I’m Mexican but was adopted by an all-white
family in a white community. I don’t speak any Spanish and nobody would know I
was Mexican unless they looked carefully. When I married I never talked about
my heritage with my in-laws, so they may have assumed I was just a very tan
white person.
One day driving
home with my sister-in-laws, we saw a black woman being pulled over.
Immediately the race jokes began. My husband looked his sister in the eye and
asked, “Are you a racist? Why would you say that?” She responded that she was
and hated all people of color. It was her right to be racist.
I remember my husband yelling at her. I
remember feeling my body shake as I realized the family I married into hated
me. I remember saying that if she ever spoke like that in the future I wouldn’t
give her the opportunity again. But most of all I remember feeling sick. My
whole life people assumed I was white but I wasn’t. I’d been living a
lie. And now my in-laws knew I wasn’t white. I knew they wouldn’t like me
now. It’s troubling, to say the least. Now at family gatherings I can’t help
but feel insecure. I know nobody will forget that day in the car—the day they
realized I wasn’t one of them.
But today ... I’m proud. I’m proud to be
Mexican. Sometimes I’m thankful for that night. I’m thankful because it allowed
me to come out and be proud of who I am regardless of what some might think.
I’m
excited to see how your series evolves about your readers’ experiences with
racism. Sadly it’s so common but few people talk about their personal
experiences. Often it’s because they’re embarrassed.
THE
ANALYSIS
The first
analysed text in this report is a public post (reproduced with permission),
which was found in an American website called The Atlantic. It
was posted on July 13th, 2015 by the editors from the Atlantic Monthly Group. It is a group that
covers news and analysis on political business, culture, technology, national,
international and life of the official site of this magazine. It is publicity
accessible for everyone interested in racism.
Talking
about her identity, the woman expresses herself as an inferior race and even
different from the others. It can be seen in words such as “My whole life
people assumed I was white but I wasn’t. I’d been living a lie.” the girl is
showing that meanwhile nobody knew her real identity, she was accepted by them.
But, when they realised that she was Mexican, she felt ashamed of living with
white people because they started to treat her differently only because of the
fact that she was from another culture.
However,
she uses the word “proud” to talk about her nationality. This adjective is a
“category bound predicate” which refers to qualities and values of the woman.
In the end, it can be seen a clear change of her identity because she becomes a
more determined person. She can freely talk about who she is without being
worried about what others might think. This idea is reflected in words like
“allowed” or “come out” which can be categorized as a “categories bound
activities” that let the reader know about the woman’s feeling after the racist
situation.
Having
used this type of analysis, it has been relevant to know better the woman’s
identity through the language. At the beginning of the text, the woman
considers herself accepted by people around her because nobody notices that she
is Mexican. As long as she tells the story, her identity changes in the sense
that she becomes more powerful and secure to talk about her origins.
