You are a million percent correct. There is a lot of work to be done and it starts with our communities being self-aware and accepting of these issues. Most of the time, we shrug them off and refuse to acknowledge it.
As deep-seated as this issue is, I find the statistic you cite toward the end of the piece to be encouraging: "The number of Latinos who identified as multiracial increased from 3 million in 2010 to more than 20 million in 2020."
I, too, find it encouraging and I hope that we, as a collective people, start to have these difficult conversations within our community, starting with our families.
Thank you for this article. I'm a New Mexican Anglo. It's apparent that this discrimination exists here between people descended of any combination of Mexican, Spanish, Native American, and/or Anglo peoples. Unfortunately, one population, the "Genízaros," are detribalized Native people descended from the children of Native American slaves & Spanish conquistadors. They identify as Native Americans, but aren't recognized as such by any of them. I think that internal discrimination must be more painful than that experienced from an outside group.
I couldn’t agree more. The pain from internal discrimination is gut-wrenching and feels as if you’ve experienced the ultimately betrayal - but in the end, this internal discrimination is a byproduct of colonization. It is our preconditioning that teaches us this is okay. It is not. :(
Giselle, it must be excruciating. However, as an historian, I have to say that all people everywhere from time immemorial have been exclusionary and xenophobic for innumerable reasons. Discrimination existed in the western hemisphere long before the conquest. For example, the Spaniards could never have conquered the Aztec at Tenichtitlán without the 200,000 (?) warriors from the city-states of Tlaxcala and Cempoala who willingly joined them to defeat the hated Aztecs who dominated them. Of course, class distinctions by race exasperated these tensions as Spaniards colonized the contininents, brought African slaves, and intruduced the casta system. No doubt you know all this, but I write it for anyone else who might be reading.
As a Cuban native, I can attest that this is also an issue in Cuba and by extension, Miami. There's definitely a lot of work to be done in this area.
You are a million percent correct. There is a lot of work to be done and it starts with our communities being self-aware and accepting of these issues. Most of the time, we shrug them off and refuse to acknowledge it.
As deep-seated as this issue is, I find the statistic you cite toward the end of the piece to be encouraging: "The number of Latinos who identified as multiracial increased from 3 million in 2010 to more than 20 million in 2020."
I, too, find it encouraging and I hope that we, as a collective people, start to have these difficult conversations within our community, starting with our families.
Thank you for this article. I'm a New Mexican Anglo. It's apparent that this discrimination exists here between people descended of any combination of Mexican, Spanish, Native American, and/or Anglo peoples. Unfortunately, one population, the "Genízaros," are detribalized Native people descended from the children of Native American slaves & Spanish conquistadors. They identify as Native Americans, but aren't recognized as such by any of them. I think that internal discrimination must be more painful than that experienced from an outside group.
I couldn’t agree more. The pain from internal discrimination is gut-wrenching and feels as if you’ve experienced the ultimately betrayal - but in the end, this internal discrimination is a byproduct of colonization. It is our preconditioning that teaches us this is okay. It is not. :(
Giselle, it must be excruciating. However, as an historian, I have to say that all people everywhere from time immemorial have been exclusionary and xenophobic for innumerable reasons. Discrimination existed in the western hemisphere long before the conquest. For example, the Spaniards could never have conquered the Aztec at Tenichtitlán without the 200,000 (?) warriors from the city-states of Tlaxcala and Cempoala who willingly joined them to defeat the hated Aztecs who dominated them. Of course, class distinctions by race exasperated these tensions as Spaniards colonized the contininents, brought African slaves, and intruduced the casta system. No doubt you know all this, but I write it for anyone else who might be reading.