I thought I would mention this as a small example of a few instances I’ve come across in my life. They’re literally off the top of my head and because they’re so silly, they give me a real chuckle. But trust me, there are some memories that are so awful that I can’t bear to repeat because they’re still too heartbreaking to share.
Back in 1995, I had an altercation with a neighbor because her seven-year-old son hurt my then three-year-old son and broke his Little Tykes car purposely. I was obviously not happy and had a word with this neighbor and asked her to basically sort her son out. That didn’t happen and she was belligerent from that moment on. I was subject to name-calling and pretty ugly racial slurs from her and her friendly neighbors. I was called a “spic” and a “wetback” and while collecting my mail from the communal mail area, people I didn’t know would say that they would be calling “la migra” on me. They were African -American.
In 2004, I was walking in my hometown hand-in-hand with my English husband, I was at a stop light waiting for it to change when a man also waiting for the light was making small talk in Spanish. I understood every word but I was out of practice with the language but then he told me that I was the “worst kind of Mexican, a coconut” because of my broken language ability and because my choice of partner was white, I was a “pinche sell-out” and a “traitor to La Raza”.
In 1978, my sister joined her high school dance troupe in a predominately Anglo-American part of the city. She had to wear a blonde wig, wear light makeup and white pantyhose to match the other girls because she needed to look like the others. She quit.
In 1997, I was visiting Houston from England and was with my five-year-old son and three-month-old baby hanging out at the mall. My older son is dark skinned and is often mistaken as a mixed-race (African-American) child and my second child has fair complexion and green eyes. A woman was watching me and said that I had such a good manner with the children. Just as I was going to thank her for her compliment, she then said that I had such excellent English. She mistook me as their child-minder and not their mother.
In the 8.5 years I lived in England, no one...NO ONE ever said a derogatory comment to me regarding my dark complexion, in my face, at least. For the first time in my life, I was just Lorena, the lady with the difficult to pronounce name and was from Texas. At a bus stop in Bolton, a woman told me that I had the most beautiful brown skin and that I was very exotic looking to her and she found me beautiful. I literally cried all the way home. It makes me cry now, just thinking about it. The most interesting day to me was when the march on Westminster to protest the UK’s involvement in the Persian Gulf War was happening, I bought the Manchester Evening News from a street vendor. The man had words to say to me because he heard my accent and actually said, “You Americans...” For the first time in my life, I was just a simple American. He was mean but I was so happy. I was American to him.
Btw, I added the years to these silly events to prove a point; this is not new. It didn’t take Trump to be President for people to say crap to me or treat me like crap. It was always a part of my reality! Weirdly, I’ve not been called any racial slurs or anything relating to my ethnic makeup for a while now. I’ve been called a bi*** but that had nothing to do with me being Hispanic, I just was. Lol So, no, I don’t think the MAGA movement has caused all the racists to come out because they’ve always been there. It’s just being widely reported.
In a strange way, I am glad that it’s everywhere because everyone now knows. No longer will I have to listen to people tell me, “You are too sensitive” or “Can’t you take a joke?”, “You’re making a big deal out of nothing” or my favorite, “You only get upset because there may be some truth in it”.
In order to begin to understand the situation, you need to acknowledge that the situation exists. People’s eyes have finally been opened to it and witness it for themselves and they will never not know again.
