All of a sudden, I feel a need to wear khaki pants and diversify my stock portfolio

By Pixel at October 1, 2007 at 1:59 am. Filed in arbitrary

My mother has just informed me that my birth certificate says I’m “Caucasian.”

Caucasia is a region in Eurasia bordered on the north by Russia, on the southwest by Turkey, on the west by the Black Sea, on the east by the Caspian Sea, and on the south by Iran.  The concept of the Caucasian race originates in 18th century phrenology with a pseudohistory attributed to Prometheus, Noah’s Ark, and Jason and the Argonauts.

I’m not entirely sure when Hispanics stopped being generally called “white” in the United States (it probably varies depending on the area). I know my older brother was still called “white.” That makes sense. If there’s only two boxes, ‘white’ and ‘black,’ then my brother is probably closer to ‘white’ than he is to ‘black.’

But Caucasian is a quality judgment. It’s a marker of ethnicity and race. It’s more specific than ‘white.’ By the time I was born, there was definitely a ‘Mexican-American/Chicano’ box. But nobody checked it. Instead, the doctors took one look at me, said, “he looks like he’s going to like to wear polo shirts,” and wrote down ‘Caucasian.’

I’ve never looked or acted like a Mexican, so it’s not a huge adjustment. My pants are at waist level, my car has regular-sized rims and no hydraulics, I don’t like wearing wife-beaters or sunglasses, and my last name isn’t tattooed in old English letters on my back.

Perhaps I’m stereotyping. Like most races, Hispanics don’t really have defined boundaries. They are a self-identified ethnicity, people who trace their roots back to Latin America or Spain. Hispanics can be white, black, Native American or a blend of all these racial categories.

As my friend Jonathan says, I come from the ’spicky’ end of the spectrum. He even calls me Spixel. It’s a term of endearment… I think.

It’s one thing to be a ‘coconut‘ (white on the inside, brown on the outside, a term for Latinos that act white). It’s another thing to be a coconut that looks white too. But it’s another thing entirely to be a coconut that looks white, acts white, and is legally a white person too.

At this point, I think I need another fruit or vegetable to describe me… I’m thinking ‘Onion.’

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