Tag:

racism

What does “Be MORE Latina” Mean?

by Deborah Cruz 2014/04/28

What do you think of when you hear the word Latina?

The stereotypes are out of control. In fact, if you Google “Latina” every photo is of a hot, caramel colored girl in a tiny bikini, sometimes leaning over a lowrider or laying in bed. Oh and there are a couple of pregnant women surrounded by 12 kids. Go ahead. There is nothing you can say that will shock me. My husband likes to joke that he thought I’d be a little more Sophia Vergara and a little less Julie Bowen of Modern Family.

We have all heard the Latina stereotypes: voluptuous, passionate and hot-tempered Latinas. We fight to make up. We have lots of kids because of all the sex and Catholic refusal to believe in birth control. We all have thick accents and we live to serve our controlling husbands and walk our Chihuahua dogs. When we are not in the kitchen cooking from scratch in our high heels, we are in the bedroom working on another bebé. We are all nannies and mothers. You could believe this and it could be true in some cases, because even a broken clock is right twice a day but mostly, you would be dead wrong.

Latina is not a color.I have been assumed to be everything but Latina on several occasions: Caucasian is the immediate go to, if they notice that I don’t exactly fit the stereotype for Latina. I have dark brown hair, light brown eyes, fair-skin and not immediately identifiable features. My mom is Southern by way of Ireland, France, Italy, England and the Cherokee nation. Then the guessing begins. Italian? Greek? Jewish? It makes me feel as if those guessing think I’m anything other than what I actually am: Latina on my father’s side.

OK, I am just going to say it, I am a fair skinned Latina woman; possibly the whitest Latina you may well ever meet. I get it. It might be a little bit confusing for those who don’t realize that, like every other race, we come in every single color of the rainbow, with different combinations of hair and eye color and varying degrees of assimilation. We are not all the same. We don’t look the same. We don’t talk the same. We don’t come from the same place and we certainly, don’t all fit some concocted cartoonish stereotype. My daughters are beautiful with blonde hair and blue eyes, if you ask them what they are, they will tell you, “I am Latina!” Because, they are and it’s that simple.

Some are true. I think as a group many of us are loud, passionate people who place a great value on the family unit but not all of us. Many of us are determined, handworkers who demand respect and take pride in our work, no matter how menial the task. We want to succeed and we’ve always had to work for it; from the farms to gaining respect in a new country so we are not afraid to work our asses off for what we want.

For many of us, failure is not an option. When, in business, I am asked to be “more” Latina that bothers me. I am not insulted because I am proud of being Latina. But I am offended that you have the nerve to ask me to prove that I fit into YOUR idea of who I should be. How do I quantify myself to meet your expectations? Would you ask a homosexual to be “more gay” or an African-American to be “more black”? I don’t think so.

I totally get that if I market myself as a Latina blogger, people expect me to be Latina and I am. It took me a long time to take ownership of that because I had spent so much time in my life feeling like I had to prove it. But when you ask me to be “more Latina” that insinuates that you don’t want me to be Latina, you want me to fit some misguided idea that you have of what it is to be “Latina”.You want more “spice”. That bothers me.

I am first generation Mexican American. I speak Spanish. I grew up immersed in the Latino culture. I may not have been born in Mexico, but my father was. I will not apologize for not meeting your stereotype. I don’t speak with an accent and every thing I do is not overtly “Latin” in nature because you know what Latin people are? We are just PEOPLE, just like you.

Well, maybe not like you (the person asking Latinos to prove their Latino-ness) because I am pretty sure you are an asshole and you might even be a little bit of a racist, or just really ignorant to my culture. We are not all built like Sophia Vergara (though I wish we were). We are not all oversexed, tequila drinking, hot-tempered caramel colored taco eaters who dance Cumbia. Well, mostly I am, with the exception of the caramel colored skin but many are not.

What’s the stupidest thing anyone has ever asked you based on a stereotype Latina or otherwise?

