Vidal-Ortiz - On being a white person of color: using autoethnography to understand Puerto Ricans' racialization

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Qualitative Sociology [quso] ph257-quas-481909 March 18, 2004 22:19 Style file version Nov 28th, 2002

Qualitative Sociology, Vol. 27, No. 2, Summer 2004 (C© 2004)

On Being a White Person of Color:Using Autoethnography to UnderstandPuerto Ricans’ Racialization

Salvador Vidal-Ortiz

This article uses autoethnography to make larger conceptual/theoretical pointsabout racial/ethnic identity categories for Puerto Ricans in the United States. Iutilize Puerto Rican-ness to illustrate the limitations of U.S. “race” and ethnicconstructs by furthering racialization analyses with seemingly contradictory cat-egories such as “white” and “people of color.” I contrast personal experiencesto those of racial/ethnic classificatory systems, the American imagery of PuertoRicans, and simplistic, political identifications. Travel, colonial relations, intra-ethnic coalitional possibilities, and second-class citizenship are all aspects thatexpand on the notion of racialization as classically utilized in sociology and thesocial sciences. Although this is not a comparative study, I present differencesbetween racial formation systems in Puerto Rico and the U.S. in order to makethese points.

KEY WORDS: autoethnography; racialization; race/ethnicity; Puerto Ricans; people of color.

INTRODUCTION

Latino populations in the United States are at a crossroads of race discussionsand race making (Almaguer 2003), as the experience of racialization is one thatcombines elements of both ethnic identification and racial difference. Puerto Ricansface a particular relationship to U.S. racial and ethnic categories. Their experienceof mass migration for over a century, combined with compulsory U.S. citizenship(Berman Santana 1999), frames Puerto Ricans’ participation in U.S. political,social and economic systems. In this article, I explore the tension between racial

Correspondence should be directed to Salvador Vidal-Ortiz, Sociology Department, Graduate Schooland University Center, City University of New York, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016; e-mail:svidal-ortiz @gc.cuny.edu.

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0162-0436/04/0600-0179/0C© 2004 Human Sciences Press, Inc.

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formation systems from the U.S. and abroad, with a focus on Puerto Rican- (and,to a lesser degree, Latino-) identified people’s experiences as racialized selveswhile living in the U.S. By arguing an alternative racialization process in whichU.S. racial formations and other countries’ racial formations inform each other, Ihope to complicate U.S. discussions on “race,” ethnicity and nationality.1 Thus thisarticle is concerned not with comparing racialization models, but with studying theeffect of more than one racialization system operating simultaneously in the contextof U.S. ethno-racial politics and in the lives of Puerto Ricans and other Latinos.2

During the fall of 1999, immediately after my move to NYC, I’m talking with a local com-munity organizer who is very involved in social and racial justice movements—a Chicanoman. In our conversations, this activist has always marked me as white—all my judgmentsor thinking emanate from my own skin privilege, the argument goes. In this instance, weare alone, and as I listen to him ramble about his attempts to conduct youth organizing,and link that to “race,” he says to me: “The irony of it all is that I probably have as muchSpaniard blood in me as you do. . . I guess the Mexican/Indigenous blood made me look

1Using the term “race” in quotation marks reflects the problems with its multiple interpretations; othershave considered a similar use (Ferrante and Brown, Jr. 1998; Guillaumin 1999; Rodr´ıguez-Morazzani1996; Torres, Mirón and Inda 1999). (If a phrase containing the word race is not a quote, and itreflects some common use in ethnic studies, such as “race, ethnic, and area studies,” “race relations”or “race making,” the term is not bracketed. Also, if the sentence is suspending the meaning of race, ordiscussing it as a marked term, I do not write it in quotes.) Continuous criticism of the biological basesfor “race”—the three major, now obsolete, terms often utilized to name “races”: Caucasoid, Mongoloidand Negroid—inform this posture. “Race” is always evolving; for instance, Arabs, Middle Easternersand South Asians were marked as nonwhites after September 11, 2001. The term “ethnicity” is asocial construction as well. It is not bracketed because ethnicity is most often spoken of as situationaland historical. It is worth clarifying that ethnicity is to “race” what gender tends to be to sex: Ethnicity(gender) is erroneously imposed over “race” (as in “race is biological, and ethnicity is cultural”), oftenleaving “race” (and sex) untouched.

I focus on “race” because it figures heavily as a category of discussion in the U.S. Yet I am notattempting to solidify the term “race” asthe defining category of a person, nor am I engaging in adebate on whether “race” or “class” is the central issue in the lives of individuals in the U.S. today. (Iam not eliminating class from the biographical: For instance, my experience as a Ph.D. candidate, atrainer and researcher, and a person with much access to networks that facilitate my development asa scholar affects my social location and needs to be underscored as well.) Moreover, even though Iaim at suspending the terms commonly used to refer to “race,” at times I depend on them as necessaryto my argument. Thus, while the terms “white” and “people of color” are actively contested, I use,for purposes of this analysis, seemingly homogeneous categories: “Puerto Ricans,” “United Staters”and “Westerners,” and do not destabilize them as they should be. (A particular problematic slippageis my use of “white” and “light-skinned” interchangeably—which I address throughout the article.)Similarly, my combined use of the terms “Latino” and “Puerto Rican” at times responds to datalimitations—for instance, of reporting some significant theoretical arguments on “race” based onLatino ethnic identity, or U.S. Census responses reported by “race” or ethnicity, not nationality orcountry of origin.

2Racial systems in the U.S. focus on a black/white, one-drop rule framework; in Latin America, otherelements are involved, including a stronger indigenous background, socioeconomic status, familialsocial position and citizenship, as well as racial classifications between black and white (Montalvo andCodina 2001; Rodr´ıguez 2000). For the interested reader, some references that address Latin Americanrace and racialization can be found in Wade (1997) and Graham (1990). A significant review of fourmoments of racial discourse in Puerto Rico is offered by Rodr´ıguez -Morazzani (1996). Work focusingon Puerto Rican experiences of “race” can be found in that of Rodr´ıguez, most notably her recent(2000) book; for historical discussions on racialization, refer to Grosfoguel and Georas (1996) andSantiago-Valles (1996).

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Using Autoethnography to Understand Puerto Ricans’ Racialization 181

completely different from you.” I laugh at him, given that he assures me he’ll never discussthis in public. Somehow, I am supposed to carry the burden of “having so much Europeanblood,” while he doesn’t. Yet I know that my skin color triggers his fears of figuring out hisown experiences with his potential privilege.

This article uses autoethnography to make larger conceptual and theoreticalpoints about racial/ethnic identity categories for Puerto Ricans in the U.S. My use ofautoethnography places biography in context, highlighting my sexual orientation,class and skin color based experiences without assuming generalization of suchexperiences to a whole group of people. While the title draws attention to theexperiences of light-skinned Puerto Ricans, I am not implying that all Puerto Ricansthink of themselves as white or “are” white. (The term “white person of color” doesnot privilege “white” over “people of color”: In English the noun “person of color”is described/qualified by the adjective “white.”) In fact, thinking of oneself as white,and actually achieving whiteness, once one’s Puerto Rican-ness is recognized, ispractically impossible, given the U.S. population’s imagery of Puerto Ricans.3

As I will illustrate, racialization is a process that unifies Puerto Ricans’ racialexperiences in the U.S., while skin color still operates as a distinct marker ofaccess and treatment. Moreover, by focusing on all Puerto Ricans’ racialization inthe U.S., I am not negating the long history of racism and discrimination towardsdark-skinned Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico: While racism is experienced by dark-skinned individuals in many parts of the world, I am discussing the difference inracial formation systems and how their presence on U.S. soil challenges currentU.S. racial analyses. Autoethnography, as you will read in the next section, claimsauthority through that very personal account, just as “objectivity” does in manyempiricists’ minds. Autoethnography, I argue, is an untapped way of exploringthe complexity of issues when studying “race” and ethnicity for Puerto Ricans(and other Latinos).4 The excerpted vignettes illustrate some of my experienceswith “race” in the U.S.; some of these moments will only implicitly link to thearguments at hand, while others will directly open a discussion. While I emphasizechallenging instances of my own experience and identification with racial and

3Some light-skinned Puerto Ricans may choose to see themselves and attempt to participate in theworld as white, but this is threatened when Puerto Rican-ness is announced. Thus, thinking of oneselfas white and actually being rewarded with both the structural and symbolic privileges attached towhiteness are separate matters. A variety of sources for the origin of this U.S. imagery of PuertoRicans have been pointed; notably, the movieWest Side Storyhas been exposed (Grosfoguel andGeoras 1996) and discussed (Negrón-Muntaner 2000) as pivotal in its shaping. For a recent, drasticillustration of this marking of the Puerto Rican as Other, refer to Oboler (2000). She discusses thecase of a Puerto Rican Congressman, José Gutierrez, who in 1998 was singled out as a foreigner, andwas told about his Congress ID: “It must be fake,” “Why don’t you and your people just go back tothe country you came from?” at the entrance of the Federal Building where he works, while carryinga Puerto Rican flag.

