I’m a half-Hispanic (Puerto Rican)
Jewish (fully) woman with a multi-cultural and multi-religious extended family.
I have been FORTUNATE to have experienced prejudice – why do I say fortunate? I
was lucky enough to never have life or limb seriously threatened (a few “mild”
shoving matches), but more importantly, I learned what it felt like to have
bigots be unkind, deny you your rights, and treat you as if you don’t belong.
And because I have been on “that side”, I know how wrong it is – I take any
prejudice towards any people personally because if I accept it in any way then
I am just as guilty.
I’ve been told to “go back where I
came from”, that would be the Bronx in NYC. In 1968 after three weeks in the Miami sun,
combined with my already medium olive complexion, I visited family in South
Carolina (the year of race riots) where my blond-haired blue-eyed
cousin and I got into a heap of trouble for walking down the street TOGETHER
(oh my!). My first serious teen-age boyfriend was forbidden from seeing that
**** (insert derogatory Hispanic term here) by his parents. As a female I’ve
actually had business-people tell me that they had to speak with my husband and
not “the little woman”; LITTLE? I guess I’m complimented, I may be short but…
oh never mind. I’ve been called more than one nasty term to describe my
ethnicity (both halves), my religion, my gender and my physical attributes.
There has probably been more that just went right on over my head (I said I was
short!).
I do remember an incident which I
chuckle over – I was seventeen, had a wicked and distorted sense of humor, and
didn’t mind lambasting someone with “shock value”. My sister (slightly fairer
than me) and her blond-haired husband had a baby shortly before she came down
with chicken pox; my parents and I cared for my nephew to give them a chance
for her to get well and not get the infant sick. A proud aunt, I carried my
fair skin nephew in an infant pouch while doing grocery shopping when this
older, judgmental woman looked down her nose at me and said, loudly and nasty, “Harrumph,
His father must be white!” I looked at her and then at my nephew and simply
said, “You know, I really don’t know.” She did call me a slut under her breath,
but I also left her jaw hanging open.
As I wrote my novel Hyphema I
remembered the passive and not-so-passive prejudice I’ve lived through. It was
extremely important to me to represent someone who was so good inside and yet
her very appearance invited hatred. Sudah, a Pakistani Muslim immigrant married
to an American-born Caucasian man wasn’t oblivious to the bigotry she
encountered, but she refused to react with anger and resentment. In one scene
it gave her a lot of joy to help educate others and share some of her culture
as she hosted a day of cooking lessons for the wives of her husband’s new
co-workers. Sadly it wasn’t just their North Carolina neighbors who reacted
badly to their mixed marriage, but also her parents and family back in
Pakistan.
In tribute to the 60th anniversary of the Beatles
coming to our shores, I leave you with John Lennon’s words:
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
