Damn, ese. This is some powerful stuff. I am so glad you wrote it. Because you articulate so well so many of the things that I think about all the time. About plumbing the depths of the racism that's deep within me. About my own white lens, the one given to me by my society. I am always struggling against it and sometimes winning, sometimes not. It is not easy. .And it will not 'get' me anything from the society at large, as you say. Only my own hearts ease at the end of the day. But that's not really an only.

I believe, profoundly, in this process. I too wish and hope and want those WHITEPROGRESSIVES - and actually just about anyone - to do the same. I try to get people to do it. Starting with my own familia, even.

The son who is a white supremacist...this is your son? Or the son of the family you live with? Am somewhat confused. But perhaps- if he is lucky- he carries your voice within him as you did (do) the voice of your father (that was a particularly beautiful part of your journal entry and then your current thoughts, by the way. It made me want to weep). For he has his own way, I guess. My brother had a time where he was incredibly anti-semitic and another where he was gun-crazy. He has found his way out of both places and is at a more peaceful one now. So one never knows, as you very well know!

En paz y en la lucha
(which are not mutually exclusive, after all),
love to you, 'mano,
turtlebella

gracias, turtlebella. yeah, i thought about it afterward. it's not clear. he is my brother-in-law. and he is a good soul. i dont actually know how much his heart subscribes to the hate. i think it is a gang for him, which comes from loneliness, wanting to belong, you know. all the other reasons gangs exist. its not to say i approve, or am not afraid of it. but in my heart, i understand. i just hope if it comes to any conflict, his heart has as much room for my humanity.

i'm very glad you could connect so much to this. thank you again. and yes, you put it well. en paz, en lucha, en solidaridad—

Nez

Poignant powerful stuff, Nezua, I really appreciate the approach you've taken to the writings in this series, which are almost frighteningly revealing without the exhibitionism of most "confessional" writing because of your clarity of purpose and your insistent inward focus.

Perhaps in some ways those of us who never had the option of even coming close to passing have it easier (inwardly, not outwardly), because we've never been confronted with having to choose. And if I look into my heart and imagine what I would have done if I had the option to pass as a youth, I don't quite know the answer but honestly would not be surprised if a young me would have gone for The White.

I remember, for example, in elementary and junior high school, the dread of listening to roll call on the first day of school or when we had substitute teachers, because of the embarrassment of first listening to the teacher butcher my name in front of the class and then the hassle of trying to teach them the correct pronunciation to the giggles and snorts from other kids (and I went by a longer Chinese name at that time, hadn't yet settled on my current nickname). And what's even funnier is that when my parents were coining my name, they paid particular attention to creating something that they believed Westerners would not abuse (it couldn't sound similar at all to any unkind English words) and would find easy to pronounce. And it still failed; not because my name is hard to pronounce, but because as soon as a Westerner sees a Chinese name the brain panics and screws up the known rules of English phonetics. How nice it would have been to have a name that everyone could pronounce without a second thought and that nobody mocked and chanted in the schoolyard. How nice it would have been to be normal.

Anyway, keep moving forward, Nezua, you're creating momentum within yourself that others can draft along in. And while I know you're not doing this for anyone else, it is a nice perk for your readers, mano. ;-)

Peace.

thank you kai.

i think in some ways those who cannot pass as White have it harder. i think in some ways those who can pass have it harder.

of course the dangerous thing about comparing experience is there is no standard by which to rule. but for myself, i feel it is more confusing to be "ambiguous." forever there is the "what am i?" while if you are umistakeably one or the other, this question is settled. it is "more painful" to my mind to never be sure. "how do they see me?" and even more prevalent is "to whom do i belong?" the feeling of being rejected by both sides. not "white" enough for whites and not "mexican" enough for mexicans. it is a gap one could become forever lost in, or make their very identity. and what is an identity of not belonging, but one of unresolvable loneliness?

then you have people who are uncomfortable with your realizations, new identification (white friends of old) who want to resist and insinuate that you are putting something on, simply because you tried to be White before. there is ultimately, nobody to look to for affiliation aside from those also of the "borderlands" experience; that of being split, not belonging to one or the other. the fractured consciousness of the mestizo.

however, i do relate completely with the name thing. i think it was in The Skin of My Soul 1 or 2 where i told that story. that is exactly why i changed my own name at 8. i couldn't bear that anymore, that mangled roll call, the sneers, the mocking, the mangling jeering obscene englishifications of my name. that was one of the original seeds of my turning away from myself.

in the end i feel stronger for all that confusion i've had to make my way away from. not to say i have arrived. but it is either drown or swim. and us pisceans can't drown! that just wouldn't be right.

thank you again for your kind words.

