Why White Latinxs Aren’t People Of Color

Anjuli Castano/Staff Writer

As a white-passing Latina, I am not a person of color. I should not accept the tokenism the U.S. places on my identity because, for all intents and purposes, I operate in a white body. I am less racially profiled by employers and educators, I am more likely to receive proper care if admitted to a hospital and I inadvertently contribute to the silencing of Black and indigenous voices when I claim to represent them.

In July, in the height of the Black Lives Matter protest in Miami-Dade, I went to a Cubans for Trump rally with another girl and a sign saying “BLM,” and my companion wore a shirt that said “Make America Brown Again.” 

As soon as they spotted us, I lost my partner in the rally. I was swarmed with Trumpistas (mostly maskless), preaching on how racist my sign was and how uneducated I had to have been in order to believe the “fake news” I was trying to argue. As imagined, they were mostly white, but a few participants threw me off. One being a black Cuban-American who claimed to be a “constitutionalist.” I assume the irony in supporting Trump but being a constitutionalist is self-explanatory. 

After three hours, I found the constitutionalist again with his white friend, and had a conversation with them. We debated back and forth for what seemed like hours but they both could not understand why I was advocating so hard for Black lives when I was “brown” and my life mattered too. 

That was when my understanding of the conversation shifted and I knew that they not only saw me as a brown Latin girl who left her kin, but the white Cuban-American saw himself as equally a minority as Black people. Therefore, he believed he faced the same circumstances they do. So as he continued with his rant on how only “bad” people get hurt by the cops, I had to interrupt “I am white, and so are you.”  

The black Cuban-American was none-other than Enrique Tarrio, South Florida’s Proud Boys leader. 

Being white does not take away my bilingual tongue, or my Santera grandmother or the way the hair on my arm grows, but it does presume a privilege that would be racist to ignore.

There is an uncomfortability white passing Latinx have, with the idea that we are not latin enough because we don’t fit the stereotypes placed in the U.S. I have struggled with my identity and the ways in which people perceive my ethnicity in fear that I would not be recognized as otherly in the context of the U.S. identification of “white.” I have never wanted to be “those” white people. The ones who stand on the opposition of Black liberation, the ones who oppressed my ancestors. But in that discomfort is the workings of white supremacy that I have a duty to unlearn. 

The oversimplification of Latinx identity in the U.S. contributes to the racial, cultural and political insensitivity which divides latin communities both here and abroad. White supremacy is just as much a part of mainstream latin culture and media as it is in the U.S., denying that only promotes the survival and evolution of diseases like racism and colorism.

The responsibility I have to correct those who try to undermine my privilege is paramount. When we (white-passing Latinx), try to denounce our privileges in a racialized social and political system, we directly contribute to the erasure of the Black and indigenous peoples who make up our communities. I will never face the same dangers as a Black woman, nor should I ever try to relate to them simply because I am a minority. I take up space as a white person and the significance of that should not be overlooked because I am Latina. 

You can be both white and Latina, you can be both white and have native ancestry. The concept of latinidad as a monolith is counter-productive and cancels many of the nuances of identity that must be acknowledged in order to truly understand our relations to one another. All cultures around Latin America do not share the same histories or the same relationships with imperialism. Understanding these concepts opens the door to answers to questions such as, “why do Cubans in the U.S. disproportionately vote Republican relative to other Latinx?” 

White supremacy survives within us when we excuse ourselves of whiteness behind a POC label. Being white does not take away my bilingual tongue, or my Santera grandmother or the way the hair on my arm grows, but it does presume a privilege that would be racist to ignore. 

I strive for true allyship and the full destruction of anti-Blackness, and I cannot do that without understanding my role in white supremacy. 

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Photo by Texas Military Department on Flickr.