we'll have to check your backpack

If you had asked me a few years ago, I would have told you that there is no racism in Mexico. I would have believed it, too. But these changes in my life have meant more than just sharing our lives. They have also changed the way I see my country. Not only because he shows me the country through his eyes, but because going to places with him proves to be a different experience.

The very act of observing something, changes it. We know that. But, does it matter who does the observing?

We are very well treated everywhere we go. People fall all over themselves to make us happy. Mostly we are not annoyed by the people trying to "be helpful" and showing us which cereal they think is best.

But. I've been saying "We" and "Us", and that's wrong. It's him. He is a foreigner. He has blue eyes, strawberry blond hair, and a foreign accent. That makes him, to every Mexican's beautiful brown eyes, better than them, better than me.

When his hair was long, people would tell me not to let him cut his hair. Never mind that they think that I somehow "let him" cut his hair or not, the reason they did this was because "it's such a beautiful colour". I don't have to tell you that what I like about his hair is the way it feels in my hands, and my eyes are usually closed. I don't care that his hair is [strawberry] blond. Or that his eyes are blue. Or that he doesn't tan. I do care that people see and resent the preference the headteacher has for him, because regardless of her reasons - which might have been his physical appearance at first, but I like to think this has changed and evolved from that to the fact that he is incredibly smart -, people will always think that this is because of the way he looks. I wish it didn't matter to them.

And then there's the other stuff. I use a backpack instead of a purse. Many reasons for this, I won't go into them now. The thing is that when we go to Costco, I take my backpack with me. And this is fine, but the other day I went to Costco on my own, and as I was leaving, they asked to check my backpack. I let them, thinking it was a one off thing. I went again with him, probably the same day or the day after, and they did not, so that's what I was left thinking, a one off thing. But then I went again on my own. And they checked my backpack again. They do this when I go alone, because I am not with the foreigner.

Sometimes, with certain people, I get treated as if I was alone, because Will is a foreigner and I should be with a Mexican. There are people that have treated me with disrespect for this. It's embarrassing to even think about it.

There are many small things that I can see because I get both sides of the coin, depending whether I'm alone or with Will, depending on how they feel about it. It is wrong, though. I know that.

The adverts on TV don't show dark skinned people unless they are discussing poverty. People in TV adverts are fair skinned and thin. Some of them will be blond(e), far too many if you consider the population average. Fair skinned people are perceived to be more cultured, richer, better. Tough shit if you consider that most of the population is brown skinned, what they don't see is that the media is keeping them down and they are loving it all the way.

Mexicans treat other Mexicans like crap. We are racist. It makes me feel so sad to think how it must feel to hate the skin you were born with.

Comments

[gabo]

It's, sad to say, so true. I get it a lot on the way we treat the pochos (mexican-american some may call them), sure, they might be arrogant and all that, but sometimes we don't get that some of them really, really, really can't speak spanish (and the nopal at the forehead comments arise).

I'm not feeling sorry for them, it's just this cultural thing we have as mexicans, tough stuff, huh?

[Nancy]

Really interesting observations. And sad. If I imagine myself in your position, it would be hard to take.

When I had the first class of Mexican students here, they shocked me with their frank discussion of skin color, and their contempt for dark color, especially their own.

[Nancy]

Oh, p.s: white middle class Americans are racist, too. Even the Democrats.