2014/04/28 10 comments

Coca-Cola, racism,Super Bowl, America the Beautiful

Coca-Cola’s Super Bowl Ad Brings out the Ugly in America

by Deborah Cruz 2014/02/03

written by Deborah Cruz

If you were honestly offended by the Coca-Cola Super Bowl ad, do us both a favor and unfriend or unfollow me now. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

I don’t get it. Anyone offended by a commercial conveying the idea of our America as a melting pot of many different cultures, races and religions, is offended by my very existence so do us both a favor and take your racism and bigotry and go away. I don’t want you here.

When I saw the Coke commercial I thought it was beautiful for a couple different reasons. One, it was reminiscent of the Hilltop Coke commercial I grew up watching and two; it shows the United States as a Utopia where everyone lives in peace, harmony and unity; bound by love and acceptance.

The hilltop Coke commercial was the one with all the young people on a hilltop in Italy singing about furnishing the world with love and buying one another a Coke. It was beautiful. It was about togetherness and acceptance and world peace and free love and oh, yeah, Coke. The commercial was all in English but the people were distinctly different from all over the world. I don’t remember the survivalists and Aryan nation being up in arms then.

This year’s Coke Super Bowl ad was the exact same thing 43 years later. You’d think evolution would have made this commercial less controversial. Coca-Cola is an international product. The United States is a melting pot of many different races, religions and cultures. We are a country of tolerance. Unfortunately, Coke overestimated the American people because apparently we are not beautiful at all. After last night’s reaction to America the Beautiful, in fact, I would say we are downright ugly.

I am a product of that melting pot. I am Mexican, Spanish, English, French, Italian, Irish and Cherokee. I am proud to be all those things. I am proud to be a part of a country that allowed this to happen. I am proud to be able to experience the entire world from my home state of Indiana. I love experiencing different cultures and people. I like being able to introduce my daughters to different people and cultures, races, religions, languages and foods. Isn’t that what makes this country great? Who wants to live in a vanilla world?

Last night’s commercial was world peace. What every single fucking Miss America has wished for since the beginning of Miss America. It was evolution through tolerance; it was a better world than reality allows for…apparently. I am appalled at the social media attack on the Coke commercial and if you were part of it, quite frankly, we can’t be friends because I have apparently, evolved past where you are or may ever get to be.

The Coca-Cola commercial was a testament to the tolerance and beauty of the United States and anyone who is against that or too stupid to understand that the United States is made up of more than just Anglo-Americans, maybe Coke should rethink their opinion of Americans not the other way around.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again, unless you are a Native American…you too are a foreigner. English is not the language of the original natives, but you don’t hear me complaining about you. I’d like to buy the world a Coke and a smile because life is too short for all this hatred. Underneath it all, the color of our skin, the language we speak, the food we eat, the ethnicity we originated from, the God we worship, all that aside, we are all just humans trying to survive this world.

What did you think of the Coca-Cola America the Beautiful commercial?

2014/02/03 1 comment

Throat Punch Thursday

Richard Cohen’s Throwing Up in His Mouth Over You and Your Biracial Children

by Deborah Cruz 2013/11/14

written by Deborah Cruz

Yesterday, I had an article come across my tread about Richard Cohen, a writer for the Washington Post, who declared…

Today’s GOP is not racist, as Harry Belafonte alleged about the tea party, but it is deeply troubled — about the expansion of government, about immigration, about secularism, about the mainstreaming of what used to be the avant-garde. People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York — a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children. (Should I mention that Bill de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, used to be a lesbian?) This family represents the cultural changes that have enveloped parts — but not all — of America. To cultural conservatives, this doesn’t look like their country at all.

If you ask me, Bill de Blasio sounds like a man who sees beyond the surface and does not judge people on what they appear to be but for what they actually are beneath the exterior, superficial appearance. I went to the source and read the entire article, in Richard Cohen’s own words. After carefully reading the piece, I began to second guess whether or not he was actually a racist or if he was just the victim of misunderstanding and salacious headlines. Been there, done that. Then, I read this paragraph…

Iowa not only is a serious obstacle for Christie and other Republican moderates, it also suggests something more ominous: the Dixiecrats of old. Officially the States’ Rights Democratic Party, they were breakaway Democrats whose primary issue was racial segregation. In its cause, they ran their own presidential candidate, Strom Thurmond, and almost cost Harry Truman the 1948 election. They didn’t care. Their objective was not to win — although that would have been nice — but to retain institutional, legal racism. They saw a way of life under attack and they feared its loss.

