Episode 002 – What anti-Black dichos did you grow up with?

[0:00:02 Speaker 0] mhm. Okay, Mhm. And yeah,

[0:00:09 Speaker 1] you’re listening. Toe Latin Experts A podcast of Latino studies at the University of Texas at Austin Latin experts features the voices of faculty, staff and students, as

[0:00:21 Speaker 2] well as friends and alumni

[0:00:23 Speaker 1] of the Department of Mexican

[0:00:24 Speaker 0] American and Latino Latino Studies. The Latino Research Institute and the Center for Mexican American Studies. Join us for this episode of lasting experts. Mhm.

[0:00:44 Speaker 2] I’m Rachel Gonzalez Martin, and I’m speaking with my colleague and friend Berlin Lopez, and we’re gonna be talking about racist language, right? Yeah, yeah, I think it’s actually really interesting that we should probably say that we’re gonna be saying a lot of things that seem funny and sound funny and probably were funny when we were little. But there’s something much deeper going on, and so we kind of have to pay attention. So I think that’s but then what do you think? Do we have to add any more caveats for our our our Latino listeners or everyone listening about what we’re doing?

[0:01:21 Speaker 0] I think you’ve summed it up just perfectly because they are beetles that we grew up with. You know that our parents said our siblings that we’ve even used without even thinking.

[0:01:31 Speaker 2] Absolutely.

[0:01:32 Speaker 0] I think we’re gonna have a great

[0:01:33 Speaker 2] conversation. But I also think that people are going to hear us laughing and I know I’m laughing, and we both you work on humor and language. Specifically, I have in the past, and I studied tradition, and we’ll get into that a little bit about our specializations and why this conversation is so interesting to us, but also that we have to remember across the board that sometimes laughing is a sign of discomfort. And it’s some in many ways how we deal with, uh, language that or ideas that cause us a little bit of nervousness, right? So the idea that we’d be laughing doesn’t mean we’re taking it lightly. And I think that’s kind of e don’t know. I think that’s important to say. Remind people the nervous giggles sometimes get us. Maybe we should start with where we’re coming from because I think one of the things that communities, or especially highly educated communities, or even just don’t know any community of people, think that these kinds of racist histories don’t belong to them or they belong toe like a nice, elated part of the community. And so why don’t we kind of talk about where we’re from? Because we’re not from the same place. We didn’t grow up together, right? So, assuming that our experiences of the same so maybe you could introduce yourself, pull em from the perspective of you know, where you grew up, how you grew up.

[0:02:48 Speaker 0] Yeah. Awesome. Thanks for that, Rachel. So, uh, my name is a limb. I’m originally from the Texas Panhandle, a small town called Canadian in the middle of nowhere. My parents are both from the state of Chihuahua and in Mexico. And I had a I think a very similar upbringing. Tow lots of folks. We did a lot of traveling back and forth, so I made. I went to school during the school year in Texas, but every summer, I always joke that my mom, the minutes classes were done. We were in the car heading to heart it from my family from the border. And we’ve done summers there and every vacation. So it was kind of Ah, mixed bean in Texas. Um, in the US and at home, my parents made a speak Spanish way weren’t allowed Thio really speak English. Um, to my parents, we’re terrified that we would lose their language. And I think that explains why I study tension with bilingualism and language.

[0:03:43 Speaker 2] Oh my God bless. It’s so interesting that you say that because my experience is, at least so far is exactly the opposite. Because I grew

[0:03:51 Speaker 0] up

[0:03:51 Speaker 2] in California, I envied everyone who was able to say, like, Oh, no, I was in Mexico last summer with my cousins or for Christmas, We’re going for a month or my parents were taking me out of school. I had none of that. I have no connections. Toe like regular travel back to Mexico, even though my family is from Chihuahua was, well and Web early on, and so I never went. And the exact opposite as well, is that my parents were English dominant, and so we always spoke English, and in fact, my parents were Chicano. So the idea that English was very important, that sort of this pushback about cultural assumptions of how American we were or where we belonged, like in school. Um, I think that’s super interesting, because I think we kind of have landed in similar places where We both have a particular kind of interest in language and the main particularly tradition. So the same reasons that you might focus on how people speak in different ways of language use and how that affects people’s minds, right? Their development. And I’m thinking about the ways in which people access community through verbal forms of material forms from Latino communities, Right, cause I’m grasping at a connection on Do you seem to be deepening your your knowledge of what you’ve experienced that makes sense, That sound?

