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Well, I am Puerto Rican. 100%. Most people are surprised when I tell them. I have dark brown hair, brown eyes but am very, very fair. Even more so than my husband who is American (white). People are often confused and think that I am Italian. I am a descendant of Spanish, Italian and French. Puerto Ricans as well as most Hispanics from the Caribbean and South America can vary in looks from the bluest eyes and fair skin to the blackest of black. Never assume anything.
Verdad, verdad. I have met many PRs on the Island and here in the USA who are very European, even Germanic-looking. Makes sense, because some Spanish, French, Italians and Irish are blonde/blue, and PR includes people of all of these origins. Even I sometimes get fooled. I worked with a young woman for 8 months before I realized she was PR. She had a gringo name like me, fair skin, blonde hair, green eyes, attractive (that should have been a dead giveaway. ) She didn't know I was Cuban, and I didn't know she was Puerto Rican. That was one funny conversation.
Verdad, verdad. I have met many PRs on the Island and here in the USA who are very European, even Germanic-looking. Makes sense, because some Spanish, French, Italians and Irish are blonde/blue, and PR includes people of all of these origins. Even I sometimes get fooled. I worked with a young woman for 8 months before I realized she was PR. She had a gringo name like me, fair skin, blonde hair, green eyes, attractive (that should have been a dead giveaway. ) She didn't know I was Cuban, and I didn't know she was Puerto Rican. That was one funny conversation.
Cuban and Puerto Rican... deadly combination. Verdad, verdad??
I have written about this ad nauseum on this forum and in other venues. Basically, the fact that three of four Puerto Ricans identify themselves as white only underlines the impact of white supremacist notions on Puerto Ricans and Latinos in general.
Most, but not all Puerto Ricans have some European ancestry; most, but not all Puerto Ricans, are nonwhite.
I'm Cuban. I know that blackness is devalued there just as in PR and the Dom. Rep.
I see. I went to elementary and high school with a few Cubans. I do not know too many Dominicans.
I've noticed that some Cubans have a very particular gesture to indicate black skin. They'll use their right index and middle fingers and tap their left forearm to indicate "black" color. It has always intrigued me. Is that a derogatory gesture?
"I remember, too, when Celia Cruz died, a newscaster, thinking she was being smart, said Celia Cruz wasn’t black, she was Cuban. She was pretty even though she’s black. As if there is something wrong with being black, like the two things can’t exist simultaneously and be a majestic thing. There is ignorance and stupidity in Puerto Rico and Latin America when it comes to blackness."
cont.
"And the thing is that many white Puerto Ricans and Latinos don’t get it. They are immune to the subtle ways in which we are demeaned, disrespected. They have white privilege. And I’ve heard it said that we are on the defensive about race. Those things happen and it’s not because of color, Tego, but because of how you look, how you walk, what you wear, what credit card you have. Then, they spend a couple of days with me, sort of walk in my shoes, and say “Damn negro, you are right.” When I check into hotels and use my American Express they call the credit card company in front of me saying the machine is broken. This happens a lot in U.S. cities but it’s not because there is more racism there, it’s because they don’t know me. When I’m in Latin America, I am known, so it’s different. That is not to say that there is less racism. The reality for blacks in Latin America is severe, in Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Honduras.....Puerto Rican (and Latin American) blacks are confused because we grow up side by side with non-blacks and we are lulled into believing that things are the same. But we are treated differently."
cont.
"Young black Latinos have to learn their story. We also need to start our own media, and forums and universities. We are treated like second class citizens. They tell blacks in Latin America that we are better off than U.S. blacks or Africans and that we have it better here, but it’s a false sense of being. Because here, it’s worse."
cont.
"They have raised us to be ashamed of our blackness. It’s in the language too. Take the word denigrate - denigrar - which is to be less than a negro. In Puerto Rico you get used it and don’t see it everyday. It takes a visitor to point out that all the dark skin sisters and brothers are in the service industry."
cont.
"Black Latinos are not respected in Latin America and we will have to get it by defending our rights, much like African Americans struggled in the U.S."
cont.
