I’m one of those racially ambiguous people. You know the kind that walks into a room and gets asked, “So where are you from?” And I respond with a short answer like, “Oh, Connecticut.” Then they lower their voice and say something like, “No, where are you really from?”
Well, I never have a short answer for that question. I explain, “Well, I guess I’m French, German, Scottish, English, and mostly Pakistani.” But recently I’ve been thinking about this question more deeply. Why is it that my almond- shaped eyes, light skin, and dark locks provoke people to ask me of my origins? Why do they care?
Sometimes when I walk into a room, people start speaking Spanish to me. I really only know one phrase in Spanish and that’s “I don’t speak Spanish.” In Morocco, everyone thought I was one of them, so they spoke colloquial Arabic around me. I can almost pass in most European, any Middle Eastern, and Latin American country as “one of the natives.” The funny part is I can’t actually do that in Pakistan or America.
So what are people looking for when they ask me where I’m really from? The short answer is that they’re looking for my race. To most people, race is a real thing. It’s a way to divide people into categories based on their skin tone and make judgments about their cultures based on the way they act, dress, and talk. But race isn’t really real to me in the same way that it is for people that can be “clearly” categorized. It certainly isn’t real for me in the same way it is for people who have been oppressed by the colour of their skin throughout history. When you get asked what race you are all the time and get mistaken for something you’re not, you begin to think race is kind of strange. It simply does not feel natural, especially when they don’t have a box for you on the Census form… Although, I did see one this year.
If you’ve ever taken a sociology course, you know all this. Race is a social construction and we live in a country with racist institutions, etc. Yes, this is all true. But not many people think about what it feels like to experience race as a construction. I have to explain this to people all the time who look at me puzzled and ask me how I’m not white. I generally say that I’m not white because I don’t get treated as a white person.
Being “white” is not about the colour of someone’s skin tone. That’s why Irish Catholics were not considered white when they first came to this country. Being “white” is actually about privilege. I don’t get those privileges as a Pakistani-American Muslim Woman. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not downtrodden or anything. There are plenty advantages to being who I am. I’ve worked hard to get where I am and I’ve been blessed with two parents who gave me what I need to survive and grow. I have just as much opportunity as any “white” person I know.
But for everyone who is not “white,” you get a hyphenated identity. You’re African-American, Asian-American, or Latin-American. Why do we non-white folks not get to be called American? The colour of our skin makes us “foreign” or “other.” It tells us we don’t belong here because we didn’t make the standards for race in America.
Why am I talking about all of this? Well, we live in a society that thinks in terms of race. It’s part of our social subconscious to label people and place them in boxes. Have you ever done that? I wonder all the time where people are from. We usually don’t think it’s a bad thing and sometimes it isn’t. It becomes bad when we attach a negative stigma to the categories we have or when we use these social categories as guidelines to figure people out. We can’t obviously know a person just by looking at them. So why do we pass judgments based on the colour of their skin? Of course, we do the same thing with gender and sexuality. But that’s a topic for another blog entry.
So I’m wondering, is it possible to get rid of prejudice? Could we ever approach skin tone from a neutral perspective? Do we always have to stereotype people or wonder where they’re from if we can’t place them in a box? I dare you to try it. Listen to people and see what you find. Most people don’t fit in boxes.
4 Comments
Love this! Had the exact same experience living here and in Pak. I feel more Desi being in the States but felt more American while in Pak. I still get spoken to in Spanish esp. when I’m home on the east coast. Sometimes people just figure I’m from wherever they’re from. And somehow I still confuse people who want to know where I’m reeeaallly from, which gets complicated to explain. lol. But Jersey is just not a satisfactory answer, apparently. What’s funny to me is that my “white” friends whose parents are also immigrants never seem to go through this identity confusion or get these questions.
This post is very interesting to me… just because I’ve never really heard it put that way. Its sort of ironic that you would find the census forms to be annoying *because* of the hyphenation – I find it the opposite. The question I always wonder when looking at it is: Why does every other race get to define themselves by their place of origin, but when it comes to people of European decent, it is down to one little word, white? Why not Italian American, German American, Russian American, etc.. ? So I saw my side of it, to check the white box, as being a sort of less than – less creative, less lively, less fleshed out. White. Bland.
Interesting, eh? Thanks for sharing.
Kara,
You bring up an incredibly valid point, which I think further emphasizes the haziness of race as a concept. It honestly doesn’t make much sense to me why people of all different ethnic and cultural backgrounds can be conveniently wedged under one word (“white”), which is somehow supposed to categorize them as a whole. It simply does not, but the word “white” appeared in colonial laws to distinguish English men from everyone else (Native Americans, African slaves, etc). “Whiteness” was constructed in opposition to “blackness.” And every other race in the United States was supposed to fall on a spectrum in between throughout history. I’m speaking from a sociological standpoint here, though.
I have studied cases of how different groups (Irish, Italian, and Middle Eastern – predominantly from the Levant region) have become “white” over time. Technically I’m supposed to check off the “white” box as well because up until recently, I was considered “white” for being a South-Asian American. The funny thing is, I’m not treated as such. I used to get stopped in the airport for looking suspicious because of my name or the fact that I am “ethnic” looking. But I am grateful for your perspective, Kara.
-Anisah
Anisah, enjoyed reading your thoughts on the subject . I think it sure is something to ponder about when you are asked to put yourself in a “box”, but I take it as natural curiosity in its positive sense. I reflect on the ayat from the Quran which says, “O mankind I have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know each other. The most honored amongst you is the one who is most pious.” So it is an inherent part of our being. The problem and responsibility is what we do with the information. Their in lies the test for us humans. I sure was pleased to see” Pakistani “on the census form. Thenon the other hand I had mixed feelings about it.
Aunty Rehana
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