[0:05:10 Speaker 0] Yeah, that that makes absolute sense. And, you know, e think we have to acknowledge that there was a privilege that my family had, that we were able to go back and forth. You know, like that I do want to be upfront about that, but also, there’s been a lot of unlearning I’ve had todo from going back, and I think we’ll cover today a little bit.

[0:05:30 Speaker 2] Yeah, with the conversation. Well, I think this idea of unlearning is really important, right, because as we were talking before and I was thinking, you know, this is a funny conversation because there is, ah, little bit of questions about privacy and guilt with having a conversation about, you know, things that our parents, our grandparent’s or Dios India’s may have said that we know what identifies as racist, right? Especially when you think about coming from a cultural with where Rispetto is such an important part off how we treat our elders or how we ideally treat our elders and our families. Three idea of calling someone out has all sorts of implications. I think, personally, right whether whether what we say is received well or not. And so I think that’s, you know, some of the things that you know will be able to touch on, right thinking about language and family, thinking about what do we do, right? We have this this culture of respect. How do we, you know, is speaking out part of this narrative, But I was also thinking about like what we retain, right? So I I always felt so different from my grandparent’s generation in particular, and I grew up with my grandparents in my home since I was little. But now I I understand, and I was making fun. I understand why my grandpa put jalapeno and chili on everything like I understand that Now I get it. Like, you know, there should be chilly on your table, whatever meal you’re eating from, you know, from eggs in the morning toe apple pie. He literally put chili on apple pie. And I’m like, Yeah, I get that. I get that this punch of flavor totally. And even my grandmother, I always thought she was I didn’t understand. It was a person were very different, very different, culturally, very different, you know, socially and I But I get why she put on red lipstick like until the day she died. She wanted to have her lipstick done. And I get that now, that sort of sense of pride and dignity and and putting oneself together in the power of of self adornment. Right? That all makes sense. But what doesn’t is the racist stuff. What doesn’t it? Some of those the things that they would say and I’m like, I can’t take that with me, you know? So what do we think about, like, what do we know about what do you remember from growing up? Because I think that we have these really formative years in these formative memories of of normalized racism, right? traditional racism, The things that just came with visiting family or hearing people tell stories or jokes, right?

[0:07:54 Speaker 0] Took? Yeah, like, you know, as you were talking about your grand parents, I think about my my own Abello. Um he had to be. He couldn’t leave the house without Kahane like that was, you know, he could not leave the house. And my you

[0:08:09 Speaker 2] know what that is

[0:08:15 Speaker 0] like a sombrero, like he has. So where he always had to wear a hat and, you know, my own release. She if anyone came to her house, she had to constantly feeding them, you

[0:08:24 Speaker 2] know, like,

[0:08:25 Speaker 0] you know, But then some of the things that they would say it it’s like how you welcome people into your home. But then you’re completely marginalizing and, you know, pushing other people away with what you say. Um,

[0:08:39 Speaker 2] absolutely, like,

[0:08:41 Speaker 0] yeah. And it speaks to like how some of these things are so ingrained that we even growing up, we probably use them without even thinking about it and what it actually means.

[0:08:51 Speaker 2] Oh, my God. I think that’s so true. Because I remember. I remember when I was well, I was never allowed to date because I was I was, Ah, Mexican American teenager. I was never allowed to date. I remember you are concerned these ideas of conservative values. Um, I remember very distinctly being told when I was a teenager and this is again I’m in a English dominant household, very much assimilated, educated parents, but multigenerational. And so my grand parents were really still matriarch and patriarch of our everyday lives. And I remember being told that you don’t bring home Ah, black man like you’re not dating now. But when you do start dating, no, like you don’t you don’t go out with black men. And I was at the time you I’m just a kid. I’m like, write that down, whatever. You know, because I’m listening and I’m being respectful. But at the same time, I remember being really confused, and I grew up in in the Bay Area in California. So the population was definitely, you know, mixed, multicultural African American, Asian, American, Latino, native white. But like, you know, there was a huge spectrum. It wasn’t like I grew up somewhere, like in my brain. It would have been like we don’t come from a small Pablito. That’s all Mexican or, you know, or Mexican immigrant, right? There’s not a clear sense of those lines, but in their minds there was a very a very clear sense of what was okay and what was not okay. But no one ever explained it to me. You know,

[0:10:22 Speaker 0] Uh, that’s very interesting. And I think, uh, that can get us into, like, one of the same literally wanted to coverage

[0:10:29 Speaker 2] a like jacaranda LaGrassa because I think that’s

[0:10:31 Speaker 0] what That that it’s sort of ingrained in right. Like we talk about what part of the part of the culture, like I was also never allowed to date. But that’s, you

[0:10:41 Speaker 2] know, that’s a different part again. Mexicans.

