Examining racial divides created and made worse by man

Race is a funny word. Man-made, just like everything else we’ve created using our own languages. I believe it is an attempt, at best, to distinguish ourselves from a common genome.

When I was very young, a race was something I saw horses or greyhounds compete in. I grew up in the suburbs of Colorado - hardly a prime suitor for diversity in the 1980s. But, nevertheless, I hardly ever felt like the ugly duckling because of the amount of melanin in my skin or the child that everyone looked at funny because I didn’t physically fit in. Looking back, I’m sure plenty of factors played into this relatively comfortable childhood, particularly the idea that I came from an Asian background. Asians have a very different sort of stereotype associated with them, especially those of the Indian subcontinent.

In my teens, people didn’t look at me and think, “She’ll never make it through middle school” or “I wonder if her parents are crack cocaine addicts”. People looked at me and wondered which Ivy League I’d be attending and how many hours a night I spent studying. And in a funny little way, I began to disapprove. Mostly because I was put on a pedestal I wanted neither to justify nor own. And when I didn’t make Ivy League for college (mostly because I didn’t apply to begin with), people wondered if I was the “special” case among Asian Americans.

It was in freshman year of college that the entire schism between racial groups became very apparent to me.  Prior to this, I didn’t know what “racism”, “white supremacy” or “affirmative action” really were. Of course, I’d studied the Civil Rights movement and gave my allegiances to honorable figures like Martin Luther King, Jr., but they didn’t apply to me. I was neither black nor Hispanic. I came from an immigrant family that specialized in skilled labor and whose parents were sworn in as American citizens when I was in the second grade. Parents who had their Masters degrees from American institutions and who lived a relatively comfortable life.

I may have not personally experienced racism growing up, but that isn’t to say I wasn’t exposed to it. Americans are not the only ones with a long history of racism. It’s a global phenomenon. Many Pakistani Muslims, for example, find Indian Hindus to be inferior, “dirty” and “backwards”. “Monkey worshiping filth”, as one particular individual in my family used to put it. Why this hate? Hinduism and Islam clash historically, politically and religiously. Their followers must, as result, categorize themselves as superior to the other faith in order to justify their own beliefs. This is not to say peaceful coexistence does not exist. But there are a fair share of extremists and racists riddled in the both populaces, some of whom also happen to make-up my family.

This sort of racism also isn’t something to discuss with others. It’s a dinner table conversation, behind closed doors. It is understood, but never publicly acknowledged. Growing up, I found it to be a fascinating paradox that I vicariously lived, through my own parents. They’d smile, make small talk with Hindus and non-Muslims – and then behind closed doors, the hate would fill every corner of every room in the house. At the time, I was too young to realize that what they were engaging in was racism. Thankfully, their words weren’t too impressionable, either.

I did have a personal face-off with racism in the latter years of high school. It stemmed from the ignorant and widespread racism following the 9/11 attacks in 2001. These days, it doesn’t matter if you’re Pakistani, Bengali, Indian or even Sri Lankan – to the ignorant racists in this country, you’re a “terrorist”. In 2002, I was stopped at Bush Intercontinental Airport and subjected to SWAT team interrogations, for absolutely no reason except that my name was Maha. A white Delta employee at check-in was kind enough to report me (for national security’s sake, of course). It’s a very belittling and awful feeling, to be subjected to racism. Suddenly, your personality and your achievements are trashed for your name and what your skin color is. And often times, there isn’t a single thing you can do about it.

But I’ve learned, through attaining my own independence from unfortunate aspects of my bicultural identity, that racism is very much psycho-social. Individuals with racist tendencies have failed, for the most part, to establish their own personal identities. It is easier to elevate one’s ethnic, religious or national background to a higher level over another than to endure deep introspection geared towards understanding and strengthening insecurities surrounding personal identity. At the microcosmic level, this could be controlled. If an individual exhibits racist behavior, he or she can be consequently restrained.

At the macrocosmic, state-level, however, it becomes a rather nasty problem.

Engineering Laughs

Dan Nainan is living his dream.