And just like that all doubts were removed. Because with him making that one little remark, “ although that would have been nice” he confirmed that he, in fact, is opposed to equality and biracial marriage and for legal racism. He’s a racist.

I am the product of a biracial marriage. My children are the product of a biracial marriage. I am trying to raise my children in the United States; a country that is supposed to be a melting pot of cultures and color, but still, there is racism and the them and us mentality lives on.

When my mother married my father in Virginia in 1972, 41 years ago, she took my father to meet her Grandfather who had helped raise her. He had not come to their small wedding so she took her groom to meet him. He told her that she might as well have married a n*gger and promptly slammed the door in her face. I cringe every time I even think of him using the n word because it wreaks of so much ignorance and somewhere that asshole’s blood runs through my veins.*Hangs head in shame*

I am sure after he shut the door he threw up in his mouth a little. Too bad he didn’t choke on it. Maybe he did, how would I know? I never met him. This has been our legacy. My mother was devastated and never saw her grandfather again because she didn’t want her children around that. She protected us but to the racists she was even more disgusting than my father because she chose to be with him. She chose someone her grandfather felt was less than her; a poor mountain girl from a divorced family in the south with nothing, at all. He made that assumption based on the color of my father’s skin. He didn’t care that they loved one another or that she was happy. He only cared that it wasn’t what he thought was traditional. My mom, the damn dirty liberal she was. I’d like to think people have evolved since 1972 but I honestly think we are in a state of devolution, if Richard Cohen and the Iowa Tea Party are any indication.

Here’s the problem, aside from the fact that humans are humans and as such we are all created equal, we live in a country where everyone is mixed. I mean how many of you are English, just English? Hell, I don’t even think most of the people in England are pure English unless they are royalty. I mean if we are going to be literal, if you are not American Indian, you are not native. Guess what, I am 1/16^th Cherokee. So, aren’t I more American than someone who came over on the Mayflower?

Apparently, the issue most conservatives have which causes them to vomit in their mouths a little bit is when they see actual colors mixing because you can’t hide that. You can’t hide from the color of your skin, no matter how ashamed or self-loathing the right wing conservatives try to make you feel. It announces itself before you ever enter the room.

This sort of mentality makes me sick and it makes me afraid for my children. People who see others as less important, somehow less human than themselves, also see those same people as disposable threats. What happens when we are all so mixed up that you can no longer identify people by their colors? Do we feel betrayed or duped because we didn’t know that we were supposed to be throwing up in our own mouths with disgust because two people blindly fell in love with a human and not a color of skin?

Personally, I am looking forward to the day when the entire country is a beautiful shade of café au lait. Life is not black and white; it’s not that simple. Humans are complicated. But there is one thing that is clear, I want better for my daughters. I never want them to have to hang their heads in shame for being Latina. I want them to live in a world where racists are the minority and are the ones hanging their heads in shame for their despicable behaviors. If you are a racist, I pity you because there is a whole group of people that you are cheating yourself from knowing simply based on the color of their skin.

Today, my throat punch goes to Richard Cohen for writing such an offensive piece, the Washington Post for employing such a racist pig and to all those like Mr.Cohen who think people should be separated by color like laundry instead of standing shoulder to shoulder, intermingling and learning from one another. I want better for my girls.

What do you think about Richard Cohen and his take on race and the tea Party?

2013/11/14 2 comments

Trayvon Martin, George ZImmerman, Racism, Bigotry

Throat Punch Thursday

Throat Punch Thursday ~ Trayvon Martin & the Racist Vigilante Edition

by Deborah Cruz 2012/03/22

written by Deborah Cruz

Trayvon Martin this one’s for you

This week’s Throat Punch is being given out in honor of Trayvon Martin. As a mother, my heart aches for Trayvon Martin’s parents. As a human, I am outraged. As a minority, I am fighting mad. This week’s Throat Punch is awarded to George Zimmerman the vigilante bigot who thought it was appropriate to shoot a boy in cold blood for the simple fact that the color of his skin was brown. I know that bigots are afraid of anyone different, especially when the packaging is a darker shade or two than their own skin. This is not the first time this has happened nor do I suspect this will be the last.

