#latinxs

[global-musings]

Brazilian Man dressed as Fisherman from Northern Amazonian Region of Brazil

[latin-american-diversity]

A Chilean Man of Palestinian ancestry partakes in a pro-Palestinian protest

Chilean-Palestinians

Outside of the Levant and the Arabian Gulf nations, Chile is home to the largest Palestinian diaspora in the world with up to 500 thousand Chileans having Palestinian ancestry. 

Palestinian immigration to the country began in the middle of the 19th century during the Ottoman rule. Like other immigrants from the Ottoman Empire, whether Arab, Slavic, Assyrian, or Greek; Palestinians were often called Turcos (Turks) since they usually entered the country with Turkish documentation. This denominate remains common in Chile and neighbouring Latin American countries to this day; which has erroneously lead many Latin Americans with non-Turkish ancestry and little information about family history, to be under the impression that they are of Turkish ancestry. 

Historically, the majority of Palestinians that arrived in Chile were Eastern Orthodox Christians, as most countries in Latin America barred the immigration of Muslims; for this reason there are more Christian Palestinian descendants in Chile than in Palestine itself. However, in recent times Chile has also taken in Palestinian refugees, the majority being Sunni Muslims. 

Many of the first waves of Palestinian immigrants lived in abject poverty and were illiterate. In addition to this like many other immigrant groups to Latin America, particularly those coming from the Ottoman Empire, Eastern Europe, and East Asia they were faced with xenophobia; a product of Chilean nationalism and rising post-independence ethnic/racial tensions. This xenophobia spread as far as the Chilean media, with one of country’s oldest national newspapers "El Mercurio,” writing:

“Whether they are Mohammedans or Buddhists, what one can see and smell from far, is that they are more dirty than the dogs of Constantinople...“

Despite the fact that the majority of people coming from the Ottoman Empire and Eastern Europe were Christian, the stigma of living in an empire ruled by Muslims or around Muslims was enough for them and other Christians such as Slavs, Greeks, and Armenians to be targets of Islamophobic sentiments that were prominent in Iberian American societies. 

Similar to other immigrants from the Ottoman Empire, many Palestinians began to work in commerce as merchants. This factor alongside their gradual assimilation into the white Chilean population, began their upward social mobilization. By the 1950′s Palestinian Chileans garnered a significant economic and political position in Chilean society, a good example of this is the recent presidential candidacy of Daniel Jadue.

The majority of Chilean Palestinians are inhabit the nations capital, and also the city of La Calera in Valparaiso Region, which attracted not only Palestinian immigrants but also other Levantine, Balkan, Italian, French, and German migrants.

[lesbitorte]

Hey non-binary latinxs!! // Hola latines no binaries!!

(Post bilingüe)

A friend has reminded me the existence of two letters that would be awesome if you use she they or he they pronouns in English but can't find an alternative in Spanish!

So, we all know that there's the letter -e that we started using recently to mark neutrality in usually genderized words for people, like chica and chico (girl and boy) becoming chique, amigo and amiga becoming amigue. But where does this leave us people that use two kinds of genderized words (neutral and a binary one)? I personally identify as demigirl/demiwoman which is being female but not quite, I use she/her and they/them on english, but in spanish people usually go to ella (she) and we got the neutral pronoun elle (still not accepted by the RAE tho) but none of these pronouns feel exactly right and I would like to propose an old letter that is used on latinisms: æ and œ which are literally contractions of the letters -a & -e and o- & -e.

Æ æ is pronounced (in spanish) as ae like when you say curriculum vitae which is originally curriculum vitæ. The pronoun would be læ / ellæ.

While Œ œ is pronounced (in spanish) oei or as an accentuated -é because that letter became the letter -e. Although in french it sounds like a weird -o like in the word eau (water). The pronoun would be lœ / œl / ellœ.

You can listen how it sounds on Google translate!

-------SPANISH VERSION DOWN ⬇️-------

Una amistad me recordó de la existencia de dos letras muy buenas para nosotres que usamos de a dos pronombres (el neutral y uno binario).

Personalmente me yo me identifico como demigénero/demimujer que es básicamente sentirse de x género pero no del todo, el neutral y el pronombre femenino no se sienten del todo propios para mí así que se me recordó de los latinismos æ (contracción de -a y -e) y œ (contracción de -o y -e).