It’s a few minutes before eight on a Sunday evening in Ontario, California and the energetic comedian has just performed for 1000 people at the North American Kerala Hindu Convention. He’s famished and briefly considers the convention’s vegetarian buffet, then heads for the hotel steakhouse instead, pausing en route to shake hands and give out business cards.

“Take two, they’re free!” Nainan shouts to passersby, rolling his r’s Indian-style. “Indians LOVE free stuff!” the comic (who is half Indian) confides with a wink.  “Hey, look me up on Facebook!” he urges a group of Desi teens. “I only have one friend!”

Between gulps of grilled salmon (no butter, he is watching his waistline) he returns messages on his Treo 700p while simultaneously extolling the virtues of his favorite discount travel websites.

Later, Nainan sets up shop in the hallway outside the banquet room.  As the moon rises over the Doubletree Inn, he hawks his latest CD and tries to book more gigs so he can keep doing what he loves to do:  make people laugh.

Nainan has logged more than 125,000 flight miles this year. By year’s end he will have performed more than 150 gigs in nearly 50 cities worldwide. Although it sounds brutal, his frenetic pace has led to some prestigious gigs, including performing with comedians Jerry Seinfeld and Bob Saget and touring with Indian comic Russell Peters. He has appeared on Saturday Night Live and Last Comic Standing and is currently filming alongside Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel in a movie directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

Recently, I caught up with the multiversant performer and he told me the joke about the Indian/Japanese guy who went to sleep an Intel engineer and woke up a comedian.

Only, in Nainan’s case, it’s no joke.

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Q:  You bill yourself as “the only Indian/Japanese comedian.”  How has your ethnic background influenced your career?

A:  It’s funny, when I took my first comedy class, I asked the teacher if she thought that [my ethnicity] would be a disadvantage.  I was seriously concerned about that because there weren’t many mixed race comics out there.  But she told me ‘this is going to be your greatest advantage’ and she turned out to be extremely prophetic and correct. I don’t do only ethnic jokes, but by doing those jokes I am able to gain acceptance.  Both cultures - Indian and Japanese - have been very accepting.

Q:  Growing up, did you identify more as Indian, Japanese or American?

A: I was born in Indiana so I really identified more with being American. The only problem was that the other kids made fun of me a lot because of my race.  Starting with college, [my race] became less of an issue.  Now in my adult life, I welcome it.  It’s very flattering to be asked about my race.  It took me a while to realize that people were not asking that with any malice.  Now it’s more a source of conversation.

Q:  Were you a funny kid?

A:  No, I was extremely, painfully shy and withdrawn.  A real wallflower.  It was so bad I didn’t even get invited to parties.  I was a straight A student but once a month or so I would say something really witty and smart alecky and everybody would burst out laughing and I would get kicked out of class for the rest of the day.

Q:  In the late 1990’s you were working for Intel as a demo engineer. How did you get into comedy?

A:  My job at Intel was to design technical demos that would be featured in the speeches of executives like CEO Andy Grove.  [I traveled] all over the world – to distributors’ conferences, analysts’ meetings in New York City, shows in Vegas.  We were doing live demos on stage for things like voice dictation or the latest graphic software in front of thousands of people or sometimes millions on television. I was extremely nervous so to try to get over that I took Intel’s Toastmasters class, which prepares you to do business presentations. But it wasn’t enough of an adrenaline rush because I was in front of 10 to 15 nerds like myself.  Then I heard there was a comedy class being offered in San Francisco.  People had told me I should do comedy or acting.  That was the germination of the idea that I could do comedy.  That, paired with the need to get over stage fright was the impetus to take a comedy class.

Q:  When did you realize that you could make a career doing comedy?

A:  The final event for the class was a show at a real comedy club.  I was very, very nervous about that.  Terrified!  I practiced my act over and over, said it in the car all the way to San Francisco.  When I got onstage [the audience] was laughing and laughing from the get go.  I didn’t know it then, but for a debut it was extremely successful.  A few weeks after that, Intel sent me on the road again to a convention in Vegas.  I had my tape of that first show with me and I mentioned to some people that I had it.  They watched it and they liked it.  It turned out they were in charge of the entertainment for the final team dinner for Intel.  So I performed at that event and I did impressions of Andy Grove and Bill Clinton and they absolutely loved it.  Two months later I performed the same act at an international sales conference and I had 2500 people rolling at that event.  People actually thought I had been hired as a professional comedian.  That’s when I thought, hey, I can do this!  I decided to leave Intel about a year and a half later to get serious about comedy.