4Autobiographicalwork has already been utilized in describing Puerto Ricans’ racial and racializedexperiences in the past. For instance, academic writings, such as those of Grosfoguel and Georas(1996), Flores (2000) and Almaguer (2003) all cite the autobiographic work of Caribbean and otherLatinos that identify their own racial experiences in relation to U.S. racialization. Another pertinentracial autobiographical writing can be found in Cherr´ıe Moraga’s “La Güera” (1983a).

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ethnic categories, these illustrations are mostly a selection from a larger pool ofexperiences, and are presented in no particular order. I have chosen vignettes ofmy experience as a racialized other while living in the U.S., because these offermore information about interplay among racial discrimination, sustainment ofracial orders, and perceived instances of privilege. I cannot present accounts ofmy experiences growing up in Puerto Rico (the first twenty-five years of my life),because my most recent experiences with U.S. racialization taint any possibilityof a just representation of racial systems on the Island—a crucial issue discussedhere. Yet I hope critical race studies work addressing how “race” operates in PuertoRico continues to be supported and published.

I am handed a survey assessing the needs of Latino gay men by a large New York AIDSservice organization while at a Queens, NY gay pride event in 2002. This agency has takenthe U.S. 2000 Census questions on “race” and ethnicity and, without any critical challengesto the meaning of these questions, used them on the survey. Me and another Puerto Ricanman explain to the agency’s project coordinator that this is a non-critical way of seeing“race,” that many Latinos don’t necessarily identify by “race” and ethnicity the way it issuggested in the survey, that there are other ways of managing this information if theyreally want to learn about Latinos’ (racial) experiences. We have a significant, althoughbrief, exchange of ideas. At some point, the project coordinator asks: “Did you identify asLatino in Puerto Rico, or as Puerto Rican? I didn’t, I identified as [name of his countryof origin] when I lived in my country. It was when I moved here that I adopted a Latinoidentity.” I realized at that point how much my illustration of “Latino” needed to be bracketedas much as the racial categories this survey was suggesting. By naming national identity, henoted a racialization process for many immigrants—their experiences with broader racialformation systems in their countries of origin, which often contrast U.S. skin color ones.This experience reinforced how “race” categorizations continue to be a trap for me.

My argument here emerges out of the explicit tension between structuralforces and group responses in forming, maintaining and reshaping identities. Groupidentification, when imposed by institutions as structures of domination, can becontested by its members—the U.S. Census is a pertinent example (U.S. CensusBureau 2001a) because it does not simply document, but creates, racial categories(Lee 1993; Nobles 2000; Rodr´ıguez 2000).5 In U.S. Census 2000, 48 percent of the

5As Latinos continue to confound racial classifications with their mere presence in the U.S., newerways of absorbing Latino identity into a black/white system emerge. As Allen (1999) has argued:“The [U.S.] government has decreed that for the first time in its history, this country is to have anofficially established distinct population category that is neither ‘white’ nor not ‘white.”’ He asks, “IfHispanics can be of any race, then why not everyone else?”

The U.S. Census is also administered in Puerto Rico, along with all fifty states of the U.S. andthe District of Columbia. Census 2000 was the first to ask a separate question on Hispanic origin inPuerto Rico, already a practice in the U.S. Both in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, the question of whetherHispanic/Latinos identified with one or more of the races was incorporated as well. Of the populationsurveyed in Puerto Rico, 84 percent described themselves as white, 11 percent described themselvesas black, and a little over 8 percent labeled themselves a race other than black or white. I offer theseresults to show a discrepancy between race identifications in the Island and on the mainland and,through that difference, point out different racial formation systems in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.“Race” as a U.S. construct is often not discussed critically when speaking of Islander Puerto Ricanidentities (and Latin American identities for that matter). Utilizing U.S. racial constructs “abroad”may produce simplistic analyses that vilify these (white) racial responses in Puerto Rico, mainly

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“Latino” respondents identified as white, but almost as many respondents (42 per-cent) noted they were of “some other race” (U.S. Census Bureau 2001b). For those“unableto identify with any of these five race categories, the OMB approved in-cluding a sixth category—‘some other race’. . . ” (ibid., p. 3; emphasis added). Infact, most of the Census respondents who said they were of “some other race” wereHispanics. Given the impositions of the Census, it is remarkable that two out of fiveLatinos challenged U.S. racialandethnic categories that classified them as, for ex-ample, “white, of Hispanic origin.” By choosing to see themselves as “some otherrace,” Latinos marked their experience in the U.S. differently from that imposed byCensus mechanisms. (This experience, as illustrated in the previous vignette, maybe defined by country of origin or region’s national identity—which may be con-structed asrazain a Latin American context, differing in meaning from U.S. “race”classifications.) Even before Census 2000, Latinos have contested the very premiseof their ethnic label and have self-categorized as a racial group (Almaguer 2003).

My goal is to demonstrate the need for better tools to explain how racial andethnic identity boundaries are able to accommodate groups not typically associatedwith each other. In this case, the term “people of color” has become an umbrella forall groups that identify as racial/ethnic minorities. I, however, want to argue thatthe label “people of color” warrants a more systematic understanding of “race”and ethnic identity for Latinos in general, and for Puerto Ricans in particular.6

For Puerto Ricans and other Latinos who choose to identify as people of color,the term might signify resistance to institutional categories within the system theyare trying to subvert. On a phenotypical level, I argue that color cannot be asimple marker for separating light-skinned Puerto Ricans or other Latinos fromtheir darker-skinned counterparts. While light-skinned Puerto Ricans/Latinos mayexperience what is known as skin privilege, they also experience discrimination asPuerto Ricans/Latinos. Thus, I hope to further not only the meanings of “race” and

because “race” is made operational within an oppressor/oppressed, white/black context in the U.S.(see Bourdieu and Wacquant 1999).

6This article does not focus on the etiology of the term “people of color,” but I offer some notes on myunderstanding and use of it. The term “people of color” encompasses experiences of discrimination atan individual, institutional and structural level; it also allows for discussion of global matters as theyrelate to territoriality and militarization as colonial/post-colonial strategies of dominance. Therefore,“people of color” is useful in that it steps outside the U.S. territorial/Census boundaries, yet refers tothe relationship the U.S. carries to its territories, the rest of the world, and on the mainland. The termrefers to African Americans (often including blacks and Caribbeans), Latinos, Asian/Pacific Islandersand Native Americans—and only sometimes including Arabs (see, for example,The Audre LordeProject: http:www.alp.org). Not simply meaning “nonwhite,” the term has key uses ranging frompolitical mobilization to coalition building, with much possibility of adding complexity to race/ethnicdiscussions. For a critical engagement of the concept “women of color,” refer to the volumeThisBridge Called My Back: Radical Writings by Women of Color(Anzaldua and Moraga 1983). For adiscussion ofBridge’s impact and its limitations, refer to the work by Alarcón (1990) and Moraga(1983b). For a different exploration of the people of color possibilities through the idea oflatinidad,affective excess, and a continuation of the work of radical women of color by gay men of color (aproject Moraga herself [1983b] commented on, and seemed encouraged by), refer to Muñoz’s (2000)“Feeling Brown” article.