[0:10:44 Speaker 0] Yeah, that’s a for different reasons. But like I remember my my grandparent’s and parent’s also saying like I know I can. Mackerel are, as we have to improve the race like race needs to be improved. Um, and and I think that phrase in itself is deeply rooted in anti blackness. But also anti indigenous city. Um, you know, like, have I asked my mom about this conversation? She’s like, No, that just has to do with intelligence,

[0:11:13 Speaker 2] you know, you want your family to

[0:11:14 Speaker 0] be more intelligent

[0:11:15 Speaker 2] on e

[0:11:17 Speaker 0] had to sit there with Karen. I was like, really mom, like, really Don Guadalupe and, um and it was a you know, I think for her having to, like, take a pause and realize what she was saying.

[0:11:29 Speaker 2] Sure,

[0:11:30 Speaker 0] we’re trying to explain what that phrase is, but yeah,

[0:11:34 Speaker 2] well, I think it’s addition to because so much of so, yes, there’s this there’s you realize even the generations before us have accepted kind of this language as like, No, no, it’s not bad. Like I have neighbors who I call, you know, the grito, the grito, the loving Ah, condescending term like it’s not like that. You’re like, Oh, it is like that But they have. They also haven’t been self consciously thinking about it. They’ve taken tradition, they’ve taken what they’ve heard and run with it. And they haven’t really. I mean, in many ways, we know this. It’s a privilege to be able to stop and think and have a time to sort of say, Oh, what am I saying? But I think for so many of us who grew up in the U. S. And sort of these contexts where race politics with something we heard about in school and in the news and on TV. And then we go home and there’s this other race Politics that’s pervading are our family life, and it can be really stressful, right? And I think one thing way. Talk about racism and you could even say like, Oh, well, if everyone’s mexicano, everyone’s Latino, it’s not racist If I talk about, um, black hair or if I talk about, you know, using a euphemism like Trabajando Cuomo, uh, Negro or Negra, right? Those were just part of their part of the community. It’s like, Well, what we’re talking about, then, is this idea of colorism, right? That there’s a problem with color and I never It took years toe look back and think, How many times are we referencing people’s skin tone as like a social value? And we were talking about this before about, um, yeah, Little Parish, right?

[0:13:09 Speaker 0] Yeah, in her recent op ed on reclaiming the term Prieta, right, which is, you know, my my lighter skinned cousins. That was my nickname growing up. And and not until now, like, especially reading that off it. I’m like, Yeah, like I love being the brand pizza in the family. But as a kid, it was a little traumatic, right? Because

[0:13:29 Speaker 2] it was

[0:13:30 Speaker 0] that that was your value. That was how your other cousin saw you. Yeah. And it has, You know, it has long term effects because, you know, and from a personal account, I remember not wanting to be out in the sun anymore.

[0:13:45 Speaker 2] Um, in the summer

[0:13:47 Speaker 0] and we talked earlier about, um What, the summer before my quinceanera. I wasn’t allowed Thio. I wasn’t allowed to go on vacation, but I also wasn’t allowed to play in my summer softball league because everyone was scared. I was going to be too dark for my quinceanera.

[0:14:02 Speaker 2] And what does that even mean? Too dark for your quinceanera, Like Howard of those things together. Too dark to be seen. Too dark to be photographed, too dark to be remembered with that skin tone. I mean, that’s you think too hard. You’re like, what? It doesn’t make any sense Unless, yeah, unless we understand that there’s this whole symbolic system off the color spectrum as having this social value right? E even think about like the so called positive stereotyping of being, Uh oh, we’re or wear. Oh, right.

[0:14:34 Speaker 0] Oh, yeah. Like you would prefer to be called. You know, my weight, our weather in the family as opposed. So like be it that, like more Anita, right? Which tells us, like how how are in her family’s Maybe like there’s a clear value to the color of your skin and that is given, you know, preference or some sort of privileged When really, that shouldn’t That shouldn’t matter,

[0:14:57 Speaker 2] right? It totally shouldn’t matter, right? It shouldn’t be a factor. It’s somehow like you’re you’re saying that you were coming back to what your mom was saying, right? Oh, no. It’s about developing an intelligence and not even realizing when. If we think about like, you know, when we teach our students and talk about racial hierarchies in colonial times, right? This idea of those narratives that go from darkest to lightest and we’re like we’re not that far away from that When our families, like, still say, Oh, you had mentioned this This, um, the show is like, uh, bonita. Pero Marina, right?

