My Skin Tone Is White, Yet I've Been Discriminated Against My All My Life

I wasn’t more than 4 years old the first time it happened. ‘Go back where you came from’ was hurled through the air at me like a poisoned dart. The admonition confused me. I lived in America like everyone else I went to school with and was from Pasadena, MD. Were I to be dropped off in Mexico, I would have no more connection to it than if I had been dropped off on Mars.

My dad was from West Virginia; my mom was from Mexico City. My maternal grandfather was a Mexican Indian and my grandmother was from Spain, of mixed European heritage. And while I would never condone racism against someone who was fully Mexican or who belonged to any other race, I always found it odd that I suffered so greatly for such little Mexican ancestry as I possessed.

My skin is white, downright pale even. I'm half Irish and at least a fraction Spanish. But I've learned that one is not considered, 'white' unless one looks like there are no traces of Hispanic or ethnic blood. 

In school the taunts to go back where I came from only grew stronger. By the fifth grade I was just fighting for survival. My way to the water fountain was often blocked and most often by the boys whose shins I would kick in retaliation for kicking mine. I was harassed on the bus and in the neighborhood. There was scarcely a place I could go that was safe.I had no friends. Except for one that I’ll talk about later.

I want to pause here and state that I grew up in a middle to upper class area on the outskirts of Pasadena, MD, as far east as you can go before you reach the ultra-rich neighborhood of Gibson Island. Rows of houses lined the narrow streets that were flanked on all sides by bodies of water, bays, and inlets related to the Chesapeake. 

We lived in a moneyed area, no doubt about that. We didn’t have violence, and crimes committed there were minimal. When I was in high school there were kids zipping by regularly in expensive cars their parents had bought. It was not uncommon to see Porsches or BMWs driven by pimpled-ridden youths.

So our area was wealthy. Upstanding of sorts. But underneath the manicured lawns, and despite the pool parties, a thick racism permeated the air. Oddly enough, our class was almost entirely bereft of African Americans. I can only remember one such student throughout the elementary years.

And, for me, the exclusion dragged on as did the fights in the neighborhood and the fights at school. At recess I was approached by kids who would cuss me or throw punches. 

Every single day. 

I was told that I was dark, that they could not understand my English, and that maybe I could speak some Mexico talk for them.

I was unable to speak more than a few words of Spanish until my teens.

I was also called ugly and retarded. At lunch I sat with a child who was obviously mentally handicapped because she was the only friend who would have me. She often twisted her hair and ate it, as the drool spilled profusely out of her mouth. They treated her even worse than they treated me. 

They one time asked her whether she thought she was pretty, to which she replied ‘yes’. They looked at each other, incredulous, before bursting into laughter.

She burst into sobs.

I often contemplated suicide. And the adults were no help. I told the guidance counselor, on occasion, what was going on and could tell that they did not care one ounce about it. Not once did a teacher break up any of the schoolyard fights between me and the group of kids that daily accosted me. It would be fighting an uphill battle to get anyone to care.

At home, the community regularly threw trash and beer cans in our yard. Everyday my brother and mother would go outside and clean up the mess. When my sister was a teenager, the tires of her car were slashed, her car windows busted out, and our upstairs window shot several times with a BB gun.

Kids wearing polo shirts with the Ralph Lauren insignia hurled ugly threats at me. Boys with the Izod alligator stitching threw well-placed kicks that bruised my legs. My bicycle was stolen from behind the shrubbery outside my front parlor window. But I was on my own.

I eventually grew up and got married but have found that racism often lingers over like a bad odor. 

As an adult I have still been called ‘dark’ and have still had people insinuate to me that ‘my people’ are the cause of so many problems in America. People have openly said things to me which are insulting and downright cruel. 

And even though I am an American citizen whose white, Anglo, European-blooded father was also an American citizen, there are certain places I will not travel alone without my, also white, husband because of such racism.  It is because people treat me differently when I am in the company of my white husband or relatives that I won’t travel alone.

I have been followed by shopkeepers while perusing merchandise while not looking entirely white.

I’m not unaware of being treated differently than others at times, even in polite company. It’s something I can’t talk about often because social pressure actually dictates that I don't say I've experienced racism because of the fact that I actually am white. 

So, basically, I’m white when it’s convenient and I’m not white when it’s not. The fact that I would experience racism does not mean that anyone else does or does not experience it. It means that more than one group can experience racism. It is the racism that is the problem, regardless of how many groups are at the receiving end of it.

And in today’s news we often hear of the idea of building of a wall between America and Mexico, because it is ‘known’ that illegals rape our citizens. People now talk more openly of the disdain with which they regard Mexico. 

And it hurts. 

Many of these people are my friends and my neighbors, and I see that as a country we are moving in reverse. Instead of childhood bullies, there are now bullies in corporate boardrooms and as candidates running for political office.

I am seeing racism as a platform on which to hope to get votes.

I am watching people throw verbal stones blindly, hoping to hit some proverbial Mexican in the head. But they’re not hitting their target. They’re hitting me and others like me, American citizens who are growing and prospering and affecting change in this great nation we all call our home. 

They’re hitting people of mixed racial heritage who have lived here all their lives and who have never done a thing to be deserving of such hatred. I do not understand why this nation whose Lady Liberty says to, ‘give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free’, is the same nation who treats those who do come as less than and undeserving.

And I see that even these many years later that things are coming around full circle, as wave after wave of unbridled racism rings through the air. I see that, ‘letting freedom ring’ is still a long way off as blacks are still fighting for equality in the justice system and as Mexicans are viewed and regarded with hatred. And I see also that, once again, I can have white skin and still be a target of racism.

Rosa Hopkins is a writer of words, a singer of songs and a dreamer of dreams; child of the King, gloriously saved. She is the co-founder of Great Commission Records, is a radio recording artist, producer and musician and co-hosts, ‘The Joe and Rosa Show’ on WDZY, AM & FM, Richmond, VA. She lives and writes in the hills of WV with her husband, miracle baby, Jack Russell and a shapeless hound named Lou.

Rosa’s author page: www.facebook.com/rosahopkinswriting

Rosa’s blog: www.lifeinsidethehouseontherock.com