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ethnicity for Latinos but, more generally, to question the limited understandingsof “race” and ethnicity that are prevalent in U.S. academic and popular settings.

This article is divided into five sections. First, I discuss how autoethnog-raphy is an ideal method for exploring my propositions. In the next section Idiscuss U.S. and Latin American racialization models in relation to the leadingsociological literature—and I explore the exchange between U.S. racial forma-tion systems and Latin American ones, as well as outline racialization for PuertoRicans—particularly light-skinned Puerto Ricans. The next discussion illustratesthe paradox of citizenship and colonialism for Puerto Ricans; I provide some his-torical background on Puerto Rico’s relationship to the U.S., and connect PuertoRican experiences to that of another citizenship holding, underserved group—African Americans. In the section preceding the conclusion I go on to illustrateintra-ethnic similarities and alliance possibilities under the people of color iden-tification. Finally, I conclude by discussing how my suggested paradigm adds torace, ethnic and area studies, and how racialization occurs for all racial groups.Taken together, this article utilizes Puerto Rican-ness to illustrate the limitationsof U.S. “race” and ethnic constructs. Moreover, I argue that people of color as apolitical category furthers analyses on racialization.

AUTOETHNOGRAPHY AND “RACIAL”/ETHNIC ANALYSES

My partner and I lay in bed one morning, at his house; I can hear the river right outsidethe bedroom window. His and my skin contrast each other—his, a dark brown tone thatat times I know I envy; mine, a pale one that shines next to his body. We talk about atrip we are about to make together—in fact, to the (now defunct) National Task Force onAIDS Prevention Conference for Gay and Bisexual Men of Color, later on this year (it isthe summer of 1997). I bring up the paleness of my skin, since it is almost inevitable tonotice my skin color pressed at his. This skin color has often materialized for me bodyimage issues, because at times it renders how I see myself in the world, invisible. Yet thatis a struggle for me: to peacefully live withinmyskin. I wonder if he knows this. In a toneespecially orchestrated, and in a playful manner, he says to me: “Why do you think I likeyou so much?” I am afraid to ask. . . “Because. . . you are very light-skinned, yet you are aperson of color. I get my way both ways.” I still remember my reaction to his statement—ithas little to do with me, my insecurities and self-image; at the same time, he has just sharedwith me a complicated desire. Then, a pause. . .and I just let myself run, once again, withthe sound of the river. . .

This autoethnographic based article, like other autoethnographies, locatesindividual experience as an important part of social relations, or “as a form of self-narrative that places the self within a social context” (Reed-Danahay 1997, p. 9).Autoethnographies “turn the eye of the sociological imagination back on the ethno-grapher” (Clough 2000, p. 179) as they critique the social sciences’ sole focus on“subjects” other than ourselves. At its very core, autoethnography is antithetical tothe “tenets of empirical science.” But as feminists have demonstrated, autoethnog-raphy is creative because it “transform[s] the conditions of knowledge production”(Clough 2000, pp. 172–173, 174). Still, this kind of ethnography/autobiography

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also claims an authoritative position instead of disrupting power altogether (Clough2000; Seale 1999). Dramatic description, native/outsider structures, and a critiqueof realism and representation practices all are characteristics of autoethnographicwork (Clough 2000; Holt 2003; Reed-Danahay 1997). Research techniques likeauthoethnography require writing “about what we really prefer not to write about”(Tenni, Smyth and Boucher 2003). I write about a variety of experiences and emo-tions, providing a diversity of tone and reflexivity, in hopes that my work buildson that emergent body of literature.7

Specifically, I am using autoethnography to reconceptualize structurally im-posed ethnic and racial categorizations (through illustrating everyday interactionpractices where the structural permeates)—activating different types of identities,where a mixture of dominant and subordinate ideas coexist. Thus, the “white per-son of color” term stands to fit a double-identity discussion: methodologically,where the autoethnographer is a boundary-crosser—with a “dual identity” emerg-ing (Reed-Danahay 1997, p. 3)—and conceptually, where “white” and “of color”are both bracketed and, as in current U.S. “race”/ethnic systems, opposite and(in and through that opposition) mutually constitutive. By using autoethnogra-phy, my claim of a distinctive identification—one that contests state and controlapparatuses—is a claim for authenticity, for “naming” that complex identity. Theend point of this task is to question current identities, to dislocate their foundations.My purpose isnot to add another political category,8 but to bring up inequality

7There is a growing amount of excellent work on autoethnography that merits more recognition thanI can mention in a footnote. For influencial autoethnographies/autoethnographers, refer to CarolynEllis (1995, 1999) and Ellis and Bochner (1996), as well as the work by Norman K. Denzin, LaurelRichardson, and Mary Louise Pratt. See Gaitán (2000) for a review of Ellis and Bochner (1996);for a development of Ellis (1995), see Clough (1997). For the relationship between autobiography,ethnography and autoethnography, refer to Reed-Danahay (1997). For a discussion on the relationshipbetween autoethnography and qualitative methods, refer to Holt (2003).

In addition to these autoethnographic citations rooted in the social sciences, literature workfocusing on racial minorities (specifically challenging the always dramatic and political stand in au-toethnography) by Deck (1990) and on “girls” (and, more precisely, gender restrictions) by Watson(1997) is also an important influence of autoethnography. Lastly, although not self-titled authoethno-graphic, the work of Lâm (1994)—especially her use of stories to generate a reflexive analysis ofher relationship to (and her position within) feminism—highly influenced some of my writing. Notea similarity between Anzaldúa and Moraga’s (1983) framework and Lâm’s critiques of feminism aseither an Anglo project or “Western”—and thus problematic in terms of the authority of a feministproject of liberation contrasting with priorities and situations faced by immigrants of color.

8In the past ten years, multiracial people and organizations have challenged the idea of simplistic racialcategorizations—and more importantly, the notion of a single obligatory choice from an array ofracial identifications that apply to people (Root 1992). This challenge has taken many forms—amongthem, a proposal to add a “multiracial” category to the U.S. census was suggested, well receivedand incorporated in the early 1990s. Although the addition of biracial/multiracial options on thecensus responds to individual identity choice and, by its mere existence, complicates U.S. racialdiscourses, we have yet to see the damages in utilizing these multiple options in census categorization(its operationalization and economic redistribution) in the political and economic terrain. This pointwas well illustrated in a recent talk—the 2003 Lillie and Nathan Ackerman lecture on Justice andEquality in America—held by Baruch College’s School of Public Affairs on April 30, 2003, wherethe former director of the U.S. Census Bureau, Dr. Kenneth Prewitt, spoke. Dr. Prewitt discussed the

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and stratification outside these rigid identity parameters. By using various lay-ers of identification—national (Puerto Rican), pan-ethnic (Latino),9 and a broadercoalition term (people of color), as well as phenotypical (white)—I attempt tocomplicate racial binary systems and racialization processes, and to recognizehow oppressor/oppressed and native/outsider can indeed be false dichotomies. Ibegin by discussing how racialization affects Latinos in general, and light-skinnedPuerto Ricans in particular.

