is it ok if i don't identify as latino?? please don't say otherwise please

Submitted ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨adrihii@discuss.tchncs.de⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

i’m really really sorry if this post seems heavily political and social, i was born in mexico. not united states or canada, i still live in mexico, my family is mexican but i am northern african/moroccan/jewish/arab, i like to identify as white because well i have a lot of ancestry from those places and i’m sorry if that sounds racist but it’s not, i’m just being honest… is that ok to identify as?? to be?? because once i move to the united states someday i’ll be asked what my race and ethnicity is and to that i will say white of course!!

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edgemaster72@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

please don’t say otherwise please

If you’re only willing to hear what you already want to believe, why are you even asking?

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DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
You should maybe consider the concept of internalized racism and why this is so important to you.

That said, race is a social construct so put whatever the hell you feel like on government forms just to fuck with them.

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lychee@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
your ethnic origins, cultural upbringing and place of birth make you a Latino. There are white Latinos, Afro Latinos, Asian Latinos, if you have light skin and you genuinely feel white then you are a white Latino. But a Latino you are and always will be

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K1nsey6@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
You can identify a duck, but that won’t change the fact that you are born in Mexico.

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- jeena@piefed.jeena.net ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Some ducks are born in Mexico.
  
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  - GBU_28@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Checks out, I’ve seen a baby duck there, I don’t think it flew in
    
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- Thavron@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  A cat can have kittens in the oven but that don’t make 'em biscuits!
  
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Boinkage@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Really straining the limits of this sublemmy with this one

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GlassHalfHopeful@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Identity is a construct. Identify however you wish to be identified. You will be judged by and perceived as the identity people inevitably assign to you, regardless of how you self identify. Hopefully it matches. Maybe it won’t.

Mostly, just try to be okay with yourself. Be a decent human and people will generally be okay with you.

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southsamurai@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Well, there’s a whole shit ton to unpack about identity.

Let’s start with definitions.

Ethnicity is essentially genetic. There’s usually an associated culture that goes with a given ethnicity.

Culture is the combination of practices, beliefs, and “tradition” of a given group, whatever that group may consist of.

Nationality is where you live.

Race is a loose grouping based on primarily skin color and the region one’s ethnicity came from.

Identity is the parts of those things you internalize, what you self label as.

So, based on what you’ve said in your post, you’re multiethnic, a mix of multiple peoples and places. You can freely choose which of those you integrate into your identity. It won’t ever mean that you aren’t those things, as regards external factors like the kind of hair color you have because of being north african in ancestry.

You could freely choose to integrate Mexican culture into your identity, or not. It would not, however, change your nationality.

If you move to the states, then you’d also have to deal with the legal side of things, which is not the same as identity. It’s an ugly truth, but race matters here, way more than it should. As such, you can’t really just pick your race on legal documents. It has to be as accurate as it’s possible to get, or there can be consequences. If you look white, but put down black, it’s going to end up being a pain in the ass for you.

However, since race itself is arbitrary in a lot of ways, there’s some wiggle room. There are some pretty damn dark white folks, and some pretty damn light Hispanics. And it isn’t like most people can look at someone and tell if they’re greek, arab, or south american. A lot of forms specify the difference between being white Hispanic and white, non Hispanic.

So there’s room to pick your race unless you’re black, in which case, it doesn’t matter what ancestry you are, you’re black and stuck with it because the us is fucked you in that regard. You don’t even have to be of African descent to get shoved into being black, you just have to be dark enough. Which is very fucked up, even for a country as fucked regarding race as this country can get.

So, you do have to be thoughtful in what you put in official documents, or it can end up fucking you later on.

But we can all identify as whatever we want, within reason. My pasty white ass could try to identify as black, but it ain’t going to end well, despite having grown up in a black neighborhood and having a lot more in common with my neighbors than the arbitrary similarities I’m supposed to have with other crackers. But if I want to internalize my Irish heritage, nothing is stopping me. Same with my German heritage, the traces of Polish, Welsh, Spanish, and Scottish. I can identify as man, as a southerner, as a resident of my state, of my town, as an american, as whatever, really.

