Stories of Self-Definition

...On the census race question, political groups in the United States, and he supplied his JP checked "other" and specified "Puerto Rican Ameri- own (hyphenated) group...

...We may also need to favor skilled over unskilled immigrants, further improving the odds for assimilation...

...In a sense," he said, "[illegal immigration] bailed the country out...

...Within this perspective," she writes, "Hispanics are often referred to as 'lightskinned,' not as white...

...grant assimilation model...

...Do we really want to become another California, with all of its immigrant problems...

...But as I grew, I understood Puerto Rican as a mixture, and I could identify with both blacks and whites...

...1 8 This papering over of massive social inequalities with feel-good multicultural images and gestures-such George W.'s "colorful" right-wing cabinet-may be the ideological maneuver to beware of in these postmillennial days, even as the old nativism whispers in the press...

...Born and raised in East Harlem and the South Bronx (predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods), he is the son of parents who migrated from Puerto Rico to New York before World War II...

...The way he viewed his ancestry also has changed "I would have considered myself more white up to the age of nine...

...As a child, I perceived myself as a Puerto Rican and distinctly apart from black and white...

...Arco Iris described his color as "brown" and explained that North Americans tend to see him as a "brown-skinned Puerto Rican or a light-skinned black...

...The implication is that white Hispanics are not quite white, not "really" white...

...Eighty ff the "black" category on years ago, the father of U.S...

...All of the respondents below, whose names have been changed, identified themselves as "other race...

...However, I identify more with blacks because to white America, if you are my color, you are a nigger...

...I can't change my color, and I do not wish to...

...The New York Times noted that 43REPORT ON RACE in California, "Republicans are not going to be successful statewide unless they can come up with some way to rebuild and repair the damage they've done among Asian and Latino voters with the anti-immigration crusades of the 1990s...

...During the interview, Jose Ali noted that he assumes everybody at his job assumes he is black and he does not "want to burst their bubble...

...popular, literary and o U.S...

...Now I agree with whoever thinks I'm black...

...They don't ask...

...Finally, when asked, "Why do you see yourself as black...

...For example, Greek that he was white...

...During her interview, Victoria consistently placed herself in an intermediate position, choosing "other" on the census question and specifying "Hispanic...

...In many states," The New York Times reported in an article on the burgeoning Latino population in the Midwest, "there are already signs of public unease over the role of immigration in crowding schools, burdening hospitals and depressing wages...

...He noted that his racial identity had changed over time...

...Victoria has several sisters, and her family is Protestant...

...Arco Iris checked "other" and wrote "Puerto Rican" in the space next to it...

...Otherwise, a labor shortage would have had a real effect on our economy...

...a pyounggrund with two of "Non-Hispanic white" is black American woman h not the same as, say, verbally abused her, and "non-Eastern European Celia is a black Hispanic P white" or "non-West But she is not a black Am Indian black," because herself as black according "Eastern European" and ness...

...When asked what the word "black" meant to him, he replied, "As other people see me...

...elia identified herself a subsequent Times article census question, she reported that "black Panamanian...

...Her father has a working-class occupation, and her mother is a homemaker...

...When asked why he characterized himself as darker than North Americans might see him, Mr...

...But when answering "How would you describe yourself racially...

...He pointed out that "when you are seen as a certain race, you are also seen culturally the might occasion a recrudescence of Stoddard's language...

...There is no point in trying to prove that I'm not black...after being practically attacked by whites because of the way I look...

...She gave her color as "brown" and said that North Americans saw her as "other," not "white" or "black...

...6 One of the Post's earliest headlines on the topic trumpeted that Cella: Latina, B nationally, Hispanics have And Not Afri "drawn even" with blacks...

...16 George W. Bush's more strategically savvy politics in Texas-in which "Hispanics were incorporated into [the Republican] party and [its] agenda," if only through his rejection of "harsh rhetoric" and "symbolic gestures"seems a more likely tack...

...7 and the renewed racial ha Accompanying the bar says that throughout the graphs and commentary in she always knew "who these stories was the con- that she is both Hispanic stant reminder that "His- roots in both identities panic is a demographic Celia realized that most group, not a race...

...Latinos understand this phenomenon as their being identified racially but not culturally...

...Arco Iris labelled his mother as a one (light) and his father as a five (dark), and he identified himself as a four...

...Arco Iris stated that "four is more biologically accurate" and further explained that he identified himself as dark out of respect for and loyalty to his brown-skinned father...

...She also recalled the following experience that subsequently made her feel very ashamed: One day the dean patted her on the shoulder and told her, "I'm so glad you're not like the other Mexicans," considering this a compliment...

...their 'whiteness' and "an American thus makes them non, : : i:: white by default.'9 "other race," and on the ite by default...

