Week 12: Seeker. Are we mixed or Mulatto?

Reading the article Being Blaxican in L.A, made me do Latino connection with the “Casta System.” A system used in Latino America to represent and identify you race and ethnicity. The system was based on how much “Black” or “Spaniard/European” you had. This “system” was enforced solely through the color of skin tone, and your parents as well.  The people who were mixed with black and Spaniard were considered Mulatto. And the term Mulatto in the Casta system would place you 5th to the top. Not bad right? But have a Casta System, was it really to identify a person, or was it to keep suppressing others based on their skin tone. In the article Thompson-Hernández , is Mexican and African American, what would he be considered in the Casta System? In today’s time he is considered to be biracial, and to be mixed Black and Mexican may put him in a disadvantage. Not because Latinos want it that way, but because America has made It that way. If you are not White/European/Spaniard, you are most likely the marginalized or the “other”. As a Latina women, who is not mixed but my family members are Mexican/Guatemala/Salvadorian/Black, I don’t understand the oppression in our community. I would like to think that the more diverse the U.S. is, the more beautiful this country would be. If this election has taught us anything is, we need to be one, and accept all. We cannot let society oppress people who are part of this nation. The Casta system in my eyes, seems like a modern day racial category, who is lighter and who is darker. People like Thompson, should not be ashamed or put down for being of a mixed ethnicity. We should empower all people who are diverse and different.

 

http://faculty.smu.edu/bakewell/bakewell/period.html

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/07/10/mestizo-and-mulatto-mixed-race-identities-unique-to-hispanics/

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