 |
| Great-grandfather Julio Castro |
Nowadays, I just kinda shrug my shoulders and think, "Yeah, I'll fill it out."
The box that I check is the one marked "Hispanic". Why do I do this? Well, 'cause I'm Hispanic. My great-grandparents, Julio and Teodora Castro, came to America from Spain. Their daughter, my grandmother, was 100% Spanish, which makes me 25% Spanish. That's Spanish enough to be Hispanic.
Still, I feel kinda funny checking off that box. I look like Joe White Guy. Isn't Hispanic something else? When I hear the word, I think of folks from Mexico, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, etc. While I realize that those are different cultures, and you always run into trouble when you go grouping large numbers of people into categories, they seem to have some commonalities which I do not. I mean, Benicio del Toro is Puerto Rican, but he played a Mexican cop in Traffic. Nobody would believe it if they hired me to play a Mexican cop. (And yes, I know that there are plenty of fair-skinned Mexicans out there. You know what kind of crap they often have to hear? "You don't LOOK Mexican!")
 |
| Great-grandmother Teodora Castro |
I'm pretty sure that for the longest time, whenever I would actually identify what ethnic group I'm in, I'd never check "Hispanic" even though my dad had told me that's what I was. It's not that I doubted him, but see my reasons above for why I didn't feel right about identifying myself this way. I finally started doing it consistently when filling out the last U.S. Census form, where it clearly stated that "of Spanish descent" was part of the description for Hispanic.
 |
| Great-great-grandmother Maria Sanchez Romero |
I realize that there's a lot more to Hispanic/Latino culture than how some white people treat them like crap, but I feel like a bit of a phony by telling people I'm Hispanic. It's not like I know what any of those things are like.
But hey, maybe some Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Salvadorans, Panamanians, etc. are reading this blog and thinking to themselves, "What's the big deal? You're Hispanic. Who cares if you look like you could be the spokesman for Gringos United?"
3 comments:
You are a little bit more than 25 percent Spanish because my grandfather (the picture on my timeline) was half Spanish, which makes me one eights Spanish. It's only by blood though in my case. In yours, there was a lot of influence of Spanish culture in your grandmother.
Hey, those pics look familiar! :oD I think the U.S. Census tends to think of Spaniards as "European" as opposed to Hispanic (Latin American). After all, Julio and Teodora didn't look very "hispanic"...and their daughter (my grandmother) was a blue-eyed blond (like me!) despite being a full-blooded Spaniard! Which is true of many folk of Castillian Spanish decent. In fact when I went to Spain, I was struck by the fact that there's just as much diversity in "Spanish" people as there is here in America. Actually, there are probably more light-skinned folk in Spain than there are here now. When people tell me "you don't LOOK Spanish" I say "think of Charo!" Or I used to anyway. That doesn't seem to work so well with the younger generation today...LOL. I've been tempted a time or two to tick the "Hispanic" box on those surveys. But I'm pretty sure that my ethnic background isn't the one they have in mind. ;o)
It's been a while, but I remember being really careful about that census. There might have been a category for something like "European Hispanic" or something to that effect.
And you don't think that our great-grandparents look Hispanic?
Post a Comment