LATINOS, PUERTO RICANS, AND RACIALIZATION

It is the summer of 1999. I am at a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)training as a consultant. A CDC staff person—an African American woman—pulls measide after I have made a presentation on the importance for HIV prevention programmaticgoals specifically designed for “Latino gay and bisexual men.” She tells me that she hasbeen to Puerto Rico, and seen the work against HIV infection on the Island. She pausesand then adds: “I just don’t see why black folks there aren’t organized separately.” I tryto explain to her that “race” as black and white is very “American” and that folks therehave a different racial formation and perhaps racial identification. There is a short silenceon both sides. She has a blank look on her face, as she greets me and walks away. Sheis looking at my fair skin, but she is hearing these words with a strong Spanish accent.I wonder whether she simply understood my comments as a refusal to talk about “race.”This experience leaves me with a sour taste: Am I biased in stating that not everyone sees“race” the wayUnited Statersdo? Was my interpretation of the understandings of “race” inPuerto Rico an unrealistic one? Was that an act of dismissal of the powerful effects of racialdiscrimination on dark-skinned people on the Island? On the other hand, could she hearthis position, a different kind of racial order articulation, as one way in which racializationtakes place—and differs—elsewhere?

Utilizing the terms “race” or “race relations” often sidesteps racism discus-sions, or reifies these relations as black/white (Torres, Mirón and Inda 1999;Steinberg 1995). For example, Almaguer (2003, p. 215) illustrates the fine linebetween deliberately abandoning “race” discussions and the challenge for social

political charges behind the changes in the “race” categories. His arguments can be accessed in aforthcoming publication.

9Because of space limitations, a discussion of pan-ethnicity is limited to this note. The concept ofpan-ethnicity has been discussed at length (Espiritu 1992; Flores 2000; Lopez and Espiritu 1990),and its emergence has been noted as a consequence of the civil rights struggle (Omi 1996). Definedas the generalization of solidarity among ethnic subgroups, pan-ethnicity and ethnicity are differentconstructs (Espiritu 1992). The main criticism of pan-ethnicity is the homogenization of peoplesfrom diverse religious, ethnic and language communities. For instance, Espiritu illustrates how pan-ethnicity incorporates colonized people, refugees, documented and undocumented immigrants, andsecond-, third- and fourth-generation U.S. citizens. Pan-ethnicity also ignores language differences,class statuses and cultures. While Omi asserts that pan-ethnicity is “driven by a dynamic relationshipbetween the specific group being racialized and the state” (1996, p. 180), labels such as “pan-Asian”and “pan-Latino” are created in part because of the political necessity of forming such coalitions.(“Pan-Latino” is a not-so-new term indicating cohesiveness among various culture- or language-sharing communities [Flores 2000]; we also know that the term did not originate in the North [Alcoff2000]). Pan-ethnicity can, on the other hand, create turf between the four recognized minority groupsin the United States (African American, Asian, Latino and Native American), as the necessity to retainand police boundaries benefits both the leading groups within those factions and the state.

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scientists not to reify its use.10 Following his lead, I propose the use of racializa-tion as a central category of analysis. Racialization has at its core the process ofrace-making—and, henceforth, “race”—but it departs from the phenotypical orsomatic explanations by focusing on other “racial” markers (markers that mightbe socioeconomic or class based). The term “racialization” better reflects discus-sions of social inequalities. It also locates such experiences as having originatedin the perception of otherness imposed by the hierarchical/racial/social order inthe U.S., where given “races” locate themselves in positions of superiority and/oropposition to others.

Racialization is defined by Miles as “the process of categorization, a represen-tational process of defining an Other (usually, but not exclusively) somatically”(1989, p. 75). Omi and Winant’s classicRacial Formation in the United Statesdefine racialization as “the extension of racial meaning to a previously raciallyunclassified relationship or group” (1986, p. 64). They see it as a “fundamentalaxis of social organization in the United States” (p. 13). Racialization refers tothe process by which Latinos’ treatment is that of a racial group, in spite of theirassignment as an ethnic one (Darder and Torres 1998; Gracia and De Grieff 2000).

Tomas Almaguer pointed out that racialization discussions are at the centerof Latino studies. In so doing, he says, “I want to argue that race and race-makingare absolutely central to our understanding of the Latino/a condition and thatour multiraciality is the single most unique feature of the Latino experience inthe United States today” (2003, p. 206). Almaguer also clarifies that he is notnegating other thematic issues; rather, Latino studies today needs to reexamineracialization as a central force in sustaining hierarchies in relation to “cultural andmaterial conditions of individual life chances” (p. 207).

Almaguer takes on Omi and Winant’s definition of racialization and arguesthat the “extension of racial meaning” is more than just “a unilateral process thatsimply imposes racial categories onto preracial peoples” (ibid.). A clash takes placebetween the racialization processes of the U.S. as they are confronted by those ofimmigrants, who themselves bring their own racial formation ideas to the U.S. (seealso Lowe [1996]). Thus the emergence of new syntheses on “race” is a possibility.He establishes that such a meeting of ideologies is not equally distributed in termsof power. An interplay between these ideologies will not always result in thevictory of the dominant culture’s ideas. “In this regard, racialization is not simply

10Leading organizations for the fields of sociology and anthropology have contested each other’suse of the term, all while perhaps forgetting to address racial disparities. In 1998, the Amer-ican Anthropological Association (AAA) issued a statement dismissing the use of “race”(http://aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm). The American Sociological Association in turn affirmed “race”as a necessary category (http://www.asanet.org/media/asaracestatement.pdf). For debates on theAAA’s decision, refer to Zack (2001) and Baker (2001). For comments on the ASA’s decision, referto the January 2003 issue ofFootnotes(http://www.asanet.org/footnotes/jan03/fn10.html) as well asothers during that year.

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a unilateral process imposed by the state but also reflects the Latino population’sactive engagement with its own cultural determined understandings of race” (ibid.,p. 214). Almaguer warns us that Latinos have some active agency in this processof racial categorizing, but it is severely circumscribed by the historical legacies ofrace making in various national contexts.

Almaguer’s remark on the multiraciality of Latinos represents the crossroadsat which Latinos find themselves in the U.S. Even though Latinos are identifiedas an ethnic group, their experiences are highly racialized. By placing Latinos ina context where both “race” and ethnicity are experienced, Almaguer helps usreconsider the use of race. By redefining the ways in which Latinos participate inthe understanding of the U.S. racial system, work like Almaguer’s complicates therelationships among nation/citizenship, ethnicity and race studies. The followingsection builds on this discussion, focusing on Puerto Ricans’ racialization as ashared experience of these migrants.

Puerto Ricans’ Racialization: On Being a Person of Colorin Relationship to the United States

August 1994: I moved to Washington, DC, and during my first week after moving per-manently to the U.S., I receive a last check from work while a student in Puerto Rico. Icome to a cashing place to redeem it. While trying to explain to the teller that I just movedto the U.S.—that being the reason for not having a local ID other than a Puerto Ricandrivers’ license (and the U.S. passport!)—shestruggleswith my English. With a straightface, she tells me: “Speak English!” That’s what I’ve been doing all along. I revisit thisfeeling constantly—while in grad school, at work, when meeting a stranger—how my ac-cent is measured, establishing some level of knowledge or capacities. Sometimes a worddoes not come up—and I swim in my mind, searching for the right way of saying it inEnglish. This is what people in my life-world have learned to recognize as ESL (Englishas a second language) moments. I still freeze, just like that first week, when a professor, oran employer, or a stranger does not understand what I am saying. I still think twice whenspeaking publicly—at times lowering my tone, or speaking fast, so that my mistakes arenot easily caught.

Puerto Ricans’ racialization is evident through their imposed racial cate-gorization. When a Puerto Rican is seen as part of a U.S. racial extreme—light-skinned or dark-skinned—he/she tends to fall into the racial dichotomyof the U.S., although as many as 40 percent of Puerto Ricans identify insteadwith a “browning” of their identities in the U.S., and not with white or black(Montalvo and Codina 2001; Rodr´ıguez 2000). The ongoing development of aU.S. racialized social order (with its impact on Puerto Rico in the nineteenth cen-tury), the occupation of Puerto Rico, and subsequent implementation of “Amer-icanization” during the first half of the twentieth century have contributed tothis racialization (Bigler 1999). Furthermore, attempts to impose English ed-ucation in Puerto Rico early in the twentieth century, and their subsequentfailure (Allen 1999), have significantly established a distinct cultural identityfrom that of the U.S. But Puerto Ricans, like other immigrants, experience a

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challenge in identification when living in the U.S.—even those who arelight-skinned.