Q:  Much of your comedy is based on your ethnicity.  Why does that resonate with your audiences?

A:  I think that, especially from the Indian side, you have an audience that really hasn’t been exposed to stand up comedy.  It’s an art form invented in America and isn’t something that’s been prevalent throughout the world.  But, because of Russell Peters, comedy is now gigantic in the South Asian community. I think that if you do ethnic humor, it is going to appeal to that ethnicity.

Q: Do you perform for both Asian and mainstream audiences?

A:  I would say ninety percent of the shows I do are for Indian audiences, eight percent are East Asian and two percent are mainstream. I think people tend to identify with whatever race you look like.  There are a lot of Indians who have dark skin like me but I don’t think there are too many Japanese who have my skin tone. But it’s also very gratifying to perform for mainstream audiences.  If you can do ethnic jokes for mainstream and have them laugh, it’s kind of like you’ve won a battle.

Q:  Are there any subjects you stay away from in your act?

A:  I don’t do any profanity.  I don’t do sex humor.  There are a lot of staples in mainstream comedy clubs [that I don’t do], like picking on the disabled or mentally challenged.  I just think it’s really cruel and that isn’t the kind of humor I want to do.  I think that actually helps me because doing that kind of humor narrows the kind of groups that will hire me.

Q:  You’ve worked with some well-known comedians.  Who influenced you the most?

A:  Jerry Seinfeld. I asked him once if he had any advice and he said ‘Dan, you’ll work a lot more if you do clean.’ So I try to emulate him in [that sense]. Also, his approach was different.  Your typical comic is an alcoholic or drug addict, getting stoned after the shows, waking up at five in the afternoon.  Jerry had a different attitude.  He would dress up onstage and show up at noon and people would be shocked.  I like to emulate the fact that he is a real professional.  Comedians are known for diva behavior and I don’t like to do that.

Q:  You’ve been filming a movie this summer.  Can you tell me about it?

A:  I just wrapped up filming The Last Airbender, a live-action adaptation of the TV series The Last Avatar.  It’s an M. Night Shyamalan movie, the first that he, himself, hasn’t written. I play the part of Fire Nation Soldier as well as stand in for [actor] Aasif Mandvi. Dev Patel from Slumdog Millionaire is one of the stars.  I shot for 16 days in Philadelphia, which enabled me to get my Screen Actors’ Guild card.  I got to know Night very well and I got to know Dev and Aasif really well and had an absolute blast.

Q:  When will the movie be released?

A:  It’s coming out in June of next year.

Q:  What was it like to work with M. Night Shyamalan?

A:  Night, as everyone calls him, was absolutely magnificent.  Everyone says you’re not supposed to talk to the director or the stars, but that was completely untrue on this movie.  He was standing next to me on my second day of shooting.  I told him that I had performed at a wedding part at the Four Seasons in Philadelphia about a year and a half ago and that his father and mother had come up to me an introduced themselves as his parents.  His eyes widened and he said, “That was you?!  My father was absolutely raving about you!”

Q:  What else have you been working on?

A:  I just shot my first episode of Desi States of America, which is on [an Indian] channel called PanDesi.  I’m the host and I do some improv stuff and some sketch stuff.  Once it airs, it will be available on their YouTube channel.

Q:  When you’re not performing, what do you like to do?

A:  It’s really important to stay in shape, so [I do] karate, squash, cycling, lifting weights. I don’t watch television, ever – I think I watch fewer than 10 hours a year.  I’m always learning a language on my MP3, whenever I’m driving or on the subway or at the gym. I also play five instruments: keyboards, guitar, bass, drums and cello. Once I get my home studio set up, I’m going to start writing some songs.  Secretly, I want to be a musician.  Every musician wants to be a comedian and vice versa.  It’s funny how that works.

Q:  What advice would you give to young people who want to pursue a non-traditional profession?

