There was a moment in Robin DiAngelo’s book, White Fragility that gave me chills, that somehow put into words something I had been trying to articulate for years, but didn’t quite have the words to frame. Isn’t that the work of the best writing—the ability for a writer to put together the right words, in the right order, and speak truth to what had previously been silent?
DiAngelo writes: “Multiracial people, because they challenge racial constructs and boundaries, face unique challenges in a society in which racial categories have profound meaning. The dominant society will assign them the racial identity they most physically assemble, but their own internal racial identity may not align with the assigned identity.” She goes on to write: “the dynamics of what is termed ‘passing’—being perceived as white—will also shape a multiracial person’s identity, as passing will grant him or her society’s rewards of whiteness. However, people of mixed racial heritage who pass as white may also experience resentment and isolation from people of color who cannot pass.
I am white. I am also Puerto Rican (on my father’s side) and Cuban (my mother’s side). I am Latina. I am all of these things and none of these things because I have never been completely white among the company of white people and never completely Latina among my Latinx friends. I find myself feeling the creeping pall of inauthenticity, a creeping sense of insecurity even as I write these words. What would it mean to be able to label myself accurately or comfortably?
What am I?
My mother is Cuban. She moved to New York with her mother, my grandmother, when Fidel Castro rose to power. My father is Puerto Rican and English and Portuguese and Spanish. His mother was born in Puerto Rico, and he spent several years of his life growing up in San Juan, playing hide and seek in El Morro fort. When my father moved to Miami from Puerto Rico he was forced to repeat a grade in school because there were no resources for English language learners. As a result, when I was a child, Spanish was banned in my household, even though my grandmother spoke little English. My father didn’t want me to be held back in school (an irony because by the time I went to school in Miami, my entire 3rd grade class was made up of English Language Learners).
Perhaps Hispanic or Latino is too broad a category, as the recent election has only highlighted. Cuban-Americans decidedly voted for Donald Trump, while Puerto Rican Americans voted overwhelmingly for Joe Biden. (I voted for Biden.) Simply put, Cubans vote Republican because they fear the specter of communism. There is a real belief among many Cuban-Americans that Democrats might usher in the next communist revolution.
One of the things that DiAngelo notes is white people’s racial insulation. According to DiAngelo, white people can live largely oblivious to race and to its implications. My race has always been a question, something I’ve either had to defend, or something that has been noted by others, either by its absence or by its presence.
This was another moment in White Fragility that truly struck home for me, something I had not realized before reading the book. “…like most white people raised in the U.S., I was not taught to see myself in racial terms and certainly not to draw attention to my race or to behave as if it mattered in any way.”
I can’t imagine what it would mean to go through my life without the question of “race,” but I know what it feels like to pass for white, to be invisible and to enjoy those privileges of invisibility, and also what it feels to be racially marked, to be the “white girl” in a Latinx neighborhood and school, and also what it means to be the Latina at an all-white family gathering in the deep south. It didn’t occur to me that some people in America never had to envision themselves racially, but I recall being shocked to find that the neighborhoods where my college boyfriend’s parents lived were largely racially homogenous (white) and coming from my background where I’ve always lived in racially diverse neighborhoods in Miami, it didn’t occur to me that people would live like that.
DiAngelo notes that European Americans have been afforded the ability to assimilate in a way that people of color have not been able to assimilate. I look white; I look European, and therefore in many situations I have been granted this privilege of assimilation. My Latinx friends and classmates who commented on my whiteness were accurately commenting upon this reality. For moments in my life, among strangers, I have been able to “pass.”
At the same time, my upbringing, my cultural heritage, my accent, and other aspects of my background have made it difficult for me to “pass,” to assimilate as white. For example, among my ex-husband’s white family, I was never considered white. My accent has changed over the years, but in college my “Miami accent” marked me as Latina among the deep southerners I encountered.
DiAngelo writes: “If we ‘look white’ we are treated as white in society at large.” But what if we look white but don’t sound white?
As America becomes more diverse, as more people identify as multiracial, we need to add more complexity to our dialogue. In America, we love simplicity and binaries. But what if things are not so simple? Race in America is complex.