[0:15:28 Speaker 0] Yeah, yeah. Or like when you hear people reference, baby

[0:15:33 Speaker 2] like Oh, it’s a baby

[0:15:34 Speaker 0] has blue eyes Oh my gosh, It’s like an angel Fall from heaven and you’re like It’s a baby.

[0:15:41 Speaker 2] They all look the same. Goofy big guys. We got it, but the same thing. I mean, this is weird. I have this weird shame. It’s a weird shame that my little boy is very, very light. He is the whitest little Mexican on the planet, and my grandmother just could so much His hair wasn’t that dark. His skin is light. And to her, like all she could say was how handsome he was. It was like like you said, he’s a baby, right? But the idea of how early that praise comes and it’s not necessarily it is part of it is what people don’t say or not, but part of what people say, what part of what people don’t say, Right. So the cooing over the light skinned baby, the light skinned little girl that light, I’d you know Oh, they have, you know, the gray eyes or blue eyes, and then it’s like the silence for the dark skin child. And you know, I think one of the things that we need to think about is right. One. Um, why does what we say or don’t say matters right to our families, right? Not even thinking about academics or in public, but like we absorb so much. So, you know, I’m gonna have you put on your professor hat for a second. I really want you to talk to us a little bit about why does what we say matter, or why do you think this matters?

[0:16:55 Speaker 0] Wow, that’s that’s an excellent question. So I think with what we say matters because people add value to what we say and the way we use language kind of stuff. Our worldview, right? Like if I’m used the baby example since that the most recent

[0:17:11 Speaker 2] example we talked

[0:17:12 Speaker 0] about. So when you talk about a baby is like, I give Juanito burrito, you’re already saying that like widow is beautiful,

[0:17:20 Speaker 2] right? But

[0:17:20 Speaker 0] if But then if you’re talking about the baby is like, I somebody is somewhat unusual for Sabonis. You’re adding a sort of caveat and saying like, Oh, the baby’s okay, beautiful. But it’s still dark, and that that gives value, right? Like you’re even if someone says like, Oh, no, I’m not racist, but with your language, you’re giving value to someone. Body,

[0:17:44 Speaker 2] right? It’s complete. It’s the superficial assumption of value.

[0:17:49 Speaker 0] Absolutely. And that matters. I think that really matters. Because, you know, as a young kid, if you here you’re hearing these things, you start internalizing what beautiful is right. And kids at a very young age are able to distinguish rate right. And there’s gonna learn this language. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think in the long term it affects how people and even interact with other folks. Right? And then if you get back to the phrases like Michelangelo, La Raza, um, you start hearing these brazen and of course I’m now I’m like, how can I put that into a research study? But looking at people don’t even like dating princess, right? Like you might, you know, in the back yard head. We always have our abuelita telling us stuff. But

[0:18:37 Speaker 2] how many of us

[0:18:38 Speaker 0] have maybe heard that in the back of her head? Oh, no ability is going to stay in the veranda lava that, like at Thanksgiving or like Christmas And how is that going to affect your relationship? So I think I think how we use language is important, especially when language is inherently

[0:18:53 Speaker 2] racist. It’s true. And I think, part of un building on what you’re saying right? Like part of my work is really thinking about how how culture is transmitted from one generation or within a generation. And so even thinking about this idea of ambient racism, right, No one told you to your face. Maybe that you shouldn’t date, um, African American person or someone with a darker skin tone than you. But you heard people talking on novellas. You heard your grandmother cooing at the white baby or kind of not talking around the skin tone of a darker child or making a comment about your summer tan right? And so all those things are still part of your environment, right? And so I feel like this idea of how much these traditional forms, and you could even think like because I’m not Spanish dominant. I’m definitely English dominant, um, three idea that when something was said in Spanish, it had a different kind of weight to me. And so the idea of remembering the veto in Spanish that even if I couldn’t understand everything they were saying, I understood that. And so that becomes again this this idea of setting a precedent in people’s lives, right? And really in the social moment, when? Right now, this idea of thinking about, um, black lives as as Latino lives, right? This idea of thinking about the convergence around our experiences that we don’t even realize how kind of the setbacks we have emotionally and mentally because of sort of what we grew up with, right? Not even realizing our own bias right on dso I think Kind of trying to round out our chat here, I think. What can we dio? You know, we’re smart people, beloved. We could figure this out. What can we do? What can we do with our families? Um, To try to push back on some of this inherited racism. O e. No, that’s a big one, right? Total. No pressure, no pressure. Okay,

[0:20:37 Speaker 0] I will try to solve this in the couple of minutes that we have. Just kidding. Um, you know, we had this conversation earlier. We were like, Well, from my perspective of someone who study language, language changes,

[0:20:50 Speaker 2] right? And

[0:20:50 Speaker 0] I think something that we can push for and maybe talk to our families is it’s talking about how we can not use those phrases. And I know it’s gonna be hard, right? It’s not

[0:20:59 Speaker 2] gonna

[0:21:00 Speaker 0] happen, You know, they contain the key element. Uh, you know, but e think it’s going to take some time. And we had this conversation to of not necessarily, like it’s gonna be hard to call out abuelita.

