Latino and White: a short essay on the white minority that still has to struggle, even with our white privileges
My dad come to the United States almost as an accident. A good friend offered him a free plane ride to New York. He agreed, decided he wanted to pursue a future here, and stayed. That was in 1984.
Flash forward to 1997. My mom did not have the best life growing up. My grandmother, being unable to provide for her, had to let her aunts and cousins take custody. My mom spent much of her adolescence in the not-so-nice areas of Rio, a far cry from the beautiful beaches of Copacabana, but she’s grateful that she at least stayed out of the most dangerous slums.
My mother already had one son, my brother Marcus. My mom was working as a secretary for a buyer of audio equipment in Brazil. My dad worked as a sales guy at Sam-Ash, one of the biggest chains of audio equipment sales in the US. Their similar work brought them together. As unlikely as it sounds, a few business calls grew into something more. Being that it was 1997/1998, my dad snail-mailed a photo of himself to my mother in Rio and my mom sent one right back to New York. Soon enough, my mom flew to New York to meet him. She once told me that on her first flight back to Rio she cried the whole time because she didn’t want to be away from my father. They were truly in love.
My mom began to go back and forth constantly between NYC and Rio until sometime in early 2000 when I came along. She spent the last few months of pregnancy in Brazil, but then decided to pack all of her things and take my brother with her to NYC, not only to be with my father, but because she knew I would receive opportunities in the USA that would be unprecedented in Brazil.
And soon after, the struggles of Latino immigrants starting rolling right onto our doorstep.
My mother could not work when she first arrived. Being that this is the USA it was nearly impossible for her to receive her green card immediately. My dad, trying to provide with his new job as an interpreter being his best option, still struggled. I spent the first three years of my infancy in a cottage in Gravesend, and by cottage, I mean a rented garage that had no heating or air conditioning. Summers were incredibly hot and winters were incredibly cold. The rats and the roaches never stopped coming. My brother, although he was bright, couldn’t be placed into a good school outside his zoned school due to his lack of naturalization. He was enrolled in our area middle school, which was one of the worst learning environments in the borough. It would remain a struggle for my mom to force him into school until college.
After I turned 3, my mom couldn’t handle our state of living anymore and we moved to a 1 bedroom apartment, intended for 2 people, but it had insulation and not as many roaches so we couldn’t complain. My mom tried to provide by bringing me to work with her in my stroller while she cleaned offices in the area. Eventually, we overstayed the one year lease but we were blessed to have a Brazilian superintendent who convinced our landlord to let us stay. My brother then went off to high school. My mother so desperately wanted him to try and seek acceptance into the best interview-based schools in the city (if you’re from NY, you know I mean Beacon), but again, he had no chance. Why? Because he wasn’t an “American” in the eyes of the government.
This idea became a recurring theme in our lives. My mom and brother lived in fear for years. My grandma would come to visit and my mom would be afraid to even stand in an airport terminal to wait for her because all the police around would ignite her fear of deportation. There were days when I had to be picked up from school by her early and the only ID she had was her YMCA membership card that came with my dad’s family plan. We never knew if the front desk lady who gave her an ugly look would be cold enough to report us. Things as casual as my dad asking us to meet him at work for lunch, being that my dad often worked in courthouses, would be nerve wracking for my family, because one wrong move with the police and we would be sent back to relive the reality of working class Brazil.
When I was about 7 years old, my dad finally became a US citizen. This was about 25 years after his legal arrival in the US (tell me again how immigrants should just “become legal”). My parents finally could marry legally in the eyes of the US government. And with that marriage, my mom and brother finally gained the title of residents of the US, gaining recognition after 8 years of living in and being involved with a community in the USA.
I wish I could say that solved our problems.
One time my dad collected up all the cash he could to take us on a road trip to Disney (I had to miss 4 days of school but shh). On the way down, we stopped at a diner in Virginia, not far away from DC. While ordering, my dad had to translate for my mom. The waitress gave us the inevitable “where are you from” and after my dad explained, some of the diners just gave us THE look. I don’t know if you’ll get it if you’re not Latino, but it’s this kind of side eye glance that says “you’re not welcome here.” Disney was awesome though. Everyone was cool at Disney.
