‘I Am Latino, I Am Also White’: Why A Latino Of Mixed Ancestry Struggles Each Time He Fills Out A Form

Posted in Articles, Autobiography, Census/Demographics, Identity Development/Psychology, Latino Studies, United States on 2023-03-19 03:08Z by Steven

‘I Am Latino, I Am Also White’: Why A Latino Of Mixed Ancestry Struggles Each Time He Fills Out A Form

LAist
2020-12-06

Thomas Lopez

At a Rose Parade float display, Thomas Lopez compares profiles with our first president. (Courtesy of Thomas Lopez)

“Mr. Lopez, we need you to turn in the form declaring your son’s race,” said the administrator from my son’s school.

In second grade, we transferred him to LAUSD from his parochial school and filed the necessary stack of paperwork, save one form. That was the statement of racial identity.

It wasn’t intentional, just an honest mistake. But it wasn’t one the school would easily overlook. They called my wife and me individually to obtain the form.

Completing this form was not easy. My son is multiracial — Black, white and Native American. I too am multiracial white and Latino. My wife and I are Mexican American…

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‘Spy In The House Of Race’: A Daughter Of Black, Chinese, And Jewish Parents On Belonging Everywhere And Nowhere

Posted in Articles, Asian Diaspora, Autobiography, Media Archive, United States on 2021-08-01 22:28Z by Steven

‘Spy In The House Of Race’: A Daughter Of Black, Chinese, And Jewish Parents On Belonging Everywhere And Nowhere

LAist
Southern California Public Radio
Pasadena, California
2021-05-14

Lili Nadja Barsha


Lili Barsha, left, as a child with her parents, Tony and Yen, and younger brother Jake.
(Courtesy of Lili Barsha)

I’m an American of African, Asian, European, and Native descent.

I’ve lived all over the world and have been taken for many things. I describe myself as multi-racial, Mixed in America, blended. I tend to reject the hyphen — I see it as a little plank that walks us off our citizen ship. By us, I mean we people of color other than white. I have too many planks to walk as a Black, white, red, yellow — therefore, tan — American.

I’m nobody’s All-American, a spy in the house of race.

Ethnicity shapes what I eat, what music I listen to, what I read, and who I keep as company. It defines culture, family, history, and aesthetics.

I am the bloom of my ancestors. A vessel filled with genetic memory. That, and memories of otherness. Here are some of them…

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