I grew up white. It wasn’t something that came up much, but I generally understood that was the term that could apply to me and most people I knew.

But in looking back it seems that I lived in an area where “white” included Latino and part-Native people (full blood, or those who strongly affiliated with their tribe, were “Indians”) and was more a catch-all for those who were not Wintu (or perhaps Hat Creek) or the few Blacks and Asians in the area than it was some description based on shared characteristics.

Once I left my hometown, I discovered that your ethnic identity is very important to other people. And I distinctly remember feeling out of place because I didn’t have one. Everyone was Italian-American or Polish-American or Mexican-American or African-American; I had no idea. And even after a class on immigration and emigration set me on a the path of genealogy, I didn’t have a good answer. I still don’t.

When my mother’s parents first came to California as migrant farm workers in the 30′s, any Cherokee support system was left behind in Arkansas. And when a family breakup resulted in my grandmother being the bread winner, there was no community or even much family of “people like us” to rely on. So my mother experienced the joys of being “exotic” as a teenager in the 50′s in an area where having olive skin and handsome features were not the norm.

I suspect that experience played some part in where my parents decided to settle, and when coupled with my mother being fiercely private, I was raised without any connection to a Native community or identity. (I don’t even know what my maternal grandfather’s ethnicity would be considered.) In my small town, I was just “white” like everyone else.

But since leaving my small town I learned that whatever it is that my ethnic identity should be, it could be “white” but it certainly doesn’t seem to be “like everyone else”.

As Ben indignantly charges, it is true that I’ve not been the victim of racial discrimination. But, then again, as I’ve spent my adult years living in distinctly ethnic communities (Nihonmachi, Pico/Fairfax, Echo Park, Historic Filipinotown) I don’t know that its some evidence that I “look white.”

When I fill out forms, I look at the descriptions and, well I’m not really exactly any of those other things, so I tick “white” or “Caucasian”. For the purposes of demographic statistics, it’s as good as any answer. And in reality it should be enough, and probably is the term most easily applied.

But a culture obsessed with identities, especially ethnic identities, doesn’t know where to place me. How can you assume a person has certain attitudes if you don’t know what “people like them” group to assign. And how can you know in advance that a person is a privileged racist who seeks to subjugate the brown people if you don’t know where he stands on the White-Brown scale?

Mostly I’m kidding. That does come up from time to time, but little of the questioning is for those reasons. Mostly, people are more comfortable if they know what box to put you in and I guess it isn’t as obvious to the people that i meet as it is to Ben. So at least a few times a month – most recently yesterday – I’ll get asked “so what are you?”

Or sometimes I’ll have people just assume that I’m part of their community. Occasionally someone will speak to me in French or assume that I’ll be part of a Jewish event. But most of the time I get asked, with the expectation that the answer will be either Mediterranean or Eastern European.

I used to say “oh, just a generic white guy” but that never worked. And sometimes I can get away with saying, “I’m a mutt”, but that doesn’t seem to satisfy those who have a strong connection to their culture. So I often have to go through the laundry list of geographic identifiers until they hear something that gives them the ability to find an identity for me. “Oh, well that explains why you are…”

For me, it doesn’t “explain why I am” much of anything. I don’t know that being “a white guy” has led to any attitudes of Privilege or that being not exactly quite “a white guy” has led to any identity with the Oppressed Peoples. I think it has perhaps allowed me to be accepted more broadly by diverse communities than if I had a strong association based on ethnicities, but it’s hard to tell.

One thing that I do know, however, is that simplistic notions about what race says about me are amusingly wrong. And so I believe (and hope) that it has allowed me to see people as people and to recognize that while race can impact experience which impacts perspective, when it comes down to it everyone is unique and race-based prejudices can leave you missing out on a whole lot of people who just aren’t the cartoon stereotypes you expect them to be.

I think you’re the one that needs to examine why it’s a problem for you, since all actual facts and studies will show that the US’s current economic, crime, and population problems are related not to immigrants, but to the conservative policies of the last 100+ years that you try to trumpet when drumming up support for these conservatives with a tiny gay-white-male-rights slant.

And the point of “looking” white or not, is how society will treat you. People who look white don’t get stopped by the anti immigration bigot crowd on the street by police, the airport by security, or face systematic economic discrimination. People who look heavily hispanic or muslim and especially black, do.

Of course my Native American heritage proves nothing, other than that race and ethnicity really say very little about a person.

So instead judging by a person’s photos (what, exactly, do you think American Indians look like?) or insisting that one either behaves as race dictates or is a striped Uncle Tom, try thinking about issues. Go way out on a limb and imagine that people don’t see the world through the race prism you use and dare to think that other factors may come into play. You will find it astonishing. You might even discover that people aren’t always stereotypes or predictable cartoon images.

And as for reading my commentaries making you vomit, well there’s an easy fix. Don’t read them.

Unless, of course, you have a vomit fetish. In that case, go ahead and read them just not anywhere near me.

Thank you pax58; this is an issue the people shouting themselves hoarse about immigration tend to ignore. El Salvador is a particularly sickening example and it is cruel irony that the social problems left over from the civil war have spilled over into the US in the form of abhorrent gangs like MS-13. And we thought the Crips and Bloods were the worst it could get.

Of course, the local elite (minority) of many Latin American countries were complicit in a lot of this, not to the benefit of the vast majority of the population; but it doesn’t change the fundamental dynamics.

The economic problems of this country lie at the feet of conservatives entrenching wealth in the hands of the few, removing economic mobility, and eliminating social systems. To try to instead pin it on *this* generations poor hard working immigrants is indeed racist, regardless of the fact you think you have a trump card with some indian blood. There are Uncle Toms of all stripes.

I like box turtle bulletin for it’s non-political gay news, but gain a bit of vomit in my throat every time I have to read one of your thinly veiled conservative stump posts in the guise of covering relavent gay news.

And I have a prediction. The first time you hear some conservative fire and brimstone preacher condemning the promiscuous homosexual and demanding that he should find one man and marry him like God intended, remember you heard it first here.

As we say here frequently while reviewing fraudulent claims on wacky studies: correlation does not mean causation.

That opponents of illegal immigration appear to be targeting Latinos is not necessarily evidence of anti-Latino sentiment. Rather it may be because about 65% are from Mexico with another 10 – 15% from other Hispanic countries.

Your assumption is that racism is the motivation. That anti-Latino animus existed prior to anti-illegal immigrant sentiment and is what caused it.

I suspect the opposite occurred. I think social consequences of unfettered immigration led to resentment of illegal immigrants. And much if not all of the anti-Latino sentiment came as a result of this being the demographic which is largely responsible for illegal entry.

I very much suspect that if Russia, for example, were the source of illegal immigration the situation would be the same. In fact I’ve heard complaints about Russian legal (I assume) immigrants.

Interestingly I have never heard bitching about immigrants from Africa. It may be that African immigrants seem to have a desire to be a productive part of the nation, participate in the culture, speak English in public, and don’t self-segregate – or so observation and stereotype suggest. Many others (including Latinos and Russians) do as well and seem not to face personal dislike.

So while it might be convenient, the ‘white American hating on brown people’ scenario you have presented is not an explanation that fits all the facts.

Oh, and thanks for creating rules which give me the right to speak. Do you have that right under your rules?

Is the above-quoted really acceptable to anyone? I certainly wouldn’t vote for / support anyone who thus abused their position of authority. & I would hope a majority would agree regardless of their geographic location.