Trayvon Martin was a Good Kid

Trayvon Martin, from all accounts, was a good kid who happened to come across a not so good adult with a trigger happy finger. I can’t imagine the pain and anger that Trayvon Martin’s parents feel at the death of their son nor do I ever want to know it. Isn’t every parent’s biggest fear that their child is going to come into harms way? A rogue drunken driver, a stray bullet, a crazed assailant, cancer, abduction, stranger danger, choking on a raisin, getting hit by a car, wrecking while texting? There are so many ways that we worry about our children getting into harms way, every day. We don’t expect simply walking home from the store to be a particularly dangerous scenario. Walking home from the store should not be deadly, should it?

What is this world coming to that we can tolerate this sort of behavior? How can we stomach it as a people? Zimmerman says that it was self- defense. Evidence proves otherwise. Just because he was a racist who felt threatened by the color of a boy’s skin is not a legitimate reason for shooting Trayvon Martin dead and robbing his parents of their son forever. There will never be any little Trayvon Martin’s running to his mother’s lap. She will not see her son graduate from school. She will not get to dance the Mother/ son dance at Trayvon’s wedding. She will not get to see the man her son was supposed to become. She will never get to know that man. He will not be there in her old age to hold her hand and comfort her at the end. Now, his parents are left with a giant void in their chest where their heart used to be. The great joy they once knew upon seeing that baby Trayvon Martin be born has been replaced by pain and hatred. Hatred for George Zimmerman.

Nothing can make this right. Apparently, the big debate now is whether or not George Zimmerman used a racial slur when addressing Trayvon Martin. Truly, the fact remains, whether he used a slur or not, that he is a bigot and shot Trayvon Martin in cold blood for no other reason that he felt threatened. Zimmerman was threatened for the simple fact that he had a predisposed notion to feel afraid of black men. This is racism, whether there is a slur attached or not. The sentiment is the same. The result the same. Trayvon Martin is still dead.

Trayvon Martin may you Rest in Peace

Photo

2012/03/22 8 comments

Illegal immigrant, illegals, Mexicans, immigration law

Throat Punch Thursday

Throat Punch Thursday ~ Illegals are NOT Okay Edition

by Deborah Cruz 2012/01/26

written by Deborah Cruz

Calling people illegals is dehumanizing

” Illegals” are not okay~ Earlier this month, the Charlotte Observer published a story about the birth of Tommy Arias, the first baby born in 2012 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The article sparked an outpouring of hate from some readers.This really gets me hot because another beautiful brown baby was born a day later, my nephew, and I don’t understand how something so precious could incite racism? How could the birth of any baby ( black, white, brown, purple, green, yellow) spark hate? The hate came from the color of the baby’s skin and the assumption that the parents were illegal immigrants, prompting an explosive use of the term illegals or the i-word for polite society.

The entire immigration situation in the United States has been ridiculous for quite some time now. I am Mexican. I am a first generation American. My father was born in Mexico. Just because my father is of brown colored skin does not give anyone the right to assume that he is in the country illegally or to call him derogatory names such as illegal, wet back, Spic, Bean eater, illegal aliens (WTF, we’re not from outer space) and all the other wonderful names that people come up with for Latinos nor does it give people the right to comment so heinously on a newborn baby. I don’t give a flying fuck where you fall on immigration legislation. People are not inanimate objects, they have thoughts and feelings and they can hear your words and be hurt by your actions, even when you think they don’t understand. Believe me, they do understand. English is taught in the schools and not as an elective, as a requirement.

