INTERRACIAL VOICE

Essay

Why Latinos and you ignore race
By Frank Montalvo

Ignorance of the interplay between race and ethnicity by Latinos and the general public is not surprising since it is only of late that extensive attention has been given to a related topic, the plight of multiracial children: Time magazine (Fall 1993, Special Issue) devoted the issue to the new multicolored face of America being created by "the world's first multicultural society," which was then followed by Newsweek (February 13, 1995) with a special feature on the growing multiracial nature of society. Concern for the impact on life chances and psychological well-being of the multiracial composition of U.S. Latinos in the United States is silent. Instead we look for individuals to blame for denying the stigma of race while ignoring the cultural and institutional cuprits.

Why is this?
The answer is not obvious. In Puerto Rico the myth of racial indifference, what has been referred to as "the prejudice of having no prejudice," satisfies and helps preserve one of the key values governing interpersonal relations in the Latin culture, respeto, respect for each person's dignity regardless of familial origin or station in life. Racial preference and discrimination threatens this sentiment. Combined with personalismo (warmth, openness and personal attentiveness), respect is so critical in maintaining open and free social intercourse that it prevents open racial stratification from intruding into every day affairs. As a consequence, there is more open conviviality in business and social life, in courtship and marriage among the races in Latin America than in the United States, despite the subtle but persistent historical preference for European appearance.

The myth took form in cultural taboos against referring to race as a reality in the family, community and public life, which helps us understand why the subject has not been a major focus of public concern. Perhaps the collective folk wisdom sensed that to openly acknowledge racial preference might result in some members being more admired and sought after by the community than others and, as a consequence, receive more attention, affection and encouragement in their families. Some attitudes and customs regarding racial preference in Latin America are revealing of the way the multiracial experience plays out. Early research in 1949 noted that although most denied the existence of racial conflict and discrimination in Puerto Rico, half felt it was better to have light skin, and no one of either race thought it was better to be negro (the Spanish term for the color black that is pronounced differently in English). The custom of entertaining dark-skinned relatives in the kitchen, much as servants, rather than in the front living room was common in the Caribbean, and is not unknown among Latino immigrants in the United States. It served not only to hide a source of social embarrassment but to imply that some relatives were not as much a part of the family as others.

Among Chicanos, it was believed that keeping race at bay by not talking about it prevented divisiveness in the community and helped keep families together, even at the risk of their cultural meltdown through assimilation. The Melting Pot, an ostensibly race-neutral process, encourages Latinos to discard and replace their ethnic ties, values and language in order to be admitted as individuals into the opportunity structure of the larger society. The promise is embraced fully by many Latino families that have at some level accepted racism as a permanent fact of life and see life chances as potentially increased for at least some of their children. Family members who look racially different than the mainstream experience more discrimination and are provided with fewer opportunities to improve their lives than siblings who are encouraged to acculturate, marry and assimilate because they look similar to the prototypical U.S. American. Acculturation requires "fitting in" in terms of physical appearance as well as lifestyle, which can take various paths. In each case problems associated with cultural loyalty and identity are encountered. In one acculturation encourages the subterfuge of "passing" by lighter-skinned members in looks and manner as a member of the dominant group, and rejecting ethnic ties and support at the price of inviting their ethnic group's animosity. In an alternate bicultural path individuals of intermediate coloring retain grounding in the ethnic culture as they accommodate to the values of the dominant society in an attempt to have the "best of two worlds," but at the risk of keeping their worlds apart by splitting their loyalties and friendship ties. In yet another darker members become entrenched in their ethnic lifestyle in response to blocked opportunities in order to protect dignity and identity in the face of isolation from the mainstream and having their allegiance to country and national culture challenged. These are some examples of a complex process, but they illustrate the potential impact of race on life paths and adjustment. Therefore, survival in a country preoccupied with race is the primary reason the subject has remained taboo among Latinos in the United States. As a result it is seldom discussed in public.

The myth and its taboos serve the interests of the dominant society as well. When race does not matter the public is saved the trouble of having to justify personal prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior and explain institutional policies that diminish the quality of life for ethnoracial minorities in the United States. Instead, many Americans blame minorities' retention of their ethnic culture for blocked opportunities rather than their own racial attitudes. They explain that when Latinos retain their culture, they remain estranged, discourage acculturation, become oppositional, fail to learn the English language and create a flood of social problems. Consider those who blame the poverty on the family values of the Latino poor. Thus it pays both the minority and majority ethnic groups to deny the importance of race in their lives. The first group remains mute, deaf and blind to color so it can survive in a hostile environment and the second so it can be absolved for creating it.

Nevertheless, the reality of race intrudes on this conspiracy of silence. Unlike Latin America, the United States retains vestiges of slavery's de jure and de facto one-drop rule. The rule proposed that any trace of African lineage classifies one as "negro," a property and a slave. It favored the development of a fixed, divided society that expects people to belong to, identify with and marry into either the white or the black race. While miscegenation laws were declared unconstitutional, the associated attitudes were not. Latinos have difficulty meeting these expectations, though not their consequences, because they do not constitute a race. Their variegated racial characteristics span light-to-dark skin colors combined with parts of European, Amerindian and African physiognomy as the result of their culture's management of race relations as a fluid, class-like caste system that began 500 years ago. Culture and not race remains the salient source of the Latino's identification, and cultural identity and loyalty are secure in Latin America where one's allegiance to the country's language and culture is not questioned simply on the basis of the color of a one's skin. Not so in the U.S. Doubt begins more typically when crossing the international border between Mexico and the United States. Skin color can determine how easily one is singled out and pressed to verify nationality, as many dark-skinned Mexican Americans can attest.

Skin color discrimination lays bare the persistence of racism against people of many colors in United States that is steadfastly denied by the public by blaming the victim and the culture for unrealized aspirations in the Hispanic community. A conspiracy of silence between the mainstream and Latinos about race keeps racism alive and festering. But since co-dependent relationships require silent partners, institutions will continue to conduct divisive preferential treament as business- as-usual until Latino communities and those advocating their interests reveal the sham and openly acknowledge that race matters.

This is a synopsis of a paper I wrote this year for Social Perspectives (vol 1:1, pp. 87-106) titled, "Chasing myth and taboos about race and Latinos." References about the social and psychological impact of Latino skin color appeared in the Hispanic Journal of the Behavioral Sciences: Arce, Murgia and Frisbie's "Phenotype and life chances among Chicanos" (1987, vol. 9: 19-32) and Codina and Montalvo's "Chicano phenotype and depression" (1994, vol. 16: 296-306). Other references used in this synopsis were: Betances' "The prejudice of having no prejudice in Puerto Rico" (1972, The Rican, vol. 2: 42-46) and Gordon's "Race patterns and prejudice in Puerto Rico" (1949, American Sociological Review, Vol. 14: 194-301).