[0:21:13 Speaker 2] I have true. True about

[0:21:14 Speaker 0] that, you know, because you know abuelita Sarah is hard

[0:21:18 Speaker 2] way. Need her. Yeah,

[0:21:21 Speaker 0] but I think having like frank conversation. And I was telling you about how in my own family when some I started doing this more recently, if someone has a comment like I say bonito summary Nieto kind of making a joke out of it and saying something like, Oh, but yeah, Karima. So if the baby was lighter, are you going

[0:21:41 Speaker 2] to love it? You

[0:21:43 Speaker 0] know, kind of calling it out because then calling it out in a way that’s not harmful. And I don’t know if that’s the right word.

[0:21:50 Speaker 2] Sure, it’s not offensive, or it’s not like you know what I think It’s understanding, tone, right? Someone who studies language right, understanding the nuance of what you’re saying and you talk about using kind of like snarky humor. Sort of. You know, the idea if you’re I mean culturally, our community, right, This idea, exchanging insults and humor, right? Maybe we play the game right, Dig into traditional forms that, um can kind of let us push back. But in a way, that is still kind of like, ah, quiet side conversation rather than, like, full on, Like embarrassing them. I

[0:22:22 Speaker 0] because yeah, especially, you know, coming in It was like, at least in our families, coming in as academics. There’s always that like, Oh, you’re coming to tell me what to do. But

[0:22:33 Speaker 2] really, it

[0:22:34 Speaker 0] could just be a conversation like abuelita Portuguese. So you know, and having because I think having that pause and having folks really think about it help or even or even saying, like, you know, when When I was a kid and you use these terms about me, it was hurtful in these ways. E think having people own upto like how they could have been hurtful using language, um can be a sort of ah, good way to engage, But not like Grandma, your racist?

[0:23:04 Speaker 2] No. I mean you know,

[0:23:05 Speaker 0] then you might lose the conversation,

[0:23:07 Speaker 2] right? And if anything, if it’s, you know, this is really important. We’re not trying to win a conversation. I think this idea of leading with, like, compassion and still leading with respect, like with this idea. You know, Grandma, I I love you. So I wanna tell you this about something that you said or something my Theo said or something my cousin said And really understanding. Like, you know, whether you’re college educated, you’re just really aware, You know, we’re not thinking about, you know, mandating people’s behavior, but understanding that there are high stakes for letting our community continue this these kinds of traditions unchanged, right? The idea that, um just like language, language is part of sort of our cultural heritage and our traditions has to change, has to be adaptable, right to keep up with the next generation. And I think we’re at the moment in time where our next generation is saying, Yeah, Basta, like it’s done like we do not want. We don’t want to have this conversation hanging over our heads. So we need to change. And the only way that our communities they’re gonna changes by these bit by bit calling out, you know, with respect with Guerrino, right? But for the five year old in the room with dark skin toe watch, their 25 or 35 year old cousin laugh along with a joke has a much more grievous, dangerous impact than maybe Grandma’s fleeting anger, you know, with our sassy toe. Yeah,

[0:24:28 Speaker 0] absolutely, absolutely. That was wonderfully said

[0:24:32 Speaker 2] Awesome. So I think we’re at a time. So I I think it was really fun. I think we should try to do this again and keep having this conversation because I think so much of so much of what we do just starts with opening up the dialogue and then letting people run with the idea is the comments. The queries. Um, thanks so much. Be for for, uh, for having this chat with me, Um, and having this together for Latino studies.

[0:25:01 Speaker 0] Mhm. Hi. All this is Ashley novel. Medeiros, the communications associate. A Latino studies. Thank you for listening to this week’s episode. Make sure to check out the Latino Studies Instagram Page, where members of our community are talking about their own experiences with racist family details one followers shared how they’ve been trying to get their family to stop using the Spanish diminutive for black, such as NATO or negative as it perpetuates the trope of not seeing dark skin. Latinos, folks a someone they can take seriously and fetishize is them. They ask if others have

[0:25:38 Speaker 2] experienced this in their own families and how they’ve dealt with it. Follow us at Latino

[0:25:43 Speaker 1] studies, you t to keep the conversation going