Scared, Hated, Hopeless

 

                                                                     

I was 12 years old the first time I was targeted by a group of “Mean Girls”. I started 7^th grade in a new school, cross-country from my old school, and was chased home every day for two weeks by the local girl gang. It took me two more weeks to figure out I was being threatened with bodily harm because my skin color was not the right shade. For someone who only judged people by their actions and not their appearance, this was earth-shattering.

As the school year went on, I learned that the town of Yuma, Arizona is what is termed a “border town”. Only five miles from the Mexican/American border, Spanish was spoken more than English and brown hair, eyes, and skin were acceptable while mine was not. In fact, I was one of only seven glow-in-the-dark white students in my junior high school of over 500 students. My strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes labeled me foreign long before I ever opened my mouth to trip over my broken and beginning Spanish. I was persona non grata, and while I didn’t appreciate it then, I am thankful for the experience now.

Gloria Anzaldua, in her article “Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza”, described the United States/Mexico border as “es una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds. And before the scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country—a border culture” (3). My time in this “border culture” was every bit as harrowing as she described, yet I was a young white girl. I constantly worried about being “raped, maimed, strangled, gassed, shot” (3) as well as kidnapped. I was stalked by carloads of Mexican men, derided by Mexican women for not having any curves (ha! I have the last laugh there with “hips that don’t lie” now!), and I was assaulted by locals who reached out to caress my “magic” hair and trace my numerous freckles. Though I didn’t realize what it was at the time, I felt how the “tension grips the inhabitants of the borderlands like a virus” (4). It was awful, a constant fight or flight response waiting to happen. I learned then what it felt like to be an unwanted minority and I never forgot it, even after I moved away to other places where my skin color was once again “common” and acceptable.

 

           

It was also about this time that I began to ask about my own heritage, my own ethnicity. Despite the negative aspects of living in the border town, I was fascinated by the bright, vibrant culture I saw all around me. The food, music, clothing, and language were woven into every aspect of Yuma. People were proud of their heritage, of their people. I had never experienced anything like that, and I was jealous of the sense of belonging, the sense of self, their cultural ethnicity provided them. When I asked my mom about my own heritage, she said we are good, old-fashioned Americans…a Heinz 57 mixture of Irish, Scottish, Native American, French, British, and Danish, with a dash of who-knows-what-else. As an adult, I identify most with my Irish roots. I mean, my name Erin is actually derived from the Celtic word ‘Eire’, meaning Ireland. Still, my roots are nothing compared to those Mexican families I saw in Yuma nor my Puerto Rican husband’s sense of identity that comes from his island heritage.

I have no idea if my ancestors were forced into exile or chose to leave their homelands. In this instance, I agree with Eva Hoffman’s take on exile. In her article, “The New Nomads”, she says, “On one level, exile is a universal experience. But, of course, exile also refers to a specific social and political condition—although even in that sense, it was never a unitary category, and we tend to compress too many situations under its heading” (43). In other words, while what happened to my ancestors eventually led to where I stand today, it does not define me. Only I can do that, though I do love me some potato…in any form. Irish roots showing, perhaps? 😊

Thirty years have passed since I was last chased home by a group of brown-skinned girls. I have not forgotten how they made me feel: scared, hated, hopeless. Yet every time I think about them, I send a silent “thank you” into the universe. Thank you for sharing your frustration towards what I know see and recognize as my white privilege. Thank you for teaching me empathy and sympathy towards others who don’t fit the “norm” of any given situation. Thank you for showing me that skin color should not matter; not mine, not yours. May I use my experiences to help others, forever and always.  

~~Erin