Here’s what happened. A photo of new mom Lucero Arias, 19, and baby Tommy, was published along with the article, which did not reference Ms. Arias’ immigration status, or national origin. The piece, however, did mention that Tommy’s grandfather called from Mexico City. How asinine is this? My children’s grandfather calls from Mexico on certain occasions at certain times of the year because he’s retired and that’s where he goes when it’s cold. Besides, would there have been such an issue if baby Tommy’s grandfather had called from Spain? Italy?Australia? Germany? Japan? Africa? I’ve got news for you, we were all immigrants (unless you are a native American) at one time in our history. Some of us just got here sooner than the others. But make no mistake, we are all descendants of immigrants; illegal or otherwise. We are not all “illegals” and no one deserves to be called by that name.

“illegals” is derogatory and hurtful

That was enough for the comments section to fill up with anti-Latino, anti-immigrant rants, causing the Observer to shut down commenting for the article. The paper also added this note: “Comments have been disabled because of repeated violations of site policies. Please refrain from profanity, obscenity, spam, name-calling or attacking others for their views.”

They had to disable comments because of all the venom that was being spewed about a baby who happened to have a Grandfather who called from Mexico, really? Do people just wait for any excuse to hate other people? It’s like a license to treat people like inanimate objects because they are Latino. Not every Latino is Mexican, and not every Latino is here undocumented, and not every Latino looks Latino so you should probably watch what ignorant comments will be coming out of your mouth because we come in all different shades; including white.

According to Observer readers and Drop the I-Word supporters, the attacks included the derogatory i-word and “anchor baby” slur. Jess George, the Executive Director of The Latin American Coalition, wrote the Observer asking them to Drop the I-Word. They didn’t drop it, but they published the letter, which also sparked hateful reader comments, including these: Way to be an asshole Observer!

” … When kids see lawbreakers get away with their crimes they think they can as well and kids know what illegals are. There IS a difference between Human Rights and US Citizens Rights … “
“Thats right. When an illegal takes a job, he displaces a citizen. When the citizen collects unemployment and goes on food stamps, we pay. This is just one hidden cost of employing illegals.”

“… The way to stop “stereotyping” is to have no illegals here, only legal Latinos. Where could any U.S. citizen sneak over a foreign border and expect a free ride?”

The incident is worrisome, as Charlotte, the city with the largest Latino population in the state, and host for this year’s Democratic National Convention, has also seen a rise in anti-immigrant, ant-Latino bullying. In a span of two weeks at the end of 2011, at least seven cases of anti-Latino bullying in Charlotte public schools were reported to the Latin American Coalition.

The term “illegal immigrant,” which many journalists are having a hard time giving up, is not too far of a stretch from describing people simply as “illegals,” which the Associated Press, New York Times, and the Observer itself have deemed pejorative. Both terms are dehumanizing and further the concept that a person’s being can be illicit. “Illegal immigrant” is not even legal terminology; the Board of Immigration Appeals does not use it, and neither does the Supreme Court. It’s not constitutional or precise language not only because the term convicts people, denying due process. But also because people are never found by courts to be “illegal.”

Can we please stop using this insulting term? How about Latinos? Mexican Americans? Mexicans? You wouldn’t use the n-word, don’t use the i-word. Humans should not be reduced to being called “illegals” it implies that the person is breaking the law by their very existence. It’s derogatory, it’s mean and it’s not going to be tolerated any longer. Throat Punch to anyone who thinks this term is ok. Throat Punch to anyone who uses it. Throat Punch to anyone who can hate a child for the color of it’s skin. Throat punch to the human who can not recognize the humanity in the eyes of another human, even if those eyes are dark brown and happen to belong to a Mexican.

Hope you will link up your Throat Punch Thursday posts with me. I wanted to extend a personal invite to all of you to link up any posts in which you air a grievance, call out any asshatery,or just dole out a well deserved throat punch to one of societies shortcomings or political douche canoes. If not this week, I do it EVERY single Thursday and would love for any or all of you to join in! All you have to do is grab the Throat Punch Thursday button ( listed under the “about” tab at the top of the page), put it in your blog post and link up. If you’d like to stay in the Throat Punch know, I’d love it if you would email or RSS subscribe ( as GFC will stop working soon). People are no more illegals than they are felloniouses, unconstitutionals, or forbiddens ( do you see how stupid the misuse of these words truly are?)

Just say no to the term Illegals

2012/01/26 17 comments

Newer Posts

Older Posts