I am fortunate to have grown up in a liberal city. I am incredibly thankful for people around me that take interest in my culture rather than laugh at it. But there’s an unshakeable sense of fear for many Latin Americans in heavily conservative areas, and that fear is incredibly palpable whenever I ventured out of town.
After a while, our apartment in Brighton Beach started falling apart. It was incredibly cramped, with me and my brother in one room while my parents had to sleep in the living room. The ceilings started leaking, and one day, it collapsed. That wouldn’t be the last time.
My mom had to beg and beg my dad to leave the apartment but he was reluctant due to rising costs everywhere else. We finally made the move closer to my brother’s high school. We found ourselves in a modest apartment in Bay Ridge… surrounded by some of Brooklyn’s most affluent.
I started to feel like I was missing something. It’s the same feeling I get a lot today. My friends could go to the mall with their parents and shop at places that weren’t Marshall’s, some of them even spent $50 on things like shoes. I was fucking mind blown. After I was matched to a really sketchy middle school my parents decided to send me to a catholic school. Neither of my parents are Catholic and I was raised on the exact opposite values of conservative Christianity, but it beat the school I would’ve gone to. It was pretty cheap for a school of its type at $800 a year, but by kissing ass to Barbara the tuition lady (God bless her) we managed to skip some months and pay discounts others. Naturally, I was surrounded by people who didn’t have to. I was jealous. I was jealous that my friends had houses. I was jealous that my friends could buy the clothes they wanted. I was jealous my friends went on vacation every summer. And I was jealous of how they got everything they asked for at Christmas.
My jealous rage calmed down over the course of middle school. Then I was accepted into my dream high school, LaGuardia High, the Fame School!! Note the sarcasm, I was hype as shit in eighth grade but now it’s a love-hate thing. Fascinatingly enough, I encountered these kids that in my eyes were practical millionaires. It amazed me that people lived in Park Slope. And Brooklyn Heights. And MANHATTAN. There are people who have money to wake up every morning IN the city.
My friends nowadays still make me jealous. They can spend $20 on a shirt and not blink once. They can pick up a $100 pair of shoes and not think, “if I ask my dad to buy me this, what could we end up sacrificing in the future?” Hell, I have friends who have their parents credit cards on their Uber accounts. Most of my friends’ solution to coming home late is “taking a safe cab,” mine is “running home from the train and praying to god nobody tries to mug my scrawny ass today.”
Yes, my skin is pale. Yes, I have white genetics. Yes, racially, I check of the “white” box (if there is an option for Hispanic/Latino of any race). And yes, I will never fathom how difficult and unjust the lives of American PoC are. That doesn’t erase the lack of job opportunities there are for my immigrant mother and father. That doesn’t erase the struggle to find a decent place to live without rats or collapsing ceilings. And I will never know what it’s like to have parents who were born to people who had ancestors a few generations before struggle for them. My parents did not grow up in a cute little suburban home. My parents didn’t have the all American childhood with a good college education. My parents came here with hope for a future better than that of what they had in Brazil. And I can assure you that not all white people have lived in constant fear due to lack of papers. Not all white people have gotten that dirty look for speaking their language in public. And I’m sure as HELL that not all white people know the struggle of foreign parents who had next to nothing trying to put one kid through college while encouraging another kid towards his passion for the arts.
I do benefit from some, if not many, white privileges. At first glance, I don’t appear to be Latino. I don’t know what it’s like to be judged on my appearance alone. I don’t know what it’s like to be racially profiled by police. And I will NEVER say that I suffer as much as people of color in the United States.
But I simply cannot agree if you tell me that I am just a white boy who gets all the privilege of a white American.
gamechangershow
gummygunk
2087
areudirty
yousharknotpass
stormborns
izzy806