I live in Hawai’i, and the island had only recently re-opened to tourism in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. One morning, not so long ago, I decided to paddle out to surf in Waikiki, a place I rarely surf these days because it is often too crowded and I try to avoid crowds to avoid getting sick. In the line-up I overheard some men talking about how “selfish” it would be to travel at a time like this. How “mainlanders” (in other words, tourists, in other words, white people) travel to the island trying to get away from whatever situation they’re dealing with out there. They could have the disease, get it on the plane. Not everyone was taking the pre-arrival COVID tests, after all. And the tests could produce false negatives. I suddenly got the creeping sense that the conversation was somehow passively-aggressively directed to me. One of the men looked my way, and sheepishly asked: “I was wondering if you’d mind my asking where you flew in from?” I calmly explained that I lived down the street, that I hadn’t seen my family on the mainland for almost two years (because they sure as hell had no intention on getting on a plane at a time like this), and that no, I hadn’t been on a plane recently. My Miami-accent came out. The man asked me if I was Latina. Once again, as I have done all my life, I explained my background.
I wasn’t angry at the men in the water. I understood. I myself have crossed the street to avoid getting close to tourists. Even in the surfing lineup, people have formed pods. In Hawai’i, during the pandemic, the aloha spirit carries forth in everything we do, which includes wearing masks, obeying local orders (which, for the most part are based on science, not wishful thinking), and rigorous self-quarantine. In Hawai’i, we understand that not every state has implemented the same protections against COVID-19. Surfing has been permitted throughout the pandemic, but social distancing is observed in the water. Strangers in any context pose a real risk of contagion, especially on an island where communities are tight-knit and medical resources scarce. The men asked me the question they asked because they were indeed concerned for their health. A tourist in the lineup might mean that they need to get tested for the virus to protect themselves and their families.
But never had I felt so white. Never had I felt that it might do white people some good to spend some time in Hawai’i, where whiteness is racially marked like it is nowhere else in the United States.
A final thought: a very good article on mixed racial identities and Hawai’i was published in the New York Times. The article discusses the complexities of racial identity on the islands. The article is titled “Want to Be Less Racist? Move to Hawai’i.” The writer, Moises Velasquez-Manoff explains, “in Hawaii, being mixed was so common as to be unremarkable.” (The author notes that Hawai’i has the highest percentage of mixed-race people than any other place in the country, and notes that Barack Obama, a man of mixed-race, was born in Hawai’i.) White children, when surveyed in Hawai’i, tended to not have essentialist views about race. They were not “race-blind” but were less likely to think that race defined a person’s essential traits. They were more nuanced when asked to identify people on the basis of race.
In fact, people who visit Hawai’i can also be positively influenced, changing their perceptions of race. Mainlanders who studied at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa “lost the essentialist ideas that characterized their thinking about race when they’d just arrived.” Why did the white mainland students change their ideas about race? Velasquez-Manoff notes that “white mainland students often find themselves in the minority for the first time in their lives. And that’s not always easy.” The Times notes that white students drop out of the University of Hawai’i at Manoa at the same rate as students of color drop out from white universities on the mainland. For the first time in their lives, white people in Hawai’i no longer can enjoy the racial invisibility and blindness that DiAngelo describes in White Fragility.
Hawai’i is hardly a racial utopia. I have seen firsthand the overt racism expressed against people of Micronesian ancestry. And Black people remain a minority. The specter of colonialism breathes through the racial and socioeconomic disparities one observes on the island.
People of mixed race still face challenges in modern America. Velasquez-Manoff writes: “Researchers have documented how the unique challenges encountered by mixed people can, depending on social context, negatively affect their mental health.” And yet, being of mixed race has its benefits. Mixed race people score higher in tests of creativity.
I thank my background for my ability to more easily adjust to life in Hawai’i, something I do think would likely be more challenging for those who are white (simply because it’s hard to be a minority). I do know that my diverse background has given me many gifts, gifts I’m still learning to appreciate.
About the Writer
Janice Greenwood is a writer, surfer, and poet. She holds an M.F.A. in poetry and creative writing from Columbia University.