Colorism in the Latin/Hispanic Communities

Some people are defintiely not going to like what I have to say but, I am SO glad my father told me “speak more spanish”. Not because he expected me to learn on my own, he still corrects my spanish to this day. But because on some level he wanted me to stay as close as possible to my Mexican roots.

The biggest problem with this, is that Mexicans were colonized and had a history of trying to eradicate the indigenous population before them. That even though they value being Mexican, they do not value blackness. And they still have the same problem the United States has, they value whiteness above all else.

Let me tell y’all a little something.

Did you ever wonder why a lot of conservative Latinos/Latinas tend to push back on any attempts to change the spanish language? Even though all languages evolve over time? After all, the spanish language is just a language, and it’s spoken differently depending on where someone is from. It’s the same reason your english teacher has to teach you grammar rules. School is the first place you learn what are the “proper rules” of a language are, they do this for your own benefit. But both the english language and the spanish one are remnants of time of real colonialism. A time when my ancestors where stripped of their culture/their language/their religion/their very identities, and were forced into assimilation.

Once upon a time ago, what happened to my indigenous ancestors wasn’t considered brutish or conservative. It’s what colonists did in order to CONQUER their enemies, in order to escape the hell that had been created in Europe. And until we come face to face with this truth, we will never grow as a nation. It’s why I don’t care about “proper spanish”.

Much like how the Black American community has the ugly secret of colorism, so to does the Latin American community; The only different is in Latin America the line is drawn in language, and culture. A lot of national identities are built upon common history; In Mexico that identity is more prominent in states like Jalisco or Sonora or even Mexico City (el D.F. as some native Mexicans call it). But what a lot of Mexicans won’t tell you about their history; is how one side of their national identity did a lot more than what Americans did to their indigenous people…