"This is not about rejecting whiteness rather; it’s about learning to love our blackness - to love ourselves. We have to say basta ya, it’s enough, and find a way to love our blackness. They have confused us - and taught us to hate each other - to self-hate and create divisions on shades and features.
Remember that during slavery, they took the light blacks to work the home, and left the dark ones to work the fields. There is a lot residue of self-hatred. And each of us has to put a grain in the sand to make it into a movement where we get respect, where we can celebrate our blackness without shame. It will be difficult but not impossible."
I see. I went to elementary and high school with a few Cubans. I do not know too many Dominicans.
I've noticed that some Cubans have a very particular gesture to indicate black skin. They'll use their right index and middle fingers and tap their left forearm to indicate "black" color. It has always intrigued me. Is that a derogatory gesture?
Not when black folk use it. I get asked if I'm black (LOL) and that's what I do.
I'm Native American (with Ashkenazic & Sicilian admixture). But when in casual garb, I'm a 'Rich Mexican'. Dressed for business, I'm 'That Chinese Lady'.
Fine with me. I didn't much like being a poor little Indian girl.
For the last few years, I've been able to dress in the sort of things you see on the runway: really daring, edgy stuff (working out two hours a day pays off...I'm typing on a cardio machine right this minute) someone with a compact frame like mine usually can't wear. And so people assume that not only am I Mexican, but that I'm married to a drug lord (or a Salvadorian dictator...or something juicy and fun like that).
Although, since DH took away my Cayenne and left a Ghost in its place (supposedly it was out to have its speakers downgraded...what a shock...nearly plowed into the new one, thinking that bay of the garage would be empty), a whole myth has arisen in the town that I'm a Chinese fashion something-or-other, with sweatshops in LA and China. My Chinese friends think that's especially funny...rolling on the floor funny... and so I have to wonder if they aren't behind that particular rumor.
Others say they initially assumed I was 'one of those Mountain Jews from South of Russia'(that one could conceivably have a tiny grain of truth to it). Others see the Sicilian in me, and wonder which corner of The Island has people who look like me (over the past two millennia, importing diverse peoples to Sicily has traditionally been the preferred ploy for rulers who sought to rule by polarizing their subjects).
Anyway, any one of those narratives would be more plausible than my real story. And so much more elegant. Heck. We've reinvented ourselves so many times, the kids switch modes effortlessly... It's second nature to them. They went from being Mississippians living in an antique brick and salvaged Cypress 'Creole Compound' (furnished in my preferred neo-Rothschildian melange of Gold Leaf, Marble, Velvet, Satin, bullion fringe, and Brocatelle), to being Oregonians living in a 'Swiss Brutalist Masterpiece' (furnished with extreme minimalism that I've had quite enough of, already). Anyway, we and the kids altered our personae to match this house.
But when I was a poor little Indian girl, living in a shack without running water, at the back of a farm owned by a 'rich' Black family...I was reading old copies of Town & Country and The New Yorker, preparing myself for becoming someone else. How many other people I would become was something one could never have anticipated. And who will we be next year?
We, and the family who fled Mississippi with us (and who bought a place up the 'mountain' just a bit from ours), have our Decorator and his Architect drawing smaller, more formal Cut Limestone houses for us. If the paintings can come out of their Bleached Maple frames, and be returned to the Water-gilded ones, and my Silk Brocatelle and Passementerie can come out of cold storage...will I finally be The Real Gloria? Is there a real Gloria? Who cares! Life's an adventure!
I wonder if people feel deprived, who've had to be just one kind of person, their whole lives.
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100%. Most people are surprised when I tell them. I have dark brown hair, brown eyes but am very, very fair. Even more so than my husband who is American (white). People are often confused and think that I am Italian. I am a descendant of Spanish, Italian and French. Puerto Ricans as well as most Hispanics from the Caribbean and South America can vary in looks from the bluest eyes and fair skin to the blackest of black. Never assume anything. 
) She didn't know I was Cuban, and I didn't know she was Puerto Rican. That was one funny conversation. 