Frances Negrón-Muntaner is a filmmaker/writer whose 1994 movieBrin-cando el charco(Jumping the Puddle) reveals some of the complexity Puerto Ri-can migrants face in the United States. For Puerto Ricans like Claudia—the maincharacter of the movie—racialization becomes evident upon arrival to the U.S.; therelatively short trip by air has significant influence in symbolically transformingPuerto Ricans’ “skins.” In retrospect, she says this about travel and racialization:“Becoming aware of race as a structuring category, and being routinely identifiedwith ‘people of color,’ breaks the spell cast by the discourse of racial democracyin Puerto Rico. Once you are ‘raced’. . . you will never be white again—at leastnot to yourself” (Negrón-Muntaner 1999, pp. 518–519; see also Alcoff 2000).

Negron-Muntaner speaks of a racial experience not evident to her while livingin Puerto Rico. Abandoning an “invisible” racial system in Puerto Rico ironicallycreates the opportunity to see racialization in the U.S. It is her transition from beinga seemingly unmarked racial being to becoming a “person of color” that “scars”her. Her skin pigmentation has not changed. However, the transparency of the colo-nial imposition on Puerto Ricans—which exacerbates inequality by establishingsecond-class citizenship—has become evident to her and her understanding of her-self for the rest of her life. She can now “see” or “form” ideas about racial injustice(a situation many dark-skinned counterparts view differently, from their racial-ization in Puerto Rico). Even when—and especially when—returning to PuertoRico, she will see thingsin the way she learned to see themin the U.S. Thus travelis, paradoxically, a way of illustrating the absence of individual racialization, thelearning of racial formations (in this case, from the U.S.), and the importation ofthese to the Island. In turn, this acquired lens blurs the possibility of understandingracialization in Puerto Rico—without the influence of black/white, one-drop rulesystems. What’s more, these “local” understandings are forever affected by thoseof the U.S., and it becomes harder to explore racial formation systems locallywithout an immediate imposition of U.S. systems. At the same time, racializationattempts to unify Claudia with all other Puerto Ricans on the mainland. She “isalso mediated by the bodies of dark-skinned Puerto Ricans and other people ofcolor, for they signify Puerto Rican visibility and colonized identity in the onlyterms recognized by the metropolitan culture” (Negrón-Muntaner 1999, p. 514). Inthe U.S., the darkness associated with Puerto Ricans is the very same marker thatis used to signify light-skinned Puerto Ricans’exception—“But you don’t seem,you don’t lookPuerto Rican to me.”

It is the spring of 1998. I am at a sex club in Portland, Oregon. I’m hanging out with an“attractive,” tall “white man.” While talking at the club, I ask about some of the labor issuesgoing on in the Northwest, and mention—in passing—the unionizing of Latino workers.(He catches my intent to distance myself from him as a Latino man.) A moment later, hesays to me, “I don’t care what you identify like, who you identify with, I think you arewhite, like me.” My look offers a sign of anger and desperation. He then proceeds to tellme, “It is those Mexican, Indian looking-like, non-English-speaking short guys,” the ones

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he considers Hispanics, not me. I take it he thinks by saying this—that I am an “exception”to the rule, that I don’t seem to be Latino enough or dark or indigenous enough—that Iwill be flattered (!). I think, “Only white folks can feel so free to redefine others”—but thenthink of the ways in which that applies to me. Using white as a category helps me contrastmy experience with that of light-skinned United Staters. It makes me much more aware ofhow I view and categorize others, and the need to problematize that action.

Thus, dark-skinned Puerto Ricans and other Latinos offer an initial entry toa process of racialization. Light-skinned Puerto Ricans often experience a racialmarking through those who are dark-skinned—they are misunderstood or unrec-ognized more often in the U.S. than those who are dark-skinned or indigenous.But color is not the only element at play; it is the imposition of a negative valueto one’s identity, or the reaction to one’s choice of self-identification as PuertoRican/Latino, that connects Puerto Ricans/Latinos of all skin colors:

As with other racisms, racialization and othering of Hispanic/Latinos often entail identifyingthe bodies of these people and the spaces they occupy as contaminated or dangerous.Hispanics who are dark-skinned, who appear to be of African or Native descent, are mostliable to racist stereotyping and discrimination; indeed, they may even suffer this from otherHispanics/Latinos. But most people who identify or are identified as Hispanic/Latino areliable to be on the receiving end of racism some of the time (Young 2000, p. 161; see alsoAllen 1999).

The reader must be wondering how do Puerto Ricans—especially light-skinned ones—become people of color? The process of racializing and marking isinitiated at various stages: If it is not skin color, or experiences with disempower-ment, then it is the contradiction of privileged status as U.S. citizens. And there isalways the accent, pronunciation, writing or comprehension (Lippi-Green 1997;Urciuoli 1996; Zentella 1997). The sense of otherness is always there, regardless ofhow much Spanish or European blood one possesses, because it is based on howAmericansin the U.S. see Puerto Ricans. Light-skinned Puerto Ricans become“people of color” in the U.S. because the term means more than “race”; it nowincorporates racialization and displacement as Puerto Ricans. Racial inequalityand discrimination are still key elements of the people of color identity, but mark-ers have opened up to include inequality in the context of globalization, colonialnexus and citizenship contradictions. The latter aspect is the focus of the nextsection.

CITIZENSHIP AND COLONIALISM:LAS DOS CARAS DE LA MONEDA

It is the year 2000. The Treasury office has released the new one-dollar coin. On it, a NativeAmerican woman—remembered mostly because of her assistance to the colonizers—iscelebrated.11 I cannot understand, or move beyond the irony, that she is there, on that coin.

11The inscription on the coin reads: “This is the Sacagawea dollar, commemorating the ShoshoneIndian woman who served from 1804 to 1806 as guide and translator to the Lewis and Clarkexpedition as it trekked across the high Rockies and continental divide to the Pacific coast.”

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While touching its curved borders for the first time, I think of Puerto Rico’s coasts andbeaches, affected by the military bases and daily practices of war—the foundation on whichthe U.S. stands. I look at her again, and in a similar way I think of the Native Americanreservations I have visited; the borders can be beautiful (as in mountains) and very imaginary(as borders often are). They are also strong; I see how the curved coin imprisons some infor the benefit of the rest—often demarcating borders is only useful for the one splitting theland. . .

For Puerto Ricans, there is a connection of migration and labor that bindsthe people in Puerto Rico with the people outside the Island. In addition, there isalso the history and current experiences of colonization, first by Spain and, duringa hundred-plus years, the U.S. (Allen 1999). Puerto Rico’s sudden citizenship in1917 with theJones Lawwas a perfect venue for cheap labor and the supply of largenumbers of “nonwhite” soldiers for World War I (Allen 1999; Berman Santana1999). “Operation Bootstrap” was the United States’ attempt to economicallydevelop the Island. It drew many people to the U.S., after the failure of previousattempts to transform the plantation economic system to an industrial one and,later on, from manufacturing to services.

Conferring U.S. citizenship does not compensate for the trade-off of PuertoRico’s exploitation, colonization and invisibility. The role of citizenship imposi-tion is to mask colonial relations, inverting the coin to make it seem as if PuertoRicans choose their status. The imposition of military practices in Vieques is prob-ably the most prominent example.12 Colonization and citizenship are for PuertoRicanslas dos caras de la moneda(two sides of the same coin). A subordinatepopulation experiences the process of colonization to its very core. Ironically, eco-nomic dependency furthers the colonization, migration and settlement experiences.Citizenship is indeed not a blessing (Flores 2000).

