Racism in Boxes

When racism is discussed in the United States, we almost always think of the terrible cases of a few white policemen bombarding young blacks with no other motive than the color of their skin. The permanent daily racism in a society that tries not to discriminate but continues being deeply racist does not appear on the front page of the newspapers.

With the idea of giving equal opportunities to all ethnic minorities, in the U.S., the public is asked their racial origin with a persistence that does not exist in other countries. In almost all official forms, there is a box to indicate one’s race, something so commonplace that it could be one’s name or Social Security number. I do not know what would be the correct response for a person from Pakistan or for a Scandinavian Lapland. I barely understand the case of “Hispanics,” but despite being officially included in that category, it is pretty difficult for me to identify myself with such an imprecise term.

As American natives with Spanish origin (numerous in Texas, New Mexico, California and in general in every state that belonged to Spain or Mexico at some point), we are Hispanics, as are those of us born in Central and South America. Belize and some Caribbean islands are not included. Dominicans are Hispanic prototypes, especially in New York, but their Haitian neighbors do not belong to the same group. Brazilians are definitely not Hispanic. Some call them Latino, but this term does not appear among the boxes to indicate race. The Hispanic population is a growing minority, and thus the importance of our vote has to be taken into consideration. We are “people of color,” and there are studies by the Census Bureau in which it is asked why many Hispanics self-classify themselves as “white.” The Bureau concludes that “all new immigrant groups, just as what happened with Jews and Italians, try to become white.”* Italians apparently already achieved this much desired status. An artist like Sofia Loren is European, while Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas are Hispanic. From there, the inevitable question: Are Spaniards Hispanic and therefore people of color? Why would Spaniards be “people of color,” while Italians and Greeks are not? When Italians had still not gained the privilege of being considered white, were Irishmen (equally discriminated) “people of color”?

Another absurdity is the classification “Caucasian” to describe “white” people. It seems that that definition was common in Germany and the United States during the 19th century. However, last year, in 2013, the Supreme Court used it in a sentence to describe a white person. Said word is so associated with white people by the general public that a [word] discussion resulted when a journalist in Boston pointed out that the two terrorists at the Boston Marathon were true “Caucasians,” or rather, born in the mountains of Caucasus, between Europe and Asia.

These absurd divisions are not only the product of a bureaucratic mind of some census employee. A couple of years ago, when Harvard professor Joseph Nye wrote his famous article about the “Dialogue among Civilizations,” which had such success that later he transformed it into a book, he assured that “Latin America does not belong to Western civilization.”* In his cultural simplicity, he ignored, for example, the importance that Latin America has had in one of the bases of Western civilization, the state of the church. He also ignored the contributions of South American writers to the richness of Spanish and Portuguese. Perhaps it’s possible to understand that Professor Nye considers García Márquez too exotic to include within the precious Western civilization. However, would he also exclude the writings of Juana Inés de la Cruz on religious matters or Borges from 20th century Western literature?

The worst part of this obsession with dividing people by racial origin is that more racism has been a consequence. Quotas exist for minorities in universities, bureaucracy and above all in the distribution of finances. For that reason, the discriminated of yesterday try to prevent more recent immigrants, or the poor in Texas or New Mexico, from also signing up for the giant social security programs. The discriminated of yesterday fight with those discriminated today for the least attractive jobs. Racism between African-Americans and Hispanics in the United States is a lamentable fact and impossible to deny. Solidarity among minorities does not exist. However, at least black Americans have successfully come together on certain causes and a vision like that of Martin Luther King, Jr. Not even the hundreds of Central American children at the border have awakened a Hispanic consciousness. We form a minority so heterogeneous that, at least at the moment, we have not achieved a unified voice, let alone clearly identifiable leaders.

*Editor’s Note: This quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.