A:  A lot of people say to me, “I want to be a comedian or a dancer or a musician or a director, but my parents want me to be a doctor or an engineer.  This is a constant struggle between the young and the old.   What I would tell kids is your parents are right - you really should get gainful employment first.  To suddenly come out of college and say I’m gonna be a poet or a musician…you just can’t do that.  It takes years of honing your art before you can get to the point where you make money. If you want to do something artistic you need to have a 9 to 5 job and make a living first.  The times that you can work on your craft are evenings, when everyone else is watching television, and weekends, when everyone else is getting drunk.

Q:  Have your parents been supportive of your comedy career?

A:  My parents have been extremely supportive.  But I’m not like the guy who wanted to become a comedian right out of college. If that had happened they would have been horrified.

Q:  What is something that nobody knows about you?

A:  I have a hard time admitting this, but I have a pink and white Hello Kitty toaster.  It actually toasts an image of Hello Kitty’s face on the bread.  I also have one of the only bottles of “Michael Jackson King of Pop” cologne in existence.  They were going to market it but never did.  It’s actually a pretty nice scent!

For more information on Dan Nainan, visit his website: www.nainan.com

Being Asian in the gulf Middle East

When I was 8 years old I watched my mom get pushed into a kitchen at an Arab wedding and ordered to serve drinks to the guests. The mother of the bride didn’t realize that my mom was a guest. She was, in fact, personally invited by the bride (a former student of my mom’s), who wanted her favorite teacher to be there on her special day. The reason my mom’s sequined scarf and make-up went ignored is because my mom is Malaysian.

Let me take you back. The years my family spent in Kuwait are littered with uncomfortable incidents like the one described above. We moved to Kuwait about a year after the Iraqi invasion was over, and shaken from the war, Kuwait was hugely xenophobic in the early ‘90’s. My parents were working in a village called Batu Buruk (Ugly Stones), Terengganu on the east coast of Malaysia before they were offered better-paying jobs as instructors in the Middle East, and as Muslims with a romanticised idea of the region that gave the world the Prophet (swt) and the Quran, my parents were excited that their kids would grow up in such a privileged environment. They packed up their three girls (ages 1-5) and flew to Kuwait University, Shuwaikh.

My village Malay gave way to a gulf Arabic accent in school, and one of the first teases I got was for being “yabaneezy” (Japanese). When my mom came for PTA meetings the teachers would give surprised looks and tell my mom her English was good. My mom’s first couple of months as an instructor at the Sharia’ College for Girls was rocky with repeated explanations that she was the teacher. No she wasn’t the tea lady, no she wasn’t the cleaner; she was the teacher. “Mudarasa” my mom would say in Arabic and the students would continue to give her wary looks. Luckily my mom was a great teacher, because it would only take a couple of weeks for those same wary students to become enthralled by her classes and her zany humor. “Miss wallah I love you, you must meet my family!” On days when I visited the office with my sisters, a hail of black abaya robes would descend on us and leave lipstick streaks across our cheeks. “Ya Allah Ms. Jenifah you have many children and you are still so small mashallah!” They’d look at my almost-five-feet mother, mousy in her own baggy abaya and wonder how they started out with such different assumptions. It was unfortunate that not all Kuwaitis could be in my mom’s classes.

The same could not be said for my dad. At 6-foot-6-inches, blue eyes and as white bread as Iowa makes them, my dad was regarded as the big American hero who fought the Iraqis (which, as an instructor from Ugly Stones, he hadn’t). Kuwaitis didn’t trust any foreigners or other Arabs, but if you were American you were given rockstar treatment. Shop clerks would smile at you, people on the street would go up to you, and if you were an instructor at the University, the women would swoon.

And swoon they did. My dad would come back after teaching to his office and find that love letters had been stuffed under the door and a few giggly girls in abaya waiting outside. My dad received offers for a second or third wife on a regular basis. At first my parents would laugh at these gestures, but the overwhelming attention bolstered my dad’s ego while the tactless prejudice bogged down my mom’s confidence and self esteem, setting what was once a stable marriage onto a rocky patch of misunderstanding and injured feelings.

