Coloring Whiteness: POC Community Building and Mistaken Racial Identity

This is not to say, of course, that Latin@s who may have considered themselves one racial group within their country of origin but who conform to or accept their newly assigned category within the U.S. do not exist. If anything, the general acceptance of a new racial category (and consequently, labeling others in new ways as well) is a part of the assimilation process when one immigrates to a new country, be it the United States or elsewhere. But for many, particularly those who have never had to think about race, the process of receiving a racial category, and usually one that does not directly correlate with their respective national equivalent, can be an unwelcome form of identity alteration.

In the case of those who come from higher class backgrounds and, in particular, are deemed white in their home countries, the shift can be disarming and a blow to one’s sense of racial self-esteem, particularly if the new racial category indicates a “descent.” While certainly a humbling experience, it is nevertheless one that, in its own way, a form of forced assimilation. It’s also a classic example of what I refer to as “identity imperialism.” By re-categorizing groups from other countries based on our own groupings, we show not only a general lack of familiarity with the world beyond our borders, but also a limited understanding of ourselves. An example can be found in the embracing of Brazilian models as a welcome “alternative” in the fashion world a few years ago. The dozens of Brazilian models gracing the runways? Still white. Their nationality does not dictate their race. Why many fail to understand this, despite “American” as a nationality not being an indicator of racial categories, is beyond me.

As I mentioned in a piece I wrote long ago about race in Latin America entitled “We Want You . . . To Think Just Like Us,” despite our lazy re-categorization of immigrant groups and their racial identities, we don’t have it all figured out on our home turf:

In discussions (from an American perspective) related to race in other countries, there tends to be a forced application of American racial categories and norms, as if our identity grid fits each racial landscape without a need to vary its shape. And though we like to pretend that race is clear-cut in the United States, it’s obvious that concepts of race are more mutable than we like to admit.

Take the category “people of color.” What does it actually mean? Is it truly a useful term for the sake of building community within marginalized groups if some of the people within it benefit from privilege? If you consider black Americans, for example, studies have shown that despite blacks of all shades being categorized as one group racially (something that happens with less frequency in Latin America, as there are often categories for the people of multiracial backgrounds who phenotypically may not be easily placed squarely within the categories of black and white), blacks with lighter skin, if separated from their darker peers statistically, have more economic success (included therein, higher levels of education and higher paying jobs). Despite our not separating light-skinned blacks and dark-skinned blacks in comparative race studies, the statistics hint at skin color-based privilege in action. The same could be said of studies on Asian-Americans, which often lump together all categories of ethnicities therein, ignoring some of the problems of poverty and access troubling certain communities.

That said, can we legitimately force people from other countries into our own specified categories for them, despite our having yet to fully grasp the complexities therein? As we move to a more explicit and open multiracial America (and I say this as we have always been a country with people of multiracial backgrounds, just not one where we could openly embrace that due to the circumstances of racism in our country), it is time for us to reconsider the categories we have, and analyze whether or not they are still working as a means of building community, particularly when our presumed allies are technically playing for other team, lacking any connection to the experience of marginalization based on race (and/or class).

Miss Wendi’s voice? She now writes exclusively about music and fashion at her site Retail DJ.

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