what exactly is race? is race a real thing? is it something we decide for ourselves (i.e. "i'm white."), or is it something that is decided for us (i.e. "i'm white." "no, no. you're actually not. you're mexican.").
what was your first experience with race?
and what, to you, is the difference between race and ethnicity?
i think growing up in hawaii, i was afforded the almost luxury of growing up, not being white, and not knowing i was supposedly "underprivileged" or "disadvantaged." whatever the heck that means today. native hawaiians, mixed race people, we're the dominant crowd in hawaii. and i'll be the first to admit that it's difficult to be a white person in hawaii. there is a certain amount of hostility there if you don't fit in with the "brown crowd".
so when i go home, my pidgin accent thickens and i see how i get much better service at a local food joint than the white guy in line after me. i notice that it's easier for me to comfortably ask people for directions because i know that, out of respect, i'll call that someone "aunty" or "uncle". i make myself fit in again because i realize the benefit of it.
but when i'm here, in the mainland, i'm all of a sudden mexican! i'm not mexican! then again, nor am i only native hawaiian. my first experience with race was probably kamehameha, which would explain why i identify more with being native hawaiian than i do with anything else. at kamehameha, you're taught not only to value being native hawaiian, but almost to value it to the extent of all else. so i'm native hawaiian first. then i'm filipino, portuguese, spanish, puerto rican, chinese, french.
but i'm always native hawaiian first.
so is this something i can choose? to be native hawaiian first? even though people outside of hawaii either consider me to be latina or white (fyi: i pass as white, more or less)? or am i those other things, because race is more an external label than an internal label?
i didn't just pull this conversation out of no where. i'm actually in my race and justice class right now and am pretty much transcribing the conversation verbatim.
i'd love your thoughts!
January 29, 2009
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2 comments:
so complex -- here was my thought process reading this: why are we so bent on labeling people? but then self-labeleing is part of self-awareness and identity so we label ourselves, but then that leads to labeling others? I don't think I can tell you the difference between race and ethnicity. I might have back when I took sociology in undergrad. But, my experience: Watching home videos back to my 1st bday party showed that I've had friends of all sorts of ethnic backgrounds ever since I was a baby. I've dated non-caucasian guys before with no discussion of (or need to discuss) our ethnic differences even coming up. This is probably directly related to growing up in the SF bay area with liberal parents and going to daycare at UC Berkeley :) so...not much experience.
I think it's part of white privilege that I never really had to deal with race. In school, we were taught to be colorblind, and that was cool with me, because I certainly wasn't experiencing any negative effects of my race.
It wasn't until I got to college that I had to really deal with race. I mean, deal with it academically. My high school was way more diverse than my college, so it wasn't that I wasn't around people of other races. But, my eyes were opened in college to the way that race continues to work in our society, whether we go around pretending to be color blind or not. I also had to face the privileged life I'd led as a white person. It's strange that you'd have to be taught that you're privileged, but I really did. It's not like I grew up rich or anything, but I think race still affects the opportunities open to a person in the country.
It wasn't until a college biology class that I learned that race really isn't a thing. I mean, it's no more an indicator than how tall you are or what color eyes you have. But, it really doesn't matter if there's no biological basis, because there is a hugely long history of race in the United States, and you cannot deny that by pretending that we're all colorblind and everyone is equal. Old ideas sometimes seem to die quickly, but they really don't go away.
I really hope this comment makes sense!
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