I'm a Veronica.

Sep. 1, 2010 at 8:00pm with 151 notes View comments

Reblogged from youveescaped-deactivated2011020

My professor was late to my first class of History of Cuba today. I sat watching the sky outside slowly turning gray and internally high fived myself for bringing an umbrella. It was cold in the classroom. I sat on one foot. The classroom slowly filled up, everyone spreading around so as to not sit next to someone else. Some random girl in jeans sat next to me.

“I like your glasses,” she said. “They’re very different.”

“Thank you.” I smiled politely as this tended to happen on the first day of the semester a lot. She spoke after a minute.

“So are you a history major?” she asked.

“No, this class just fits nicely into my schedule and goes towards my second major,” I replied. “Plus, I’m Cuban so it’d be interesting to know more about my heritage.”

“No way, you’re Cuban?” She looked shocked.

“Uh, yeah, definitely am.”

“You just don’t seem that Cuban. I mean, you seem too white to be Cuban.”

“Well, I am.”

Too white. I’ve heard it before as people question the fair skin and generally on the European side features I inherited from European grandparents and great-grandparents. In my private high school, it was said with pleasure and respect by a lot of my white classmates: “You don’t seem that Hispanic at all!”. By other Hispanic people, I’m often seen as betraying my ethnicity by not neatly fitting into a stereotypical role as Latina. I grew up in a fairly affluent, mostly white suburb. You may be surprised to learn that I speak and write fluent Spanish, know much about my cultural background, and make one of the meanest plates of ropa vieja around. I do not really listen to Latin music or wear big hoop earrings or do any of the things that many people see as markers for “Hispanic” but I am Hispanic.

To you, girl who sat next to me in class as well as you the reader, I say this: as long as you continue to classify and judge people based on your knowledge of stereotypes instead of actually getting to know a fully formed, unique individual who is made up of any number of backgrounds, you will be ignorant and you will miss out on understanding just how complex and beautiful people are. To assume that there is one common Hispanic or Black or Asian or Christian or Muslim or LGBTQ or female or even, yes, White experience or identity, is to put people in a box before you even know them. There is no right or wrong when it comes to identity, you cannot be “too black” or “not Asian enough” or “too boyish”, you are what you are, that’s it. I’m sick of hearing that I’m too white, that Obama isn’t black enough, that lesbians would be more accepted if they all fit into some feminine stereotype, that all Muslims are terrorists. That’s fucking enough. Everyone’s life experience and identity are valid and while communities share aspects, every single person has their own story, their own face that the world sees; you can’t just lump everyone together and expect to understand who a person really is.

I am a part Jewish Catholic Cuban Spanish (along with other things!) cisgendered woman who grew up in the suburbs. Pa que sepa.