH AN OPEN MIND, or just refusing to call them Latino/Hispanic at all. After all, to see a "black" kid and/or a "white" kid speaking "Mexican" is just too darned confusing for some people!
In fact, you're more likely to make a big deal out of me being half black than any true Puerto Rican would, regardless of what they look like, because in the end I'm a Boricua too, and since it's a Caribbean island, THERE ARE PLENTY OR RICANS THAT LOOK LIKE ME. Case closed. So why can't I also a fellow American at the end of the day since the existence of American blacks is common knowledge? Nothing about my background should say otherwise. Rico's still a US territory and happens to be Americanized in quite a few ways, so I'd be American even if I was 100% Puerto Rican from the island and spoke little English.
It depends on what country they're from or whether or not they're foreign-born at all. It also depends on how they've assimilated in America. But my general opinion If you are a white American, you may have more culturally in common with a black American than you do with some random foreigner who happens to be fully Caucasian. WHETHER ANYONE LIKES IT OR NOT. Because guess what? YOU ARE MORE LIKELY TO HAVE GROWN UP THE SAME WAY WITH THE SAME BELIEFS AND CUSTOMS.
If America was a former Spanish colony as opposed to an English colony, y'all would understand, because the Spanish forced most of their subjects become part of their society, whereas the English were giving all theirs the proverbial finger. That's why Anglophone countries don't rally around calling themselves Anglo.
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