I don't have time to write....

this post is fucking great and made me rethink a lot of stuff about my own issues with being "passable" and how to use that for agency or whatever. ohh god and your film story is my worst nightmare and why my film footage (if you remember) is in a box in the basement of my parent's house in cali...

I can only say that reading this makes me close my eyes and think. That's a sign you've touched on something.

thank you luisa. yeah. the film story. what a thing, this life, eh? i've always thought my life would be so much easier if i weren't such a loudmouth, kept my feelings, thoughts and creations to myself. but ah....i am who i am. my foot in mouth events are more like stick on drum events. or blaring-accordion-with-unpredictable-wrong-note events. oh well. i guess i have to learn to dance to them. or take up the words of thelonius monk who said, so beautifully, there are no 'wrong' notes....

--

that means a lot, sylvia.

yes, the passing thing. harder and easier, both. i can't really articulate much about it.

I had meant to say in my 1st comment- and Kai brought it up too - the name thing. I am going to have to go back to your post about that, which I haven't read. Because my name, which is longish and beautiful in Spanish, was routinely mangled. And I was made fun of SO much, I got terrible nicknames based on mispronunciations of it. I remember the pause during the first roll call as the teacher tried to work out what to say. And even earlier that, I remember as a really little kid having people ask me my name, my saying it, and people being utterly and completely stymied. They would try to say it with their faces full of confusion. And I would say it again - to complete silence. This was around the same time that I made the transition from Spanish to English (I only spoke Spanish at first, aside from a few English words I used with my dad, otherwise my mom translated). And so of course I said my name in Spanish. And English-speakers can't really say the soft D with which my name begins. Then follow that with something rather melodic and it was pretty much too much for the people used to Jennifers, Marys, and Elizabeths of my generation. Never mind that one of the most popular boys names was mine plus an 'a' - that never helped! I only realized this as an adult, at the time I didn't understand why the people around me couldn't say my name, aside from my family. Sometimes I think it's trivial. It's just a name. But on the other hand, it's my NAME, what could be more important to how I see myself. I think it contributed a lot to how I felt about myself (badly) and the decisions I made about passing (to pass).

A lot of this has healed. And as I began my way on the non-passing road, as I became a Chicana, as I became polticized, as I came out as queer, I simultaneously remarked to some friends that it saddened me that no one pronounces my name correctly (to their credit several of them tried really hard to say it right- but it's hard - a few of them got it). At the time I didn't even make the connection. But it's there.

My name's always clicked for people as "safe ghetto" name, because it's a purely French invention ascribed to a Little Black Girl Who Did Well In School. My first and last name have French undertones, but ironically, the only people I've found bearing my name are black women. And we own it well because we're often the only people in our regions with the name.

I befriended white girls in my all-girl high school because we were the top scorers in the advanced classes, and we gravitated together to praise and to eventually bash our coursework for its simplicity. And sometimes, when times got hard and coursework stopped guiding discussion, ridiculing my name would become a bonding point after they ran out of Keishas. They'd ask me why I wasn't a Keisha. And I'd go through the story -- named after a soap, my mom changed the pronunciation so it sounded like my father's name, and it's French but I don't know what it means. They always accepted the French argument, but they still thought it ghetto because of the modified pronunciation and because I knew fuck-all about what the word meant.

Eventually, to sidestep those conversations, I would say it meant "soap" and get everyone laughing at this name no one seemed to have at the time but me. But I never frightened employers because they saw that name paired with credentials, so I was different from the Other Black People. I was a smart, special Negro, and I always pushed that when I listened to my rock music or when I dyed my hair purple (which, incidentally, you couldn't notice except when I had a purple halo in fluorescent lighting). I didn't need other black people; I knew what blackness was. I didn't need other black people around me because I was the Highlander of Safe Negroes with the Safe Ghetto [French?] Name.

Needless to say, times are changing. I'm reluctant to say they've changed, but they're changing. Which is why I had to close my eyes and think.

Interesting journey you're on, amigo. The accident of birth and other ramdom happenstance place each of us at different starting points. How we move forward and find a path we can honestly and morally walk with our fellow travelers is an unending search.