Eventually the racial attitudes towards our family and the lack of affordable good schools drove my family to move back to Malaysia. After a couple of years of settling down, my parents received job offers from the Middle East again, but this time in the Emirates. My siblings and I refused to go back, but after being assured that we’d be going to international schools this time, we relented. We were happy to find that racial attitudes in the Emirates are much improved from the ones in Kuwait. For one thing the Emirates is more cosmopolitan, and the university my parents teach at is a hodge-podge mix of local and expatriate students. As American-Malaysians we found our niche among the other halfsies and 3rd culture kids of Emirati-Iranian, Polish-Greek, Egyptian-Philippina, and the Lebanese-Cypriot types. We were finally not weird: we were just like everyone else.

My mom still encounters a few awkward situations in the Emirates, but nowhere near the scale that she had in Kuwait. Recently with Obama’s election we can see that racial attitudes are slowly shifting in the US as they do in my mom’s classroom. Justice Sonia Sotomayor once said that “stereotyping is perhaps the most insidious of all problems in society today,” and we found that to be true, but it’s also true that this insidious problem can be dealt with—from the students in my mom’s classroom to the attendees of President Obama’s speeches. It’s not enough that anyone can be a good teacher or president in theory: Sometimes a country needs to see the black president at the White House leading, and sometimes people need to see the Malaysian woman in hijab standing at the white board teaching. Perhaps the change isn’t as big or as radical as most of us would prefer it, but if one person can change the way they think of other races, it makes that much of a difference when they respect people like my mom who expect discrimination.

My mom continues to teach in the Middle East, only this time she’s armed with experience, that same zany humor, and hundreds of students and friends that love, respect and admire her.

A show of hypocrisy as Republicans bash Sotomayor

Republicans have a great knack at 1-upping Democrats in every unethical thing possible. Take, for example, Mark Sanford’s extravagant affair with an Argentinean woman. It makes John Edwards look like an amateur. Or former Vice President Dick Cheney’s approval of torture – while Al Gore was too busy hugging trees. In the realm of political pundits, Republican Ann Coulter remains unchallenged. And now, Alabama Senator Jeffrey Sessions’ racial history is making Sonya Sotomayor look like, at best, yet another victim of the “white privileged male” mentality.

Sotomayor is being revered as potentially the first Latina justice to take a seat in the United States Supreme Court. But she is also being assaulted by right-wing conservatives over her 2001 comment regarding the role of her ethnicity in the United States: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life”.

To resolve the paradox: Why would it be an important milestone in US history that a Latina judge sits on the Supreme Court, if race didn’t matter?

This hypocrisy of racial politics is being perpetrated by a charming top GOP pick: Mister Jeffrey Sessions. The same senator who believes the ACLU and NAACP are “Communist-inspired” and “un-Constitutional”, that the Ku Klux Klan was “OK”, minus the “pot smokers”, and that white civil rights lawyers are a “disgrace to his race.” Despite this, Sessions believed he was fully entitled to interrogate the Supreme Court nominee on the racism charges last week.

Why the fury over the wisdom of this accomplished señora? Sotomayor’s comment sparked a row in Washington because it is a reality that most Americans refuse to publicly acknowledge. The experience that Sotomayor was referring to runs parallel to a deep and turbulent racial disparity in this country’s history. Let’s take, for example, a recent study from the Pew Hispanic Center comparing home ownership rates between whites, blacks, Asians and Hispanics.

The study quotes that “in 2007, blacks and Hispanics borrowed higher amounts than did whites with similar incomes, exposing themselves to greater debt relative to their incomes.” What are the socio-economic repercussions of this blatant inequality? While the majority white population (including Sessions and Roberts) enjoy luxuries like vacations and the ability to afford higher education, struggling blacks and Hispanics are barely making ends meet. For aspiring Supreme Court justices like Sotomayor, this means working much harder to attain the same level of merit as their white counterparts.

Despite the figures putting her at a relative disadvantage to her white counterpart Sessions, how wise did the Latina manage to become? Ms. Sotomayor graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University and attained her Juris Doctor from Yale Law School. After which George H.W. Bush himself nominated her to the District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1991.

Yes, that’s right folks; a Republican president has already previously nominated Sotomayor to a federal court.

