My niece T. is really my great niece as her mother is my niece 8 years younger than I am.
I was adopted into a Southern White family when I was 3 days old, taken from my birth mother and handed into the arms of the adopted mother.
I was dark skinned because my liver didn't work and I had jaundice. At 3 days old the doctor said you can take her home but she won't live long. The parents had two natural daughters aged 16 and 12, the four of them were very white. I got much paler as I aged and lived.
My birth mother was staying at the adopted mother's mother's boarding house.
She told them my birth father was Italian. She was German. Both were first generation Americans.
My adoptive mother hated Italians, and let's admit pretty much looked down on any one not "pure" white, she equated Italians to insects... but out of the goodness of her heart she " took me in".
I had no say in the matter, being 3 days old.
My 16 year old sister rejected me for taking attention from her. The 12 year old treated me like a doll. My adopted father was mostly altered from alcohol use as he tried to escape his life. The mother set the tone and ran the family.
I grew up being reminded I didn't fit in, my skin was tan but my hair was straight and blond. I didn't fit in, "you have olive skin" she'd say. She pressed the point often roughly to me til my adopted father informed her one day not to mention that one more time.
the 16 year old was married by the time I was 4, and starting her own white family.
The 12 year old grew up moved out when I was 7 and had my niece C. when I was 8. I grew up with her and we were like sisters. C.married a Mexican man and eventually had my niece T. (mini me as I thought of her)
I remember sitting with T. when she was about 3, she petted my arm and said, Aunt LeeAnna you have skin like mine! We smiled at each other knowing we belonged together. We were soul mates.
I grew up filling out forms for school and work etc, and always checked the box White because that was on my birth certificate filled out by my birth mother. I consider myself white. Self Defense in our family.... better not mention the ugly Italian connection if you wanted peace. And Italians are considered white I think. My hair darkened as I aged but remained stick straight and thin. I tanned easily. See I was half German, half Italian. I looked German, was tall and muscular, big feet and hands. I never fit into my adopted family.
T. went to live in Mexico when her mother married for the second time to another Mexican man.
How did this lovely petite smart funny girl identify? She said in Mexico she was that " (curse word) gringa American" and not acceptible. In the USA where her mother was born, and T was born, where she was a citizen, other kids were merciless in putting her down. She was that wet back spic"
She didn't belong anywhere either. She was always light skinned, straight long brown hair with brown eyes. My eyes are hazel green/brown/golden. She always looked white to me but also laid her arm on mine when we got together again, and we smiled.
C. had two boys too, who looked darker. They still navigate their way through the two countries, belonging to both and neither.
once in Tenn. the younger one, aged 16 was riding his bike in the bike lane and an old woman fully hit him with her car. When the cops got there she blamed the mexican. She drove off and A. was detained for questioning despite witnesses.
His older brother was called a Sand Nig--r in Elementary school in Tenn. and he spoke up and said I'm a mexican american you idiot, get your slur right.
As a child, I never thought much about my race, white privilege. I thought about it often as I grew up because I hated all the nasty names my black friends endured.
I'm sick of a man who's running for president over these diverse united states, words putting down the other candidate because she comes from an Indian mother and Black father. She is both, and it doesn't matter as she is American. That's the only identifier we need.
in the old days, maybe today too, if you had one drop of "black" ancestry you were black, ignoring the fact that a lot of people were so light skinned. Gotta hold people down somehow.
years later I had a visit from a quilting friend, and she was constantly called names, harassed by police, because she was partly Native American. I never noticed and was surprised to hear the horrors she lived with.
Some people wouldn't have known to keep her down unless they were told she wasn't "pure"white.
I'm tired of all the artificial divisions put upon us. Just stop it please.
to that candidate who's worried about Kamala's heritage, don't worry your pretty little white head, she's American and she represents me.