...Other Latinos in the sample felt similarly confused or pressured to be "white...

...Arco Iris' Rainbow Identities M r. Arco Iris' name means "rainbow" in Spanish, and he is always addressed as "Mr...

...and "What do you consider yourself to be...

...What follows are excerpts-called "Stories of Self-Definitionw-from a number of case studies in Clara E. Rodriguez's Changing Race: Latinos, the Census and the History of Ethnicity in the United States...

...nativist's nightmare, is namanian and proud of it, an old one, entrenched in ican, and she does not see U.S...

...ethnic group illustrate, Celia described that may be of any race...

...can because he was born in the United States...

...on Arizona, which had the greatest Hispanic population increase, also reported on swamped social services, such as a $49 million peak last year in "uncompensated [health] care to illegal immigrants and other uninsured county residents...

...brings-many of which are borne by immigrants themselves--Samuelson concluded: "To benefit from immigration, we may need a little less of it...

...Asked if his identity had changed over time, Jose Ali answered yes...

...Almost all the town's residents are Mexican and work in the fields, although her parents do not...

...Celia lived Floridians...risk being ty of the 1950s, the raci overshadowed...

...Although he clearly saw him- can...

...Yet she census results, especially constant racial turbulence, in regional instances in ie was...

...he stated, in both instances, "I am a mixture of black, white and possibly Indian...

...As she explained, she travelled a long road in a short time, from being identified as white to being proud of being Mexican to being angry at Mexican patriarchy...

...In response to the census race question, Mr...

...But when people assume he is an African American, "they are disregarding my own feelings...

...E Victoria: A Celebration of Color Sictoria is a single, 30-year-old Chicana graduate stu- V dent who was born and raised in a small town on the U.S.-Mexican border...

...They simply assume...

...because at 62, he has a respected and established position as a professional in the criminal justice system...

...I realized that though I feel Hispanic, I was not seen as Hispanic or Latino, but as black...

...Despite the fact that a plurality of Hispanics-46%-identified themselves as white only, the comparison of Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites as distinct groups is considered viable...

...Asked how she felt about the remark, Victoria said that it made her uncomfortable but remembered that she looked up and smiled...

...Mr...

...But he did not feel it necessary to Americans or Italian Americans would see themselves as explain why he did not then select the white race cate- culturally the product of both the old country and the gory...

...On a five-point color scale, Mr...

...wrote in "black Hspanic Caveats and technicalirough the racial insensitivi- ties aside, the news awakening of the 1960s, media treatment of the reds of the 1 980s...

...eugenicist demographics, Lothrop Stoddard, feared "the rising tide of color," as he titled one of his books, and the consequent "race suicide" of "slow-breeding whites" outpaced by the immigration and fertility rates of "inferior colored peoples...

...l 5 It remains to be seen if immigration policy and popular attitudes will swing rightward as a result of the new census findings...

...But earlier immigrants probably about his cultural identity, however, he said he was a would not have mentioned that their grandmother had "hyphenated American...

...Historically it starts with calls for a crackdown on illegal immi- She describes jt grants and sometimes, indeed as recently as 1996, the back- as the period lash produces laws that take services not only from illegal from being a "s but also from legal nonciti- a "sma zens...

...But in a perspective absent from mainstream editorializing, Tom Rex of Arizona State University, quoted in the Times, contextualized Phoenix's "rusting manufacturing plants...giving way to bustling strip malls" by suggesting a relationship between border enforcement and labor control...

...She emphasized which whites are or are and black and has strong swiftly becoming a minority, continue the orth Americans saw her to demographic metaphor but noted that she felt coined by Time magazine n blacks...

...She describes this period as when she went from being a "smart Chicana" to a "smart white...

...She later also resented what she perceived as the limitations of Mexican culture...

...It's worth worrying whether the latest demographic "explosion" of "colored people" in the United States Mr...

...He added Even though JP identified as "other race," his adapta- that he was bicultural because "various aspects of both tion to the U.S...

...definitions of black- cinematic culture...

...The fantasy's aim, by representing the USA as "a happy racial monoculture made up of 'one (mixed) blood,"' they say, was "to help its public process the threat to 'normal' or 'core' national culture that is currently phrased as 'the problem of immigration.'" The "crisis image of immigrants," linked to "white fears of minoritization," is a "racial mirage" that in "supplying a specific phobia" avoids a "substantial discussion of exploitation...

...Until she went to another college, in California, Victoria did not realize the significance of the dean's remark...

...I decided to accept the fact that no matter who I feel to be, I am categorized as black...

...He answered the questions in When he understood the questions to be asking much the same way that second-generation European about his physical appearance, JP consistently answered Amerrcans usually answer them...

...When Victoria went to ria went to the local community colege, she continued to excel academically and was very active in student government...

