{"id":144,"date":"2015-12-18T23:39:24","date_gmt":"2015-12-19T04:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sac3\/?page_id=144"},"modified":"2015-12-19T09:33:57","modified_gmt":"2015-12-19T14:33:57","slug":"participant-2-her","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sac3\/participant-2-her\/","title":{"rendered":"Participant 2 (HER)"},"content":{"rendered":"<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-144-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sac3\/files\/2015\/12\/Maoli.m4a?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sac3\/files\/2015\/12\/Maoli.m4a\">http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sac3\/files\/2015\/12\/Maoli.m4a<\/a><\/audio>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080\"><b>What do you identify as: race\/nationality\/ethnicity\/whatever you want to tell me?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I identify as <strong>an Afro-Latina woman<\/strong>, American, born from Dominican immigrant parents.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080\"><b>Would you sway towards the Afro side? the Latino side? Do you embrace both equally?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, my whole life has kind of been a journey in regards to my identification as an Afro-Latina woman. I try to be even, it doesn\u2019t work out. It\u2019s really hard to, but now this is kind of\u2026 college is the first time where I\u2019ve been actively trying to be more equal\u2026 When I was little, I was d<strong>efinitely rejecting more black and saying I\u2019m Hispanic<\/strong>. I\u2019d correct people a lot about that. Which is you know an important thing. There is that whole ingrained racism thing, but it\u2019s also really fucking annoying to kind of not ever be able to have something without having to tell people, you know? So it\u2019s like I figured the more people\u2026 I was like \u201cno, no I\u2019m not black. I\u2019m Hispanic.\u201d <strong>And I figured out that my biggest issue with that was if you tell someone \u201cblack,\u201d they think African American, and that\u2019s kind of what I was going against more than like actually being black.<\/strong> In the United States, black means African American, generally. Which, it\u2019s like false, there are black people in every race or ethn- you know whatever the word is I forget which one is which. So, I guess that\u2019s kind of what I was fighting against a lot more, obviously I\u2019m very dark. I\u2019m black, but I wouldn\u2019t say that I\u2019m Black, capital B, African American. Now, it\u2019s like I am black and I am Latina; it\u2019s kind of a reclamation for me at this point. I still believe that it is hard to say \u201cblack\u201d to someone and have them not think \u201cOh, so that means you\u2019re African American?\u201d&#8230; it\u2019s like no, I\u2019m full Dominican, right? Um.. at this point, this year I found myself, and last year, like really&#8230;black womanhood! with all this shit that\u2019s been going down with people getting killed for being black. That gets me really tight. So, I\u2019ve really been embracing my blackness. It\u2019s also the easiest thing for me to embrace because that\u2019s what people see. So, yeah. It\u2019s been interesting. I;ve tried really hard with the whole Latina thing for a while and now it\u2019s like elementary school, middle, high school and now coming into college, fuck that. Yeah, I\u2019m black. Now, it\u2019s like I want there to be more\u2026 I want to engage more with my Latinidad as openly as I do with my blackness, which I feel I do and the issue though is it just doesn\u2019t come up as much. In the United States, it\u2019s like talk around Latinas and Latinos is very Mexican and Mexico centered and even Central American. So it\u2019s also hard being this type of Latina, being this Dominican, Caribbean person. For example, my struggles with VISTA (Latin@ group on campus) and SOCA (Students of Caribbean Ancestry), VISTA &#8211; super Mexican\/Central American centered, SOCA &#8211; super Black, Jamaican, Caribbean countries. And you know there\u2019s me, in between the two there and I didn\u2019t feel at home in either. So it\u2019s definitely a lot easier for me to do the black thing. And I do that happily. That\u2019s cool. I would like &#8230;. I don\u2019t even know how that would come up\u2026 me engaged more with my Latinidad, I don\u2019t know how that would manifest itself, because a lot of it is also internal. I know this about myself, I listen to a shit ton of music in Spanish like all the time, it\u2019s just the shit that people don\u2019t exactly know. I\u2019m not posting articles on the internet about the Dominican Republic, or you know immigration. I\u2019m posting about black shit, and by Black, I mean African American shit. And that\u2019s been kind of interesting for me. I don\u2019t know if that really&#8230;.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080\"><b>Do you think that the environment at Williams College has kind of pushed this shift in how you\u2019re identifying?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I definitely do. I feel <strong>a lot more confident in my Latinidad<\/strong> that I don\u2019t feel the need to assert it so much all the time. And I think that comes from coming here, and one, being around people who are more educated than the people in my high school in that like, I might have to tell you but you can <strong>grasp the concept<\/strong> of Afro-Latina, right? Like, it\u2019s something that\u2026 by looking at me it\u2019s not something that you can assume right away. But, I can tell you \u201coh, I\u2019m Dominican\u201d and people would be like \u201cOh yeah!