Also, 1991 is the same year that George W. Bush’s Supreme Court nomination John G. Roberts was fighting hard on the side of the Oklahoma Board of Education to ensure the re-segregation of its schools. Roberts, a current Supreme Court justice, was also quoted in 1983 saying, “I think this audience would be pleased that we are trying to grant legal status to their [Hispanic-Americans] illegal amigos.”

As expected, Sessions wasn’t up in arms about his fellow Republican’s concerning comments at the time of Roberts’ nomination in 2005. His selectivity in addressing potentially racist Supreme Court justices seems to indicate a preference in minority women over white males. How ironic.

But perhaps Sessions has a right to harass others about racism.

He seems to be more familiar with it than the rest of us.

What the NAACP Means to Me

As a brown-skinned immigrant who has spent 25 years working for racial justice, I owe a good deal of my life to the legacy of the NAACP. So I attended and watched the organization’s centennial convention in New York this week, with both gratitude and the urge to contribute.

My family emigrated to the United States from India when I was five, which would have been impossible if the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act hadn’t removed country quotas under the pressure of the civil rights ethic.

When I became a community organizer at age 20, I found an inspiring set of groups to work with—few would have existed without the movement’s example and infrastructure.

Yet, my very presence in this country, and my activism, symbolize the demographic and political trends that have changed the racial justice struggle since those days some 40 years ago. Today’s context includes great numbers of non-black people of color, complicating the way in which racism plays out. Certainly there have always been activist indigenous Asian, Latino and Arab communities, but there’s no question that recent immigration has driven our numbers up, expanding our presence in small cities, suburbs and rural areas where we never used to be.

The dominant racial dynamic of the 21st Century is not solely black and white, but a complex hierarchy in which multiple groups of color shift around according to geography, economic status and political power. While communities of color all relate to racism, we don’t experience it in exactly the same way.

I’ve spent most of my career building multiracial organizations and alliances, working with black, Latino and immigrant communities to win new health programs, to protect labor rights, to control the police and to reform school systems. In the early days, I made the “same boat” argument for sticking together—racism oppresses us all in one way or another. But eventually the very real differences between our positions would arise. Immigrants had language problems at the local hospital, but black people were routinely denied high quality treatment through discrimination that was much harder to prove. Black men experience racial profiling while driving, while South Asian and Arab Americans get it at the airport, and law enforcement justifies those actions in different ways.

Sometimes, in some places, people of color exercise their power in ways that hurt other people of color. At some point, cooperation based on abstract solidarity turned into competition based on specific grievances about the higher step someone else appears to occupy on the ladder.

We can prepare for that moment and deal with it constructively, and dozens of groups across the country have managed to do just that. Being ready means building a broad agenda to expand resources, educating ourselves about other communities, and, most of all, acting as if we’re in the same movement, if not the same boat.

I’ve been privy to a great example in the restaurant industry through my participation in and writing about the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROCU). In any high-end restaurant in any city, we will find the same racial arrangement: white people, whom employers consider attractive enough to speak to diners, in the living wage jobs at the front of the house; immigrants of color at the dangerous low-wage jobs in the back of the house; and black Americans missing entirely, relegated to fast food.

The obstacles we face in accessing the industry’s benefits vary according to employers’ faulty perceptions of our relative worth. Breaking down that hierarchy requires thinking it through, which almost always leads to a complicated set of solutions. Training programs, new hiring and promotion policies, immigration reform and the enforcement of anti-discrimination laws are just a few strategies that ROCU pushes in cities like New York, Detroit, New Orleans and Chicago. ROCU meetings take place in multiple languages, and organizers make constant adjustments to make sure the group is truly inclusive.

That’s the essential challenge facing the NAACP too: being a racial justice leader in a multiracial nation. Its new president, Ben Jealous, is committed to revitalizing the organization—nothing and nobody gets to be 100 without getting a little weary—in ways that connect its current membership to the rest of us. He uses the broader language of human rather than civil rights and works hard to inspire young people, who barely blinked through his speech to the Youth and College Division at the convention.

