nerdgerhl:huffingtonpost:John Leguizamo Says High School History Makes Latino Students Feel ‘Invisib

nerdgerhl: huffingtonpost: John Leguizamo Says High School History Makes Latino Students Feel ‘Invisible’ Latino contributions to U.S. history remain largely absent from high school history books, and John Leguizamo is doing something about it. Watch the full interview with John Leguizamo here.  I’d been alive for twenty eight years before I found out that Lynda Carter (given name: Linda Jean Córdova Carter) is Latina. Wonder Woman is Latina. Mexicana. Biracial.  The twist of being explicitly taught very little about our presence in culture is that in addition to lacking representation in white dominated media, misconceptions about what a “real Latino” looks like create a culture in which we sometimes are not even allowed to see our own contributions when they are staring us in the face. (And in the case of white-passing Latin@s, this bundle of misconception and erasure props up white dominance of media.)  I’ve hesitated to bring this up, but that last comment really prompts something I’ve experienced: Racial passing, and the Latino and Hispanic twists on how their own culture often encourages it in self-inflicted manners. It’s a term I didn’t even come across until well into my twenties, and only through the works of Harlem Renaissance writer Nella Larsen. “Passing” is a painful, hard, important read. You should attempt it if possible, even though I’m aware of the criticisms of its relevancy. As well as criticisms as why I’d find it relevant, given that it refers to a race I’m not a part of.Honestly? It at least made me sharply aware of something that’d been obvious, and apparently something I’d been assumed to understand, by my own extended family: Suficiente para passar. You’re white enough to pass, and that’s good. They won’t get you. You’re safe enough. Don’t worry about speaking how we’re speaking, go out and do what you do.It’s done to an insane degree, both passively and actively. My Portuguese-Scottish best friend exists because fresh from the Azore, quite literally diving off the boat so he wouldn’t get screened, went out and found the whitest woman he could just for those exact reasons. His own damn words. And to relatives who lived through the era of the American Bracero Program, of which many Americans didn’t care if you weren’t Mexican but ‘close enough’ to prompt both abuse and abuse-driven opportunity, they’d look at you like an idiot for questioning why you should be glad you’re white enough to pass.That’s all I’ll share on that. I often feel like I don’t ‘deserve’ to speak at length on these issues, but again, my friend I mentioned above almost felt they didn’t ‘deserve’ the extra help from college bridge programs when one of the workers there tried to convince them they hadn’t ‘gone through the same experiences’.“No, what? Forget that.” I told them. “You’ve got your moms last name. That’s it. It’s on the birth certificate, even if its not on your ID. You’re part of that culture, you’re in. You’ve got the last name. Hell, your experiences with this IS part of that experience. You’re in.”They went back. It’s worked wonders, they’re graduate level now and an active bridge program member. But for some reason, It’s harder to tell myself those same things I told her. Working on it. -- source link

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