\u201d whatever. Whereas in high school, people would be like \u201coh no, you\u2019re Black\u201d and that was annoying. So if you weren\u2019t confident in that and being around people that are not as ignorant. And there\u2019s also, I also got over myself. It\u2019s like I came here and <strong>no one really cares<\/strong>. I mean, yeah they are capable of understanding, but at the end of the day it doesn\u2019t matter. My friends know, other Dominicans on campus know because we talk about it. And like that\u2019s really all you can do, and I\u2019m chill enough with that to kind of stick with it so I guess Williams have shifted it in that I feel more comfortable with being out there with my blackness, and no longer feeling that if I\u2019m saying all of this\u2026 if I\u2019m more into that and feeling blackness, it\u2019s not taking away from my Latinidad.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080\"><b>I\u2019m going to shift a little bit\u2026 Is there anything that you can say about your family life and your experiences at home as an Afro-Latina woman? Anything that you think \u2026 you wouldn\u2019t have experienced if you weren\u2019t Afro-Latina? Or even things in your community.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I\u2019d say one is I\u2019m very, very culturally Hispanic\u2026 for sure. The culture in my house, my parents are immigrants. It was all Spanish in the house, the food, the music, all of that stuff. My mom\u2019s attitude. The way I grew up was in a Dominican household \u2026 as Dominican and you could get in Texas. It\u2019s not like I had family to add on to that experience. I was born in Florida. We don\u2019t have any extended family at all. It\u2019s interesting\u2026 things that people assume I might know about Black-American, African-American culture that\u2019s honestly not a thing at all.. I\u2019ve learned way more things about black culture here at Williams than I ever did at home. Because even then, I didn\u2019t have black friends, because I didn\u2019t connect to them in this level. My friends were white and Mexican. So that was an interesting experience, I guess, and seeming like a defect in that way. <strong>Not like \u201cbougie,\u201d but like white-washed<\/strong>. Seeming whitewashed because I couldn\u2019t roll with the black kids, and it was mostly because I genuinely [didn\u2019t know]. Another interesting thing that isn\u2019t unique to Afro-Latina experience, but definitely differences in color. My dad and I are dark, my mom and my sister are light. I\u2019m sure biracial people deal with that too, but like that was interesting. I\u2019d go out with my mom and my sister all of the time, and it was weird being the little\u2026 they\u2019re like \u201cyou\u201d colored (I have light skin). There\u2019s the ever present hair thing. That was annoying. My mom did our hair. You know she did the <strong>desrizados<\/strong>, the relaxers, every 6 weeks. like clockwork. <strong>It\u2019s like having all of these black features, African features, and like my mom lowkey being like this is wrong&#8230;we\u2019re going to do what we can to fix it<\/strong>, which you know also happens in Black American families, but sometimes the mother also looks that way. My mother definitely has more European features.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080\"><b>Comparing your mom and your dad, what are the differences between them? Because you say you\u2019re very similar to your dad, and now you\u2019re talking about your mom and how certain things were \u201cwrong\u201d even though they weren\u2019t\u2026 but I\u2019m assuming that\u2019s just\u2026<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The way that she was raised. My dad looks like a black man, got my terrible eyesight from him. He also wears glasses. Nose, hair, totally\u2026 skin color, yes. My sister is really funny. She just looks like a mixed or light skinned black person. She has my mother\u2019s skin color but she has everything\u2026 she has very African features. My mom has a pointy nose, she\u2019s has like a normal face, her hair is wavy, it was obviously very curly. But she kept it short, so it\u2019s like wavy. Yeah, you would look at her and know that she was Hispanic, and you would not look at my dad and know he was Hispanic unless you were paying attention.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080\"><b>Going further into that, you were talking about certain attitudes and mentalities that your mom had, and how would you compare that with your dad?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">My dad is an attitude kind of guy. He\u2019s like if you have the right attitude and know how to talk to people, you\u2019ll get far in life, which is very optimistic of him. My mom she\u2026 well one we\u2019re daughters. She wouldn\u2019t have given nearly as much of a shit if we were little boys of course. Attitudes that she had was definitely there is a way that you look when you\u2019re in public, or in general, to be a human. And the way that you look is not running around with hair like mine. So straight hair. Clothing, early 2000\u2019s no one was stylish, so that wasn\u2019t a thing. Definitely, there was\u2026 outward appearances were very important to my mom, and that translated into other things too. Definitely, not how we looked, but also how we acted in public. We had to be very obedient and quiet. It was really funny, because it wasn\u2019t so much \u201cyou need to be disciplined children in public\u201d it was like \u201cyou need to look disciplined.\u201d Which obviously translated into us being disciplined because you know we were scared of her. One summer camp, we went swimming. We weren\u2019t supposed to go swimming because we can\u2019t wet our hair. We went swimming, we didn\u2019t have swimming caps. We were literally grounded for the rest of the summer, this was a huge ass deal, because we wet our hair at summer camp. <strong>My mom has a big stick up her ass with our hair<\/strong>, and also we acted, but for other people\u2019s benefit rather than to know how to act. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080\"><b>You spoke a little bit about your interactions with black peers in school when you were younger\u2026 On the flip side, what were your interactions with Hispanic\/Latino peers?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">My exposure to other Latino cultures is very concentrated around Mexican culture. Everyone who is Hispanic who I\u2019ve ever pretty much known has been Mexican. So, problems with that is that if they were Caribbean\u2026 like maybe if they were from Florida, they would be able to grasp and understand Afro-Latinidad being more of a thing. That wasn\u2019t a thing. So if it ever came up, and I was like \u201cOh, I do know Spanish\u201d they would go \u201cOh prove it!\u201d and would start speaking in Mexican Spanish. I don\u2019t know Mexican slang. Colloquialisms, and words \u201cOh, what does this mean?\u201d Which I obviously learned over time, it was really frustrating. I don\u2019t [have to prove]. People would be like \u201cOh, then you speak!\u201d and I don\u2019t like speaking Spanish because one, I knew it was different Spanish and two, <strong>I feel like I\u2019m under a lot of scrutiny<\/strong>. For example, if you (a lighter skinned person) were speaking Spanish and made a grammatical error, it\u2019s just like the way you\u2019re talking, whereas me making errors is lying or faking. Same thing with English, me making a mistake or using double negatives when I speak is different from when my dad does it because he has a strong ass accent. \u201cOh you don\u2019t know English\u201d versus with me \u201cOh you\u2019re just lazy.\u201d I feel that same kind of thing with my family because I am American and they\u2019re from the Dominican Republic. There\u2019s a lot of prove it! I don\u2019t believe you! I don\u2019t have an accent. No visual markers. So I didn\u2019t really.. my Mexican friends also hung out with more of the white kids. There were the four caps: white kids, Asian kids, Mexican kids, and black kids. Me and my Mexican friends were part of the white kids.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080\"><b>How did you cope with both treatments from the Hispanic and Black kids in terms of your identification? We go through a lot of identity politics within ourselves when we are younger.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I coped with it by kind of not coping with it. It was <span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><strong>my own form of racism<\/strong><\/span>, I feel like my hair\u2026 For example, all of the braids.. the cornrows and braids that the black kids had, I never had that. MY mom would have rather cut my head off than do that. I remember thinking a lot about hair when I was little\u2026 I was into it. I remember I was really concerned with\u2026 at my elementary school, there was the typical housing complex in the suburbs, and right next to that there were all of these town houses. The town houses were where all of the black kids got off of the bus. I got off at the houses because my parents were pretty chill with money for a while. I always made it a point to let people know that I don\u2019t live in the town houses. Definitely separating myself from the other black kids. It also didn\u2019t help that my whole elementary career, whatever the equivalent of the gifted and talented program is, within that there were not black children. I definitely had a superiority complex, because I had people telling me my whole life that I was smart, and also my hair was nice, whatever that means. There weren\u2019t that many Mexican kids at my elementary school to be honest. That came up more in high school, because that\u2019s when all of the elementary schools merged together. That\u2019s when I started seeing that, and by that time I was over myself a little bit in high school. And then, I just didn\u2019t talk to them because they were assholes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333399\"><b>Follow up question: If you could give a concrete or not so concrete definition of being Afro-Latina what would it be?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p>I think being Afro-Latina is a lot of things, technically I\u2019d say black people from Latin countries, but when you can actually tell by looking that someone is black it makes a difference. Like me versus my friend for example. She identifies as Afro-Latina which is chill but she\u2019s white as fuck. <span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><strong>So I think if you\u2019re too black for people to believe you know Spanish.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What do you identify as: race\/nationality\/ethnicity\/whatever you want to tell me? I identify as an&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1152,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-144","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sac3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sac3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sac3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sac3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1152"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sac3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sac3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sac3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/144\/revisions\/220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sac3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}