are we all créoles?

Something that has been burping up in my life again is a feeling of racial sensitivity.  Now we all know that I am fairly ethnically caucasian.  My username is even danishguyky.  However, this does not mean that I am onboard when people "subtly" make racial jokes or reference racist stereotypes, as though I am meant to laugh along with them.  It's at this point that I tell them I'm Puerto Rican, which, I believe, helps separate me from the ugly white superiority complex and makes people think twice about what they're saying.  It also allows me to identify with ethnic groups to whom I often feel much closer.

I like that this perception challenges the stereotype of what people normally think about Latinos or whomever.  Modern Family's Sofia Vergara is as Colombian as you could possibly get, but she's naturally a blonde.

"Vergara has naturally blonde hair, but for movies and television, she is often asked to dye it brown to make her look more typically Latina."

Sofia and I share a common plight.  The street runs both ways.  For the past two years, I've hung out in the Chicano/Latino Center in the Multi-cultural Student Center of our union building on campus.  Whenever I wasn't there with my Mexican and/or Colombian friends, I felt like people were looking at me like I didn't belong.  One guy even said in Spanish, "Why's the white kid here?" as though I couldn't possibly understand Spanish.  Look, maybe you're from Yakima or Othello or someplace like that, but you don't hold a candle to a native Californian, who grew up in predominantly Spanish-speaking areas, was sent to Spanish immersion camp as a kid, and went to grossly predominantly Hispanic schools.  Yeah, I'm pretty sure I can understand Spanish.  And I do legitimately have Puerto Rican family : ) Maybe I need to change my name to Ky Vetterli del Rosario Soto Kamolz, just to prove a point.  Might get a scholarship or something!

I'm not trying to fool anyone here or gain sympathy for something I am certainly not entitled to; I am most definitely an ethnically white American.  But what I hate is the way that dominates people's perception of what I must be like, that I must belong among these people but not among these people, that I'm ignorant, wealthy, etc.

What I want is to break through this illusion and challenge society's perspectives about race, racial appearance, and the stereotypes that come with each group.  So for all intents and purposes, I am Puerto Rican.

Besides, mixed ancestry is very in vogue.