On most official forms where when is asked about race, there are always the same options: White, Black/African American, Hispanic, Native American, etc. — and usually one is forced to choose just one among the smorgasbord of identities. Picking which box to check is not that easy for me. If you quickly glanced at me, you would say I am white. I have light skin and do not look like I would fall into any other category. However, my mother was born in Colombia, my father's parents were born in Cuba, and I speak Spanish (almost) fluently. Additionally, I am Jewish, and whether Jews should be considered white or not has recently become a hot topic. So where does all of this leave me? Are these identities compatible? Do I have to choose between them like options on a menu? Can I get fries on the side?
I definitely look white, that is indisputable. When I try to hail a cab on a street corner I do not usually have a problem. However, if you asked any member of the KKK if they would consider me their racial kin, they would laugh harder than Marvel Studios executives at a Batman v. Superman screening. Jews are not any more white than black people by their standards. This is the only the instance where a Jewish person might agree with a white supremacist about race. This is true not only regarding Sephardic/Mizrahi Jews but also Ashkenazi Jews.
Ashkenazi Jewish unease with the white label largely stems having faced centuries of persecution at the hands of white, Christian, European civilization. Again and again, white, Christian, Europeans violently reminded Jews of their “otherness," of how much they were unwanted, and of how much they did not belong. This perception of Jews as “the other" was, to some extent, brought over by colonists to the New World. It was only 30 years ago that one could still find WASPy country clubs and gated communities in the U.S. with signs saying “no dogs, no Jews". As result of their consistent ostracization, Jews rarely saw themselves as anything but Jews. This mainstream perception of Jewish people as members of “the majority" — whether it be defined as white, Christian, ancestrally-european, or all of the above — is new, and some Jews today are hesitant to embrace it.
On a separate note what does it mean to be Hispanic, and do I qualify for the category? If you google “define Hispanic" the first page of results will all essentially say that it describes something or someone of or related to a spanish-speaking country. That is vague enough. The terms “of" and “related to" are like those text messages from that girl/guy that your kind of into that keep you up at night: they are way too up for interpretation. Jeb Bush lived in Venezuela, married a Mexican woman, and speaks fluent Spanish. Would that make him “of or relating to a Spanish speaking country"? Ted Cruz was born in Canada, grew up in the US, and speaks very poor Spanish, but his father is Cuban. Would that make him Hispanic? My gut feeling is most people would say no to Jeb and yes to Ted. If that is the case, that being Hispanic is more about one's ancestry than it is about one's connection to the culture.
If ancestry is the focus, then at what point down the family tree is one no longer hispanic? Could Ted Cruz's kids identify as hispanic because of their grandfather? Could his grandkids do the same because of his great grandfather? Also, how deep do one's roots in a Spanish-speaking country need to be for one to call one's self Hispanic? My family, on both sides, lived in Latin American countries for only two generations. Before that they lived in Poland and Turkey. Is that enough? Another relevant question is whether Hispanic is racial category, an ethnic category or both? I am not going to even try to address that here.
Although these identity questions are confusing and complicated, I am certain about one thing: I am me. I am not just white, or Hispanic or Jewish, or a combination of the three. I am also football fan. I am a movie lover. I am a big brother, a shower singer and a procrastinator. My skin color, my ethnicity, my religion and my ancestry are not the only parts of my identity. The most important question about this topic may be, how much should the boxes I check really even matter?