Many people (or those who know of Puerto Ricans’ citizenship status) in theU.S. consider Puerto Ricans to be privileged for being born U.S. citizens. Yet,even though this status eases travel back and forth, it also enables much morecomplex territorial relations and affects the stability and economic developmentof the Island. At the same time, their colonial status leaves Puerto Ricans, bothon the Island and the mainland, little power over decisions on the Island’s future.Discussing the “Free, Associated State’ of Puerto Rico,” Flores and Benmayorestablish some of the contradictions inherent in being Puerto Rican. Puerto Rico

(Visit http://www.findarticles.com/cfdls/m1061/3108/56744989/p1/article.jhtml for the article dis-cussing the history of the U.S. government’s use of American Indians on its currency.)

12For a significant analysis of this masking of colonial status through the law—and in this case thedeath penalty imposition—see Bernabe (2001). Another significant discussion emergent in 2003 maybe the repeal of sodomy laws in Puerto Rico. In the spring of 2003, the Puerto Rican senate voted torepeal the laws criminalizing same-sex consensual activities. In June 2003, a federal decision basedon a Texas case revoked the power of sodomy laws in all U.S. states and jurisdictions. Because of itsfederal rulings over Puerto Rico, Puerto Ricans have been robbed of seeing the possibilities of theirgovernment’s repeal of the law. Given that Puerto Rican and Latino communities tend to be labeledhomophobic, and white-Anglo societies tend to be viewed as progressive, we won’t know for sure ifyears of educational and political procedures (like those supported by queer activists in Puerto Ricoprior to the federal decision) would have had an impact in Puerto Rico’s government ruling.

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is, then,

. . .an Island where the people are Spanish-speaking and yet are U.S. citizens. For PuertoRicans, holding U.S. citizenship is not insurance against racism. As U.S. citizens, theirpresence in this country may not face the open legal attacks and harassment of other Latinoimmigrant populations. However, Puerto Ricans are still treated as second-class citizens.Viewed as “foreigners,” they receive the same harsh anti-immigrant treatment as other Lati-nos. Moreover, the strength and continuance of Spanish in Puerto Rican communities, andcyclical and circular labor migration patterns back and forth between the Island and theUnited States, are issues commonly invoked by assimilationists and conservatives as ex-planations for persistent poverty and as justification for persistent “othering” and exclusion(1997, p. 3).

Puerto Ricans participate daily in politics of exclusion—the very same onesthat other minority groups experience in the U.S. In addition to the experience ofracialization shared with other Latin Americans, Puerto Ricans experience invisi-bility through structural forces. Puerto Ricans do not determine their status in theirrelationship with the U.S. (Allen [1999]—plebiscites are not the ultimate measureto decide the Island’s status), do not vote on matters that concern the “mainland,”and are often not recognized internationally as a country nor as a part of the U.S.For example, neither the United Nations nor U.S. Consulates are options for PuertoRico due to its colonial status. Puerto Ricans experience a sense of uneasiness dueto their citizenship contradiction, which spills over into virtually all aspects oftheir daily lives on the Island and on the mainland. In addition to what other im-migrants face, Puerto Ricans “are organically inserted into the racial divide andthe cultural and class dynamic of the metropolitan society” (Flores 1993, p. 163).Yet Puerto Ricans are not, by any means, the only group of people that experiencesuch contradictions.

In November of 2001, I had the opportunity to attend a Princeton University conference onPuerto Ricans’ citizenship, called “Puerto Ricans: Second-Class Citizens in ‘Our’ Democ-racy,” and listen to their keynote speaker, Reverend Jesse Jackson. Mr. Jackson’s commentson the struggle for the liberation of Vieques and his experiences while visiting Puerto Ricowere inspirational. He specifically shared his disbelief in local judicial procedures regard-ing his wife’s arrest as protest to the bombing—in particular, he was appalled at the use ofEnglish in all the legal proceedings when, often, all parties involved were native Spanishspeakers. This imposition of language was a significant marker for him of Puerto Rico’scolonial situation. Once he offered this observation, the motives for the conference wererightfully contextualized.

Bigler (1999) has argued that Puerto Ricans have more in common withChicanos, Native Americans and African Americans than with other Latinos be-cause of their experiences of colonization. Flores (2000) also denotes how somePuerto Ricans can find affinity with African Americans due to their dual expe-rience of citizenship and economic displacement. Grosfoguel and Georas (1996)illustrate the economic disparities that both African Americans and Puerto Ricansexperienced, as forced migrations that offered cheaper labor affected the economicladder in places like New York. And, while sociological discussions on the “immi-grant analogy” and “colonized minorities” (Blauner 1972; Glazer and Moynihan

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1963) permeated much of racial theorizing in the aftermath of the civil rights move-ment, African AmericansandPuerto Ricans continued to be compared to whiteimmigrants in hopes that the former would emulate the newcomers’ attempts toachieve economic and social mobility. Such work has been rightfully critiqued onthe grounds of not recognizing a distinctive cultural identity; moreover, by focusingon these groups’ citizenship, this work obscures the relationship among structuralforces, economic conditions, citizenship as limitation and racial discrimination(Steinberg 1995, pp. 83–86; Grosfoguel and Georas 1996, pp. 193–195). WhileAfrican Americans and Puerto Ricans share the history of colonial relations and asecond-class citizenship experience within the U.S., there are other groups whoseinteraction with this country are mediated in a similar fashion to that of PuertoRicans. The following section illustrates this with a case study of two different“racial” groups, under the U.S. ethno-racial system, yet politically bound to theU.S. in similar ways.

PEOPLE OF COLOR: CROSS-ETHNIC IDENTIFICATIONAND COALITION BUILDING “OUTSIDE THE BOX”

I am back in Puerto Rico in March of 2002 as part of a political mobilization meeting,visiting Vieques, and meeting with theComite Pro-Rescate de Vieques, a watchdog andadvocacy group against the U.S. military practices on the Island. I have seen the powerof the military before—having been a U.S. Army Reserves member at the age of 17, and,like many people of color in the U.S., joining the army in order to have the means to go tocollege. I did not notice this phenomenon while living in Puerto Rico; at that point, joiningthe army only meant economic achievement and perhaps some travel opportunities. Yetnow, given the practices of the military in Vieques, and 16 years later, I am on the otherside of the fence, noticing not just economic and social patterns, but also global solidarity.I am alarmed by the hostility of the military, and understand the community’s response tothe presence of the armed forces here. On the side of the fence that divides the U.S. militaryland and the “community” land, I see several banners from the Pacific—Okinawa, Guamand the Philippines stand out—other countries that like Puerto Rico, have been extremelymilitarized and have found means to resist the military imposition.13

Michael Perez (2002) offers a similar picture of another site where the re-lationship to the U.S. is also full of contradictions. Specifically talking about theChamorros—the name designating people from Guam—Perez describes the ambi-guity that Chamorros experience in the U.S., as their association with the category

13I was visiting Vieques with the Funding Exchange, a foundation for social change, where I volunteeras part of the activist grant-making panels (http://www.fex.org). The grant-making panels were a placeto explore the relationship among racial groups, militarization and deterritorialization, and inspiredme to research the relationship of Puerto Rico and other territories. The foundation has just publisheda report on militarization entitledColonies in Question: Supporting Indigenous Movements in the USJurisdictions(http://www.fex.org/coloniesinquestion.html). Unfortunately, the statistics that describe“race” in Puerto Rico present the majority of habitants as Latinos, and about 8 percent as black—thusassigning an ethnic label to the majority and a racial label to the minority. My reading of the implicitjudgment is that the Latinos are nonblack, meaning white (where ethnic is posed opposite “racial”and black is the only code read as “race”), which illustrates racial formations outside Puerto Rico,or a reporting tainted with U.S. racial systems.

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“Asian” makes them virtually invisible; this, as mainstream stereotypes of Asianpeople are far from associative to Chamorros. Moreover, in many instances,Chamorros are confused with Chicanos in California, the state with the highestconcentration of Chamorros.