Æ æ se pronuncia literalmente ae, así que el pronombre sería læ / ellæ reemplazando la/ella y elle.

Mientras Œ œ se pronuncia maso menos como un oei o como una -e acentuada (de esta letra viene la letra -e en nuestro español moderno), aunque en francés a pronuncia como una -o un poco rara, como en la pronunciación de eau (agua). El pronombre sería œl / lœ / ellœ reemplazando él/lo y elle

Pueden oír cómo se pronuncian las letras en Google translate con palabras como currículum vitae/vitæ o fœderal

[marthebratz]

we are human 👊🏽👊🏾👊🏿👊🏼

[tamaldearroz]

La tierra de abuelas y dictadores.

De santos y pecadores.

La tierra del beso y de la tortura.

Del goce y de la amargura.

[uno-dos-tris]

Finally brushed my hair and put on a shirt

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[ruler-of-barrington]

We need more discussions about non-black POC being dismissive of societal issues.

I feel like what I’m about to say is going to sound racist but it’s my opinion and you can disagree and call me out if you read this. 

Here it goes: I feel like certain poc (by certain, I mean hispanic and Asians not living in the USA, put a pin on this) tend to very easily dismiss racism and other things. 

The pin: This is a generalization, obviously not everyone in the mentioned groups is doing this. So, I’m just going to speak of my experiences, what I’ve seen, what I have done and if this doesn’t apply to you or anyone you have met, that’s fine.

I have lived in Mexico all my life. I’m a brown, light-skinned Hispanic that, until 2 years ago, considered myself straight and cis. So, in Mexico, there was a period of time when the feminist movement “resurged” and my classmates and everyone I knew were very dismissive of it, including me. Now, I’m not saying this only happens in my ethnic group, I’m sure there are homophobic black people, misogynistic white people, etc. 

But a pattern I notice is that, even when it’s with problems regarding racism against latinx (2nd pin), people here are dismissive of them. 

2nd pin: I’m gonna be using the term latinx to refer to brown latinx, because even if it’s not a race, brown latinx are the largest demographic where I live. 

For example, I remember there was a time when (where?) Barbie did a campaign or something about how they were going to be including plus-sized dolls and dolls from other ethnicities, and I remember seeing on Facebook a lot of my acquittances saying how stupid that was. I remember a girlfriend saying how their self-esteem was never affected just because Barbie was white and a lot different from her.

I remember that I didn’t know what to think but I leaned more towards agreeing with her than not. I thought she was right in that I never felt bad about myself just because Barbie couldn’t look more different than me.

Now years have passed and the other day I went to Barbie’s page to see if I liked something (I really like dolls) and, seeing the amount of diverse bodies and skin tones, really did something to the stone I have for heart. And I went back to my childhood memories to when I played with dolls and it hit me. Maybe Barbie didn’t significantly contribute to my internalized racism and colorism, maybe when I was 5, I didn’t go “oh, Barbie’s body sets an unrealistic standard for girls and feeds into the patriarchal society we live in”, of course not, which 5-year-old thinks that?

Maybe I didn’t care Barbie was thin and white and blue eyed but, wouldn’t have I loved Barbie even more if she had been plus sized and of my skin tone? Of course, I would.

And the more I think about the people in social media that downplayed this, the more I wonder, how many of these people were white, privileged and I just didn’t realize it*

*Third pin: I know I sound like “I don’t see color” but, growing up in Mexico, where races are so blended together, it really is hard. Especially because I always thought “sure, this person is really white, but by being latinx, they sure have the same experiences as me, they sure have indigenous ancestry in them”, never realizing that, if they are white, maybe they still have indigenous ancestry, but they are more distanced from that than I am.

What I’m trying to say is, I think people here in Mexico are really disdainful of things, and I feel like it is because we live in a country where brownness is the majority.

I’m talking about this because, sometimes I am on Twitter and, if you’re reading discourse about racism, chances are that you’re going to find a latinx saying “I’m latinx and I don’t think this is problematic, you guys are just snowflakes”. And when I see that I just sigh because that’s the mentality of a lot. I myself wasn’t immune to this, I was never one to say snowflake or things like that and I was never purposefully racist or homophobic, etc. I did have a lot of that internalized, but I always thought of myself as someone trying to fight that.