Largely, as long as there’s no cognitive dissonance to overcome, most people don’t give a fuck about someone else’s identity. Like if my pale ass says I identify as black, that’s going to be strange enough that people are going to wonder if I’m an idiot, a troll, or pulling some kind of racist shit. If my big bearded ass puts on a dress and claims to be a woman, there’s going to be people that can’t accept the difference between the claim and the visual reality. Now, if I shaved and lost more muscle, it wouldn’t be as hard to overcome. You see what I mean? The more people have to think against their senses and preconceptions, the harder it is to lay external claim to an internal identity.

There is the flip side though. If you come here, claim the identity of whiteness, but you don’t also lay claim to the external factors of the culture of white america, then it doesn’t matter what your skin color is, you aren’t going to have much support. And yes, there is such a thing as white culture in the US. There’s actually multiple versions of it. It’s just hard to see since it dominates all the other race based cultures, and becomes the default american cultural base. But it is distinct from the more general american culture.

All of it is largely a construct though. Even ethnicity has a degree of arbitrary limits to it, since most ethnicities aren’t isolated enough in origin for there to be no bleeding between a given ethnicity and one a hundred miles away in origin. And, an ethnicity may ignore subethnicities in general usage, like “black” Irish largely being ignored as an ethnicity that’s distinct from Irish. And you’ll have regional variations that get ignored in the same way.

There’s really a lot to it all. More than I can reasonably pack into a comment and it still be readable by most people (screen reading is harder to follow than printed). So I’ll not belabor the subject.

The real advice is to not bullshit. Treat any paperwork as needing as direct an interpretation as possible, and leave identity out of it, relegating identity to non official usage

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Mellow12@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Just being born in some geographical location doesn’t make you a decendant of their people. You are a decendant of where your ancestors are from. If your family doesn’t celebrate their heritage then pick the one that best describes where they come from. Maybe sit down and ask your parents or grand parents some questions about your ancestry so you can come to an identity based on facts.

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- jeffw@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  “Being born in Mexico doesn’t make you Mexican”
  
  Uh ok?
  
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Grogon@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
[deleted]
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- K1nsey6@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The last 46 presidents have been fascist.
  
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  - DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    This is simply untrue. Lincoln was based AF.
    
    And, uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
    
    FDR was almost SocDem. Grading on a curve for segregation, but that’s not too bad considering what the German and Greek SocDems wanted to do at the time!
    
    See? That’s two whole presidents.
    
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  - SolOrion@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Well, that name kinda checks out ngl.
    
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- NutinButNet@hilariouschaos.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Nobody asked
  
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NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
If you were born in Mexico and live in Mexico, then why is this relevant at all?

I always thought the racists are only in Usa. Don’t become one. Life is better when you stay a human.

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- iii@mander.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  I always thought the racists are only in Usa.
  
  Seriously?
  
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  - NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I seriously don’t know the situation in Mexico.
    
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jeena@piefed.jeena.net ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I'm born in Poland to Polish parents, but all their parents were born Germans. I moved to Germany when I was 11 and when someone asked me then I said I'm German. But then I moved to Sweden for 15 years, while there I would also say I'm German. I got the Swedish citizenship but you still can hear that I'm not a native Swede, but only Swedish people can hear it. So once I moved to Korea 4 years ago I used my Swedish passport to get in to the country (it was not on purpose but random chance, I could have chosen the polish one or the German one too). Anyway, if someone in Korea asks me where I'm from or what I am I almost always say I'm Swedish. with one exception, if a German here in Korea asks me then I say I'm German.

I know it's a bit easier for me because I look like I could be from any of those countries, but my identity is not tied to some specific geographic area so I have no problem being a geographical-identity-cameleon.

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BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Wtf is this post

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