people of color who never felt they were black
The complexities of Latino and Afro-Latino labeling, at washingtonpost.com.Exactly who these immigrants are is almost impossible to divine from the 2000 Census. Latinos of African, mestizo and European descent -- or any mixture of the three -- found it hard to answer the question "What is your racial origin?"
Some of the nation's 35 million Latinos scribbled in the margins that they were Aztec or Mayan. A fraction said they were Indian. Nearly forty-eight percent described themselves as white, and only 2 percent as black. Fully 42 percent said they were "some other race."
Comments
My two grandchildren are bi-racial, raised in a white household...they live with me. The five year old learned at an early age (in day care) that he was not white, that he was a nigger, and he asked me what that word meant. God, how I dreaded the day he would ask!
I told him that nigger was a stupid person's word and that he was a mix of many proud races
and countries...Irish,
English, German and Haitian. That his heritage (on my side) goes back to 1646, that his relatives served in the Revolutionary War, that his great-great-grandfather served four years in the Civil War, that his maternal grand father worked his up from 8th grade to full bird Colonel and served 37 years in the Army, that his grandma is a DAR...I couldn't tell him anything about his Haitian heritage, where he got the color brown...but I wish I could.
I don't know what's in store for us over the years. He's a sharp, intelligent little guy,let's hope he (and I) can override all the crap that's sure to come.
In our state of Florida when the mother is white and gives birth, the birth certificate lists the baby as white regardless of what color the father is...bi-racial would be more appropriate.
Thanks for your time, Mary
Posted by: M Kleiss | January 1, 2003 12:00 PM