And I think that’s just so bad and dangerous because white alt righters then tokenize them and I can’t help but think about jesters doing tricks to please the king. Like, that’s how you look when you, a person of color, discharges racism.  

My reasoning as to why this happens is because the reason above, that we live in a country where the majority is brown and therefore, we don’t experience racism first hand. And two, that maybe they genuinely don’t know they are privileged by either being white or light-skinned. Because I swear to you, there are people who think they are brown, when they are not and vice versa, that’s how mixed we are.

But it harms the people who do call out something being racist. For example, I know a lot of Mexican Americans and other Americans with latinx/Hispanic heritage call out racism and I used to ignore them because “what do they know if they don’t live here and they are already living in the first power country” 🤡🤡🤡. Now I realize, of course they know, they are the ones that do experience racism* first hand.

*4th pin: While here in Mexico maybe not all of us experience blatant racism, colorism is still running rampant. Racism against other races and darker skinned people are still a huge problem.

An inside joke I have with myself is how every time I call out racism, homophobia, etc in YouTube, I 100% know someone is going to tell me “no, this is not racist because I’m latinx and I say so”, even if the racism in question is not directed towards latinxs, but towards black people, for example. And it’s a joke because I can already see their pikachu faces when I say “I’m also latinx”. It’s a checkmate.

Just to make it clearer: People think I’m white and that only white people are like this (“sjw”), so they always try to use the race card on me because it’s a stereotype that all sjws are white and have a white-savior complex. This is not the post to discuss that topic.

And it’s funny yet insulting how they use that argument because a) Again, I’m a brown latinx so it doesn’t withstand b) Saying they are latinx doesn’t do anything for me because they could still be white and c) You can be latinx and still be bigoted. Heck, if you’re using this argument, you probably are.

This reminds of that video by Sam Collins where he showed a clip of Blaire White saying how 90% of the time someone says something is transphobic, they are not trans themselves. And then Sam looking straight into the camera with a deadpan face and saying “this is transphobic”.

It’s that, but with latinxs.

But yeah, every time a race argument comes up, I am sure I’m bound to read a comment that says “I’m latinx and I can speak for the rest of us when I say this is not racist”. Amigo, no puedes.

And I feel like this happens with Asians too. I once read a Japanese person saying how Japan has never been an oppressed country and that, if anything, they have been the ones doing the oppression, so there’s no such thing as cultural appropriation of Japanese culture.

At the time, since I don’t know anything about Japanese history, I thought “maybe”. But now I realize, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if Japanese are colonizers (well, it does, but bear with me), Japanese, along with the rest of Asian people, are susceptible to racism. Sure, maybe in Japan a Japanese is not going to experience racism (duh), but Japanese Americans do, and that’s what matters (in this discussion).

So, when it’s not a Hispanic saying this, is an Asian. “This thing is not racist because I’m Asian”, honey, you’re just giving them the pass to being racist, that’s all you’re doing, you’re handling their excuse in a silver plate. You are not being original or actually doing something when you say that, the only thing you’re doing is giving them a pass to be even more racist.

I know I’m using a lot of examples but it’s just to make things clearer since I know I’m screwing 95% of the sentences here. I remember other time when I watched a conference with Steven Crowder and Milo nazi-sympathizer Yanopoulos and Crowder was a little bit too excited about having a gay person in their panel that he could insult. He said “you don’t mind that, right, Milo? You’re not like the other gays, you’re not a snowflake, I can call you a f* if I want to, right?” and I remember there was this short silence before Milo said “you can call me whatever you want”.

And at that moment I thought “wow, maybe I am indeed a snowflake” but in the back of my mind I did think, “isn’t this manipulation so Crowder can get away with it? Because he sure seemed very proud of himself about saying f* straight into that gay man’s face and getting away with it”.

So, it saddens me when I hear latinxs doing this because they literally have fallen into the trap. They think they are not like the rest of the latinxs, but all they are doing is allowing a person to insult them to their faces.

I don’t know how to close this, but yeah, I wanted to get that out of my chest. You are not doing us a favor, but even sadder than that, you’re not doing yourself a favor.

And it also pisses me that they pull that card because we are so anti-black. Like, we think we have the authority to say what is and isn’t racist but then we are also very racist against black people (and Asians, and let’s not get into how transphobic and homophobic we are). We are not better than white-saviors and white feminists when we do that. So, stop it.