Perez also describes the ambiguities experienced by the people who reside inGuam, as their relationship with the Chamorros in the U.S. and their experienceswith militarization position them in direct contact with the U.S. without leavingtheir border. Chamorros were given congressional U.S. citizenship as residents ofGuam in 1950. Due in part to this, they currently make up the third-largest groupof Pacific Islanders in the U.S. With about half of the Island’s land being utilizedfor U.S. military forces, Guam’s population is entrenched in massive migrationpatterns with the U.S., including military enrollment. Perez’s argument is one ofsignification, as when, for example, he positions Chamorros as unlocalized withinU.S. racial discourse and formation.

Perhaps the most striking experience for Chamorros being off the Island for the first timeis their initial confrontations with U.S. racism, which when combined with their socialambiguity, presents paradoxically unique experiences. A Pacific Islander on the mainlandis non-Asian, non-Hispanic, and non-Native American, yet is simultaneously all of that atany given moment. And when Pacific Islanders are recognized as Pacific Islanders, notionsof exotic people and preindustrial throwbacks permeate (Perez 2002, p. 70).

Perez argues that an emergent scholarship focusing on Pacific Islanders isneeded. Much of the experience of Pacific Islanders is lost if they are located withinan Asian category. He also promotes studies focusing on location and invisibility,as “the cultural dimension of marginality among mainland Chamorros involvesthe state of simultaneously being at the edge of both Chamorro and Americanculture” (ibid., p. 471). His work undoubtedly reveals layers of the impact of U.S.dominance on Chamorros. But more importantly, it documents the myriad waysChamorros resist and negotiate these experiences with U.S. dominance.

I suggest that Puerto Ricans share a similar experience of colonization, ter-ritorialization and militarization with the people of much of the occupied Pacificjurisdictions, more so than with most Latin Americans. Take the case of PuertoRico and Guam. Both experienced U.S. colonization in the late 1800s; both havehad great areas of land occupied by the military; and both are U.S. territories—although with no permanent ties. Guam’s government even explored, but was notgranted, the same political designation of commonwealth that Puerto Rico has hadfor over fifty years (Perez 2002). Both are economically dependent on the U.S.,although that was not always the case; both their residents travel as U.S. citizensand experience rates of Americanization that are significantly higher than those ofother immigrants.

Similar relations have been documented between Puerto Rico and the Philip-pines, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, the Northern MarianaIslands and/or Hawai’i (Berman Santana 1999; Boughton and Leary 1994; Mor´ın2000; see also Rivera Ortiz and Ramos 2001). I suggest that the trend of similarities

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with other Pacific Islands needs to be further investigated, so as to better argue atransnational, colonial relation among groups otherwise seen as separate, discretecategories, at least through the U.S. black and white racial lens.

Thus, the “people of color” label, which is dependent on, but has the capa-bility of transcending, pan-ethnic ideologies, offers us a malleable opportunity forrenegotiation and rearticulation of racial/colonial relations. These malleable cat-egories (African American, Latino, Asian/Pacific Islander and Native American)within the “people of color” umbrella term, however problematic in representingthe realities of its members, offer possibilities for alliances based on similaritiesother than culture or language. Moreover, these potential alliances give rise to anewer conceptualization of people of color, one that recognizes alliances withinas well as between categories. I conclude with some remarks addressing thesepossibilities.

CONCLUSION: RE-WRITING RACIAL SYSTEMSAND EXPLORING COALITION POSSIBILITIES

I have argued in this article that racialization processes need to be central to“race” discussions in the U.S. (Given the constant change in racialized dynamics,racialization offers multiple venues to connect issues of discrimination based onethnic, racial, national or religious affiliation or identity.) Much of the basis of myarguments has been the racialization of “people of color.” Yet whites are also aracialized group in the current U.S. racial order (Martinot 2003), although white-ness is not “racialized as subordinate” (Ahmad 2002). To close in a similar fashionas I began, I return to the U.S. Census, where Middle Easterners are identified as“white,” and are not covered under a minority status as are African Americans,Latinos, Asians and Native Americans. The last twenty or so years have influencedthe American imagery of Middle Easterners. The terrorist events of September 11,2001 solidified the continuous marking of Arabs, Muslims and South Asians asothers—and with it, discrimination moved away from color as a main factor andtoward issues like nationalism and religious beliefs. The backlash attacks on peo-ple of Middle Eastern descent concretized this sentiment. While the imagery hadalready settled, a large process taking place as a result of the 9/11 events reorderedracial positions in the U.S. (Ahmad 2002).

Muneer Ahmad illustrates—through an analysis of electronic and printmedia—how African Americans and Latinos seemed to have supported the pro-filing of Arabs, Muslims and South Asians immediately after 9/11. In the last fewyears, African Americans and Latinos were less targeted and, through the subordi-nation of Middle Easterners, were reifying the white idea that racial profiling wasnow appropriate. Ironically, in cities like New York this profiling took place a fewyears after South Asian and Arab taxi drivers started refusing to pick up AfricanAmericans hailing cabs. And yet, immediately after 9/11 there was a large pool of

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attacks toward individualsperceivedto be Arabs, Muslims or South Asians. Thesenon-Arabs, non-South Asians and (sometimes) non-Muslims who were attackedor harassed were, for the most part, African American or Latino. Labeling racialminority folks as “Spics” immediately after 9/11 was not accidental, but a clearway of marking immigrants as a threat and highly racialized, unworthy aliens(Grosfoguel and Georas 1996).

I am not arguing for the use of “people of color” as yet another multiculturalattempt to simplify “race relations” in the U.S. I am also not using “people of color”as an inefficient umbrella term that equalizes national and regional differences (asI feel “pan-ethnicity” does). I am, however, arguing for an operationalization ofthe “people of color” term, where connections beyond the usual lens are noticedand coalition work can be formed through such efforts. In what follows, I offersome theoretical arguments as suggestions.

1. Against Divide and Conquer Strategies: A More Complex Meaning of“People of Color”

There have been multiple instances in academic circles where the “race” I have experiencedhas been through phenotype and distancing. I recall that otherwise welcoming AfricanAmerican professor who needed to point out to me that he saw me as white, or that studentof Caribbean descent who managed to insert several times the phrase “as a woman of color”in one of our first conversations ever. A simple, black/white racial system benefits fromthese accounts of what a “real” “race” is. Our implicit acceptance of “race” as biologicalreifies these sentiments. Meanwhile, potential coalitions for people of color are reduced toold fights based on skin color differences.

Like people of color’s relationship to citizenship—most often incomplete andracially subordinated—the use of light skin as a marker of individual privilege isanother “divide and conquer” white supremacy strategy. (This is one of the waysin which white racialization is accomplished—by its attempts to equalize unequalsocial relations, leaving whiteness invisible.) Light skin is only one of the markersassociated with whiteness. I have not intended to ignore the possibility of light skinexperiences as a door to status, or access, or benefits and, inversely, the lack of suchbenefits, access or status to dark-skinned people. Recent research has demonstratedthat lighter skin tends to benefit Latina and African-American women (Hunter2002); and that dark-skinned Puerto Ricans and other Caribbean people havemerged in neighborhoods with African American communities (Montalvo andCodina 2001), due in part to discrimination from within. But the singling out oflight skin tone over other exclusionary practices is in and of itself a limiting practicethat in turn creates further division within people of color organizing.

The use of individualized white privilege models, and the requirement thatwhite people abandon their “skin privilege” as the foremost aspect of antiracistpolitics (Martinot 2003, p. 194), reduces a structural issue to psychological levels.The result of that individualizing practice is that “[w]hite skin privilege appears asa system of absences” (ibid., p. 196), abandoning the opportunity of any structuralanalysis of racial discrimination. Therefore, whiteness masks itself once more,

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this time reconfiguring social and racial inequalities as merely economic ones. Inapplying this discussion of whiteness to light-skinned Puerto Ricans, moving awayfrom models of privilege and approaching models that recognize structural com-ponents of discrimination will be essential in order to form and sustain coalitions.Looking at other exclusionary practices broadens our understanding of how racial-ization operates. Just as importantly, it challenges the assumptions behind identitypolitics’ organization that operates againsta set of people,instead of a complexstratification system that solidifies its presence through inequality. Meanwhile, in-ternal discussions about skin color discrimination need to continue. While in thepast these conversations within Puerto Ricans circles in the U.S. have not beencentral (Early 1998; James 1996), recognizing the links among values imposedon cultural attributes, housing, employment and “race” as variables for the so-cial conditions of dark-skinned Puerto Ricans (Grosfoguel and Georas 1996) isparamount.

