REFLECTION // THE ETHICS OF THE IN-BETWEEN
The Box
I’m an American with a mixed ethnic background. Where do I belong?
by Sarah Vedder
EXCERPT //
I would have to commute to a local college to pursue my bachelor’s degree, and I’d rely on grants, scholarships, and personal loans to make it happen. The teacher, who was a major support during this time, would go over financial aid and help me search for scholarships after school. When we came across one for Hispanic and Latino students, he told me to go for it.
“I don’t think that’s meant for me,” I replied.
“There is no rule saying how Spanish you have to be in order to apply,” he said.
The criteria for the scholarship he encouraged me to apply to emphasized the following: financial need, GPA of 2.7 or higher, and community service involvement. I checked all these boxes and decided to go for it despite my underlying reservations. Being of mixed Hispanic and European ancestry, my parents humorously labeled my siblings and me ‘American Mutts.’ I’ve always felt close to my Hispanic roots due to my appearance, attending school in a diverse city, and my mother’s Puerto Rican and German background. She’d inherited her Spanish father’s dark skin, brown eyes, and coarse, curly hair. She faced prejudice from peers during adolescence, and later in life from her own in-laws.
There was a sentiment among my young classmates growing up that any bit of Latino/Hispanic ancestry served as a qualifier. More importantly, who you were and how you carried yourself made you fit in or stand out. Perhaps this was a trait of the mid-2000s, whereby white classmates who spoke and behaved in a manner fitting to our urban setting were accepted, and people of color who conducted themselves in a way associated with stereotypical “white culture” were in some form ostracized.
It didn’t matter to my sister and me that we were only 25% this or 6% that because we could still trace it back to the source. We were proud to claim our great-grandfather’s Native American ties to the Mi’kmaq in Maine, because it connected us to something beyond just being white. It went unsaid, but we associated white with being boring. Not to mention all the historical implications of immorality. My sister and I were immersed in Hispanic culture during our adolescence and teenage years because that was our environment in school. We learned to dance bachata and merengue. We listened to reggaetón. Our best friends and boyfriends were of a variety of Hispanic and Latin cultures. We carried ourselves like city girls and flaunted a body that warranted the occasional, ‘Aye, mami, you must be Boricua!’ //
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