to accent or not to accent

To accent or not to accent- that is the question.

“Oh, I did not realize you were a person of color. I will change that immediately.” She said to me. I was baffled that a person in 2019 in Northern California would be surprised by my identity. Do I have to look brown for you to guess that my last name is in Spanish? No me vio el nopal en la frente. I guess that is the challenge of being a white-passing Mexican-American.

----This may make people uncomfortable and I intend that. Read at your own risk.----

See I knew the day I decided to request the accent in my last name in my professional circles I would deal with unconscious bias, judgement and covert racism more directly. But Lopez is supposed to be spelled López, because it is Spanish. (No offense to the people who spell it incorrectly.) If I had a dollar for each time a person asked me “where are you from?” or “what is your heritage?” I would be rich. Gosh, I should encourage that to pay off my student loans. . . . .

The truth is this decision uplifted a deeper truth about people like me- I carry white privilege and it is exhausting. This means I can pass for a white person very easily and often be ostracized by my own people. This has been the story of my life. That is the heritage of colorism- lighter skinned folk do not bear the dehumanization that darker skinned folk do, and in exchange, receive the hatred projected by the internalization of racism by their own people.

Just ask Drake.

The evil of this is the feeling of lack- “not _______ enough.” The feeling of unworthiness and un-belonging can be traumatic. I do not pretend to speak for all white passing people of color, but I want to shed light to this blessing and curse.

YES. I said blessing. We don't choose the color of our skin but we can choose how to see it.

Woke white folk know that admitting their white privilege does not mean they admit that they are racist. The good person/bad person binary that underpins racism is astonishing. Look up Dr. Robin DiAngelo's work. (White fragility is a convo for another day.) Awareness is step one. Acknowledgement is step two. The decision on what the fork to do about it follows. As a white-passing person, I can use this privilege to benefit everyone, especially my own people. Most especially, in the small, concrete ways. (Obviously I want to dismantle racism as a whole because I am a dreamer, but alas, one day at a time.)

Take microaggressions, for example. Some people are immune to them, others think POC are too sensitive. Wherever you fall in the spectrum, when you experience them constantly, like dark skinned POC do, you do want to go ballistic.(Watch the video.) Microaggressions happen constantly and often accepted as the norm. As soft harassment, they are hard to prove and easy to get away with. These are the little, concrete ways that racism still leaks into the fabric of our communities- like small pores where the infectious disease enters. But it’s 2019- let’s leave our racism behind, yeah?

St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus and author of the Spiritual Exercises, encourages people to always be “more ready to put a good interpretation on another’s statement than to condemn it as false” (Spiritual Exercises 22). Assuming the best intentions in people helps us to see the humanity in them, the same humanity we possess, thus reminding us that we are more alike than different. Does that remind you of anyone?

Mother Teresa. Gandi. Dr. King. Jesus?

Please don’t be that white passing POC who denies this. For all the times we have been told we are whitewashed or not _______ enough, remember there are twice as many people being told harsher comments. Some people speak without thinking, and although we assume their good intentions, we also need to use our voice. Colourism hurts people, in deep and superficial ways. It prevents them from getting their dream job, limits who they date, and even affects their mental health. As white-passing people, we can be that voice to enlighten others about the evils of racism that continue to pervade our society. Sometimes I feel like this in-between is a gift- to bridge communities together and educate others with my own truth.

So be yourself. Use your voice. And when in doubt, accent it.

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Ms. López’ top five comebacks for microaggressions:

1. (When people touch your hair without permission.) I’m sorry, did your parents not teach you about boundaries. That must be hard. Please don’t touch me.
2. (When people ask you, “no, where are you really from?”) Heaven. I am a miracle, child.
3. (When people ask you, “do you speak Spanish?”)  Do you?
4. (When people make a comment like, “You must be so smart to go to that school!”) You must be ignorant to think I am the only Latina who went to college. Latinx people are less likely to be in debt because of college and more likely to attend college, among the minority groups. [Thank you, pew research.]
5. (When people say, “but you look white.”)   . . . . Yeah, I know I am beautiful. Brown and black are beautiful too. . . . .

And more seriously. . . . There are many white-passing people of color- to learn more about this you can look to the colonial history of our countries of origin. Wikipedia is a good start.