Today at lunch they asked where I was from in El Salvador, and last year in Oaxaca they were convinced I was from Mexico City. Ever since I moved to Louisiana people have considered me Hispanic; students have taken bets on what country I am really from; people ask me on the street.
I was first identified as Hispanic by some Mecha activists in a class from Dru Dougherty we were all taking; this really surprised me, and it surprised them greatly that I was not. The next year on junior year abroad, I won the award “most Hispanized” (there is a Serrano Plaja poem about that).
Under pressure from my youngest brother I checked the category “Hispanic” on the 2010 US Census; I have checked it now on my grant proposal because there is no other co-P.I. who could claim a non Caucasian identity in any way and someone must, and also because in Mexico I have been identified as Mexican so many times that I gave up last year and decided I just was. My home town was in Mexico at one point and in New Spain before that, and I live in the former New Spain now.
Ought I to have checked “Caucasian” on that grant? My hairdresser says no, because I could have had my genealogy done and discovered quite anything. Vous le croyez?
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
I have a very different experience. No matter where I go, people know from 200 feet away where I am from. Complete strangers often greet me in broken Russian because I have such a typical Russian face.
The funny thing is that I haven’t been able to uncover a single Russian ancestor in my genealogy no matter how hard I tried. 🙂
…and I don’t even look Hispanic, I look like a person from central Europe…
I feel odd claiming the category because I don’t want to grab any minority slots away from actual other people without being one. But I think I really converted or something, at some point.
Oh yes, figure toi !. Your blue eyes and blond hair speak for themselves. You could certainly be taken for German, Norwegian, Swedish… Virtually everything with the exception of Spanish or Italian.
[N.Ed.: This comment was addressed to the name the commenter had for him or herself in the last comment. — Z]
Your comment brought me memories of my adolescence. In our house we had a beautiful young lady, Lola, to help us with the housekeeping. She had beautiful dark complexion, dark eyes and very beautiful long dark hair. She lived with us. I don’t know if we allowed her to do much housekeeping but we certainly had lots of fun, laughing and joking with her. My mother used to say that maturity had given her a fifth daughter to take care of. Her husband worked in Germany and one day, to our sadness, he came to take her to Germany with him. After 6-7 years she came back with 3 wonderful children, two girls who looked very much her clones and the youngest, an adorable little boy with blue eyes, very blond and really white-white skin. Her husband had died. We were so happy to see her back and she was thrilled visiting us with her children.
Of course, when you’re adolescent you ask all kind of questions. And the obvious question for us, her 4 sisters, was: “ Lola, y este niño tan blanco y tan rubio y con estos ojos azules tan lindos?”. She told us that when she gave birth, they made a mistake at the hospital and gave her a blond baby instead of her baby. We didn’t say a word or ask any other questions.
It was not until she left the house that we allowed our contained rage to flow. And the target was my mother: Mom, how is it possible that in such an advanced country like Germany babies get exchanged, mothers don’t get their real babies and nothing is done?. I remember my mother trying to change the subject except that we won’t stop until a reasonable response was delivered. When my mother had enough, he turned her face to us and said: Niñas, I can think of two possible explanations:
1. Mistakes happen everywhere, also in Germany and Lola did not report the mistake to the hospital.
2. Maybe Lola fell in love with a German man and, as a result, a blond baby was born.
Then, I remembered the four of us muttering at one time …..Ah
End of questioning
Robert, I know, or guess you mean well but if you do not start using a real name and e-mail address I am going to start spamming you. You keep changing (also changing fake e-mail addresses) and it is irritating, and also obvious (your IP doesn’t change).
Z,
I had not planned to change sex. Robert is an abbreviation, for e-mail purposes, of my real name. I am Roberta. In my culture, Robert/Roberto is for boys and Roberta for girls.
Thanks
N.Ed. – How am I supposed to know your gender; you use all sorts of names and a lot of fake e-mail addresses (you fatuous fool, I want to say, to your last sentence above). –Z
Z,
I did not know that it was compulsory to keep just a single pseudonym. Sorry.
Bye
Your comments have been getting further and further off topic, and longer and longer. When you call yourself by all these names and cover my blog with your stuff, it feels like a hostile takeover. I’ve been nice to you because you seem well meaning if a bit odd, but I think I was too nice. Please no more of this weird inspirational quasi religious stuff and no more shape shifting – you’re misinterpreting if you think religion and self help are what this blog is about.
Sorry Z. You are way over interpreting me and I don’t appreciate your remarks (“weird inspirational quasi religion and self help”). I thought that your blog was for free expression in different styles of different cultural aspects. I misunderstood.
Sorry that I did not know the rules of real name for posting. I wish you the best with your blog
There is something really creepy in your story about your maid, sorry. And when you wrote a comment under one name and then a comment in response to it under another, it was a bit much.
I only wish I were as good at seeing through spammers as you are, Z. I remember how you told me somebody on my blog was spamming and I had no idea before that.
This one is obvious especially from the reaction. Instantly offended, has their “good luck for your blog” and “I was mistaken about who you were” statements ready.
N.Ed. Robert/a or whoever you are, go bother someone else. I let you post here far too long, now go. –Z