I’m not attached to the NAACP changing its complexion. The organization doesn’t have to be fully multiracial to meet the challenge set by Jealous. Black people need their organizations, and other communities of color also need black communities to be well organized. As we do our work, though, we need to do it together, regardless of how we’ve arranged ourselves. The solutions we come to will differ, but we can stand up for them together, grounded in our commitment to dismantling the racial hierarchy as thoroughly as we can over the next 100 years.

The author, a social justice activist from the Indian American community, explores the role of the venerable rights organization and the kind of leadership necessary going forward in a multiracial nation.

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Rinku Sen is the president of Applied Research Center and Publisher of ColorLines magazine.
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This article appeared on New America Media.

Exploring racial divides in America

What is your race? Check all that apply.

I’m brown. Latina. Hispanic. Whatever. There’s no way around it.

Since 1790, the American government has been racially classifying and socially constructing labels for us – people of all colors and looks – to help “identify” or “place” us in society, with each U.S. Census allowing for more racial categories. Are they necessary? I don’t know, but they’re there and it’s not realistic to easily eradicate a racial system that has existed for centuries.

I don’t look black, white or oriental. I’m brown, or whatever other title is applicable. That’s what I am, that’s how I’m seen and it’s what I know. And I’m OK with it.

I do have to say, though, that there is a slight hostility between the numerous ethnic groups that are placed under the umbrella term Latino. Guatemalans or Salvadorans are not the same as Mexicans or Cubans.

Despite people of Hispanic/Latino origin coming from different countries and diverse cultural backgrounds, most people don’t understand the differences between us, especially those who lie outside the brown umbrella.

We’re mostly perceived as Mexicans because of the booming Mexican population in California. Yes, there are similarities. Yes, we have almost the same exact experiences with the challenges we face, our parents or just simply growing up.

But we’re different. Our cultures are completely different. Our ways of speaking are different. Our value systems and ways of thinking are different. Our food and music is different. Just because we have some similar qualities like dark skin, hair and eyes doesn’t mean we’re all the same.

Just as Koreans aren’t the same as Chinese or blacks aren’t the same as Haitians. Yet, I’m still assumed to be Mexican, which is the prevalent thought, I suppose.

I don’t think I’ve ever faced blatant racism or discrimination, though. However, maybe indirectly I have.

I’ve usually been followed physically, with the eyes or by a camera whenever I go into stores, most of which are owned or managed by Asians in my area. It is the most irritating thing to be looked at as if I’m going to steal something and even more irritating to be followed while they’re pretending to just be cleaning or organizing.

I’m not dumb and I’m not blind. And I definitely don’t need to steal your cheap things that I can easily buy, is what I usually think. Is it them just being paranoid or is it me and the stereotype I carry that calls for that type of surveillance?

I don’t know, but it’s there.

I’ve also been to wealthy Brentwood neighborhood stores, most of which attract white customers, and have been looked at almost immediately.

Maybe they don’t get too many people like us in their stores? Do I look diseased? Or is it the fact that I’m a beaner/wetback/illegal in their store? Is that too harsh?

Maybe it’s just the reality of how I’m perceived by some.

When my mom came to the U.S. from El Salvador she started working as a housekeeper for wealthy families and continues to work for one in Brentwood. However, she was once fired from her job with a well-known sportscaster; his wife thought she was stealing, which she wasn’t.

She also takes the bus daily and as she waited at her bus stop with other housekeepers, she would come in conflict with an older white woman who lives in the apartment complex near the stop. She repeatedly told my mom to get off of her property or she’s going to call the police and immigration officials.

It’s kind of typical for people to try to intimidate those who look a certain way or don’t speak English as well. These things can’t be sugarcoated.

Furthermore, I don’t know how much President Obama’s election has changed for people. It was a milestone and the blood, sweat and tears of millions of people coat the huge hurdles that were crossed to get to this point.

He is a man who encompasses the wealthy, poor, whites, blacks, Asians and Hispanics. He’s the one who brought the world together, marking one of the most momentous days in American history.

But he is just one man. It’s going to take all of us to change the status quo and progress to a compassionate and accepting future, especially being that this country was founded on diversity.

However, recent events show that some people in society aren’t interested in accepting certain racial groups, making it more difficult to believe that Obama’s election alone will make us move forward.