...1 2 Robert Samuelson, in his column for The Washington Post, noted a "subtle and useful shift in tone and message" in the press's coverage of the census...

...When he understood the questions to be asking United States, as JP did...

...Warner have called its cover girl-a computergenerated image of what the ideal, racially mixed citizen will look like once whites in the United States have become a minority-a "divine Frankenstein...

...Here most of her classmates were Anglos...

...Consequently, today Latinos are pressured to be categorized according to their color rather than their national heritage and culture...

...Thus, even though Jose Ali says he is "other race, Hispanic," his responses reveal the pressures that some Latinos feel to identify as an American black...

...This imposition of the black-white racial order on Latinos separates them into "whites" and "blacks" and in the process attempts to create new African Americans and so-called hyphenated (European) Americans...

...0 lo er children when they were .she began talking and a The story of this counard her accent, the woman try's "browning," the Celia left the playground...

...At the time of the interview, JP perceived himself to the census question on race, he assumed that the catebe (and was understood to be) assimilating into gories represented other major social-cultural-raciai- white corporate America...

...He consistently alluded to his identification as black when answering other racial items in the interview, for example, "Hispanic, yet identifies as black" and "I describe myself as black...

...l Time featured an article on the Iowa governor's plan to boost the state's sagging number of laborers by stimulating immigration...

...42NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 42REPORT ON RACE Jos6 All: The Pressure to Be Black os6 Ali is a Dominican, 24 years old, single and a fulltime student at a public university, Jose Ai answered "other, Hispanic" to the census race question and explained: "By inheritance I am Hispanic...

...8 Thus, be like "any other blac Hispanics are an excep- uneasy with American-bi tional ethnic group, indeed they strongly disliked blac the only U.S...

...To sus: "the browning of experience she had had at America...

...His interviewer described him as "not white/not black...

...ties, are not recognized as racially heterogeneous categories...

...When Victoria finished elementary school, she went to a junior high school where she was placed on the accelerated track...

...The studies, conducted in the early IiBOs, asked a sampling of Latinos to fill out a copy of the 1980 census's race question, and then to answer a series of questions meant to ascertain why they answered the way they did...

...Citing articles from the Times, USA Today and the Post on the "new social problems and tensions" that immigration Vol XXXIV, No 6 MAY/JUNE 2001 same...

...As I got older, I developed a broader definition of race and acknowledged greater mixture...

...REPORT ON RACE declared, "non-Hispanic whites are officially a minority in California," while "Texas may soon become, after California, the second biggest state in which nonHispanic whites are no longer the majority...

...This was darker than the interviewer's view of Mr...

...It may not take much to turn those worries into a nativist backlash...

...She has been to Mexico only once, when she was 23, and she described this trip as consciousness raising...

...This corresponds c is h al t sh N n h a t 0 to the stereotyped image of Latinos, as Rodriguez understands it, as "tan...

...1 3 The National Review felt that "the United States should restrict the currently high inflow," since "Hispanics come here because it is better than home," and it will only "stay attractive as long as less than everyone comes...

...He said that he goes along with their assumption as long as he is treated well but admitted that he accepts this identity because it would take him too much time to explain why he is culturally not an African American...

...Seeing Hispanics/Latinos as 'light' clearly restricts ck and Proud...

...17 Three years after its "browning of America" piece, Time published a special issue titled "The New Face of America...

...In effect, when JP answered Indian blood...

...In essence, Victoria saw her education as a vehicle that helpedher escape certain sexual and racial boundaries, but she also felt that while doing so, she had had experiences that damaged her self-image, such as when she was treated as a credit to her race...

...She sensed that following the 1990 cens from other countries...

...Paroxysms of anti-immigrant fervor, after all, usually accompany recession...

...Arco Iris, as a three (intermediate in color...

...Lauren Berlant and Michael Women selling tacos at the Loisaida (from "Lower East Side") street fair in downtown Manhattan...

...asked a retired Iowa lawyer, apparently one of the many residents of the country's "fourth-whitest state" who, the article says, "want it to stay that way...

...When she did, she first reacted with fury at having denied her her heritage and having accepted the implication that her accomplishments were an exception to the rule...

...racial system followed the familiar immi- the American and Pueno Rican cultures" influenced him...

...his answer was, "Because when I was jumped by whites, I was not called 'spic,' but I was called 'nigger...

...He explained that he attributed his Puerto Rican self as physically white, he identified himseff as "other heritage to his parents but that he identified as Ameri(Puerto Rican-American) race...

...So she did not check "West Indian," as ethnici- the census question...

...Most of her friends were white, and her sisters would make fun of and mimic her "whiteness...

...Mexicans are New York City's fastest growing Latino immigrant community...

...1 4 Items in The New York Times nior high school when she went mart chicana" to t white...