ON ETHNICITY

The topic of one’s ethnicity, particularly how people react to it, was presented in class this week. I found this topic quite interesting due to my own experiences to what was mentioned in the presentation. Part of my job description at my part-time work involves sales and I regularly meet with families from very diverse backgrounds to inform and persuade them to enroll in martial arts training. During these appointments, almost every time, I am asked about my ethnicity. Questions like “where are you from?”, “what are you?”, and “are you from here?” are not at all uncommon. I find these questions quite normal as I don’t assign anything to them other than curiosity from the inquirer, however, I do find the follow up questions and comments very interesting.

After disclosing my Mexican heritage, I get all kinds of reactions. The overwhelming majority of white american families express disbelief. They will sometimes insist that I cannot be Mexican for a variety of reasons like- “you’re not fat and short”, “you speak english very well”, “you’re probably more on the European side”, “you don’t look at all like the other Mexicans here”. In the case of hispanic families, their disbelief is directed at my manner of communication. Most of them immediately point out that my spanish is not replete with slang or that “I don’t talk Mexican”. Black, Indian, and Asian families don’t really say much and take my response to their question at face value.

Many of these families ask different questions about my family and my experience here in the U.S. Sometimes they seem very genuine and other times I do get the impression they’re attempting to determine whether or not I am a legal citizen here and often find the latter of these two scenarios vaguely amusing. I should mention that I do not take offense at the slightest to these questions, but do find the motivating factors behind these questions to be very interesting.

Sometimes, with comments like “you’re not fat and short enough to be considered Mexican”, the only emotions I feel are genuine fascination and confusion; fascination that someone would readily and unbridledly disclose his or her ignorance in such a manner, and confusion in whether or not it’s acceptable that I should find such politically incorrect comments so refreshing. I have also arrived at the point of turning these experiences into something of a social experiment. Although the evidence is admittedly anecdotal, I do find these patterns repeating- which makes me inquire…perhaps there is some merit to stereotypes after all?