For example, the Orange County Register reported that on July 4, two men – one bearing a swastika tattoo on his left shoulder – allegedly committed a hate crime against Maria Guadarrama, a 45-year-old custodian in Ladera Ranch, Orange County. She said in a press conference that as they stabbed her they yelled racial slurs, calling her a worthless Mexican.

On the day Americans across the country celebrate the nation’s independence and freedom, two men decided to attack a woman because of her ethnicity and attempt to silence a race as a whole.

Irony at its best.

The Obama Legacy

The triumphant election of Barack Obama has unleashed the nation at last from the burdens of history. Being the first black man to step into the presidential role might however, materialize into increased scrutiny.

“It is always difficult being the first,” said Raphael Sonenshein, a professor of political science at Cal State Fullerton. “It means you spend a lot of time trying to keep people from attaching stereotypes to you.”

It was a symbolic moment when Obama won the presidency, one that supporters likened to the dream Martin Luther King spoke of during the 1960s Civil Rights Era.

In a society obsessed with racial divides, African Americans have long been stereotyped as emotionally or genetically inferior, said J. Owens Smith, professor of Afro-Ethnic Studies at CSUF.

“Society has always been reluctant to put a black man into a higher position,” said Smith, who cried when Obama won. “[But] now you have a young black, very articulate, [portrays] John F. Kennedy’s image and at the same time, there’s an economic crisis.”

But the high expectations that come with being the first also pack a load of pressure.

The president-elect’s victory managed to remove these black stereotypes and launch the imaginations of young African Americans through out the nation. As a result, the notion of “Mr. President” has completely been transformed.

“I’d say it has now changed for all time,” Sonenshein said. “With this door shattered, it is hard to see how it will be re-closed.”

Many black youth believe they can be president one day, too, Smith said.

“But wanting to become president and getting elected is two things,” he said. “It takes money to be president.”

Obama was able to garner the youth vote, about 23 million nationwide under the age of 30, perhaps more than any election since 1972, according to Civicyouth.org.

They served as the back bone for Obama’s success. Through grass roots organizing, the Internet and transparent campaigning strategies, Obama was able to gain support and funds, Smith said.

In the week following his success, citizens of all nations joined in the celebrations. They declared their delight in the president-elect and in America for transcending beyond years of racial inequality.

Many affirmed, on the same social networking sites Obama used to communicate with youth, that their love for and faith in America had returned once again.

“I’m very glad to see Obama [as] president even if I’m not American but I’m proud to see a black [man] in the White House for the first time in our history,” said Layla of Morocco, a supporter on Facebook.

Others closer to America also reveled in his election.

“For the first time ever since the last eight years, I truly wish that I was an American,” said Crystal, who is African Canadian, also on Facebook.

Supporters must realize however, the difference between campaign speech and reality, Smith said. The fundamental change Obama promised will not come right away.

“The issue is not about civil rights, it’s about the economy,” Smith said. “Once it’s solved, both blacks and whites will benefit.”

As Obama dives into the financial crisis, people will start to focus on his work ethics and how much gets done through his administration.

“It will be like JFK’s Catholicism. Obama will be remembered by what he does, not only that he was the first African American president,” said Kristen Monroe, a professor of political science at UC Irvine.

But the mere fact that he is black will always attract disapproval from those on the radical right.

“You don’t want to get caught in mistakes,” Smith said of Obama, who made no real mistakes during his two year campaign. “If whites make the same mistakes, they’ll get away with it.”

The president-elect will continue his strict, controlled and calm disposition, he said.

A taste of discrimination was evident during the campaign. Even some supporters of Sen. McCain were terrified that a black man could possibly be their next president.

Sen. McCain however, did not tolerate the bigotry and urged his followers to focus on the issues.

“A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt’s invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters. America today is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of that time,” McCain said during his conceding speech.

After his comments, a lot of white people will now follow suit, Smith said.

How the president-elect delivers on the economy and America’s necessities will determine his place in history, besides his status as the first African American to hold the position.

“Over time, the barriers begin to fall,” Sonenshein said. “We will see how long that takes.”

Credit: Urmi Rahman