I have identified some of the ways in which global populations face structuraldiscrimination through a lens other than skin color. As we uncover the relationshipsof regions, islands and countries challenged by militarization and colonization,and their organized acts of resistance, and we link these to past struggles againstinjustice, we start to see the multiple possibilities for the term “people of color.”The term also has political potential. By moving from deficiency models (e.g.,minority, nonwhite), the term cansomedaybe reconstituted not as the opposite ofwhite, but as a rich coalitional term in and of itself.

2. An Analysis of Local Racial Formations that Recognizes Discriminationby “People of Color”

Several years ago, as part of the grant-making panels of the Funding Exchange, I wasspeaking to the director of an applicant, a social, economic and environmental organizationin Puerto Rico. As I routinely ask all applicants in my pile of applications about their workwith “people of color,” this person says to me: “Well, we are, as Puerto Ricans, all peopleof color under the rubric of your institution and in the eyes of Americans.” I ask about darkskin mobilization, yet there is none taking place within the movements this organization isbuilding. I go back to the question of discrimination—if all Puerto Ricans in Puerto Ricoare now considered people of color—in U.S. terms—and all Puerto Ricans in the U.S. arelinked to the same mobilization, then what happens to dark-skinned Puerto Ricans in PuertoRico orEl Barrio? If dark-skinned Puerto Ricans serve as a bridge to lighter-skinned ones,then where do we leave the analysis of their probable negative treatment—both in the U.S.and in Puerto Rico?

Puerto Ricans seem to be in a dilemma when it comes to racialization in theU.S. and in Puerto Rico. For a moment, allow me to suspend U.S. racializationand focus on Puerto Rico’s racial formation and discrimination. What happenswith the discrimination faced by dark-skinned Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico, if allPuerto Ricans see themselves as people of color? While it is an imposition of U.S.racial formation systems to tag a white identity on light-skinned Puerto Ricans inPuerto Rico, it is necessary to attack racism, however it is experienced by PuertoRicans—and presumably dark-skinned Puerto Ricans as well as Dominicans (the

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largest migrant population)—on the Island. But this discrimination also happensin the U.S.

It is the winter of 1999. In my work as an ethnographer for a research company, I visitcertain venues and talk to informants until late hours at night. I hail a company car after avery late work shift. This is around the time when an investigation into the assassinationof several Latino car service drivers is taking place. The driver is South American. Wetalk about his work. He says: “I avoid picking up black folks—it is not racism, no. . .Theyhustle with you—wanting to pay less than what is required. They want to hear the musicthey want [from the car’s radio], and they scream at you. They are the ones that are makingthose killings.” [At least in some news Latinos were considered to be responsible.]14 Thisis remarkable, as I have been taught that people of color cannot be racist, that racism takeson a structural force, and that only historically institutionalized people can discriminateagainst others—which in the past have been people of color. Yet it is so common to hearthese comments—que si “casate con un blanquito pa’ que mejores la raza,” “ten cuidao’con los morenos,” “el es negrito pero con clase”[“Marry a whitie, so you ‘better’ therace,” “be careful with the dark ones,” “he is black but with class”]—and I cannot avoidproblematizing this and wondering why the possibility of expressing oppression by peopleof color (towards other people of color) is seldom explored.

A larger project may be to situate or to point out distinct racializations takingplace in the United States and in Puerto Rico (with regards to Puerto Ricans in theU.S., regardless of their skin color), while recognizing that skin color—in additionto other attributes—serves as an element of discrimination (both in the U.S. andPuerto Rico). Racialization, as I have argued, redefines what “race” means; it opensit up to include markers other than skin color. Yet serious discrimination may beenacted by people of color, especially when confronted with a racial system in theU.S. that has depended on discrimination towards (and distancing from) AfricanAmericans as a way of achieving citizenship. Within such a system, this will alwaysbe an issue of interest.

3. Race, Ethnic, and Area Studies and the “People of Color” Category

Manning Marable wrote about the uses of the category “people of color” inacademic efforts to address racial inequalities:

Many advocates of diversity and the study of racialized ethnicities tend to homogenizegroups into the broad political construct known as “people of color.” The concept “peo-ple of color” has tremendous utility in bringing people toward a comparative, historicalawareness about the commonalities of oppression and resistance that racialized ethnicgroups have experienced. Our voices and visions cannot properly be understood or in-terpreted in isolation from one another. But to argue that all people of color are thereforeequally oppressed, and share the objective basis for a common politics, is dubious at best(2001, p. 56).

While this article has not focused on comparing racial formations in PuertoRico and the U.S., I am suggesting that additional projects articulating relationsbetween regions or peoples, in ways other than with the language imposed by

14See the following story: http://www.nydailynews.com/2000-04-30/NewsandViews/CrimeFile/a-65079.asp. It was later alleged that these acts were conducted by other Latinos.

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U.S. institutions, converge and evaluate their relationships, not only within ethnicstudies, but in globalization, gender, political economy and post-colonial studies,to name a few. For example, including studies of Pacific Islanders as a legitimatecategory, as well as connections between Latin America and the Pacific Rim (as theLatin American Studies Association has done), actively contests the very notionof a U.S. black and white racial system. Looking at militarization and dependencywill foster a better understanding of countries from the Caribbean and the PacificIslands, or Native American nations and outside the U.S. territories—regions oftenthought of as very different from each other. At the heart of my argument is theneed to contrast the ways in which racialization takes place (and for whom) and,furthermore, the idea that racialization takes shape in ways other than by evaluationof skin pigmentation. As Marable insists, the proposition that all people of colorshare similar experiences of discrimination dismisses the powerful effects of otherqualifiers such as class, sexuality, gender and country of origin or political agendain relationship to the U.S. Still, my argument that color should not be a singlemarker to establish radical differences between people of color solicits furtherinterrogation and analysis.

IN CLOSING: AUTOETHNOGRAPHY AND THE STUDY OF “RACE”

Autoethnography assists in illustrating how personal biographies are linkedto larger structural and institutional constrains—and helps uncover the complexi-ties of racialization while contextualizing regional racial formations. It has helpedme to link my own experiences to theoretical ideas that only partially exploreU.S. racialization, and to connect globalization and militarization to the study of“race.” Utilizing reflections about personal information through autoethnographyhelps demonstrate the complexity of all factors that come into play for white peopleof color. I have shared many instances where I felt powerless around identification;yet there are other moments where I posit the challenges of recognizing that PuertoRican-ness does not exclude the enactment of oppression while also recognizingthat light-skinned Puerto Ricans are also recipients of discrimination. It is this com-plexity that merits attention, and autoethnographic scholarship will undoubtedlyopen the door for more of such discussions. Like autoethnography, this article hasattempted to reverse some of the simpler power relations as outlined in the litera-ture. With the idea of being a white person of color, I have explored both native andoutsider, and oppressor and oppressed as incomplete pieces of the puzzle. Intensenarrative, with challenges to representation and discomfort about uneasy topics,is one of the ways in which autoethnography achieves thought anew. Autoethnog-raphy will continue to be a tool to demistify the use of the “personal” to discussand theorize on social relations, to teach race and ethnicity, and to address socialinequalities.

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200 Vidal-Ortiz

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This article has been an idea in the making for as long as I have lived in theU.S., and an extremely challenging endeavor. During the course of these years,many people have influenced my thinking and writing about this topic in variousways. My thanks are directed to Juan Flores (for the class forum), Anny Bakalian(for the close reading), Carmenza Gallo (for your vision), Grace Mitchell andPatricia Clough (for the inspiration), Manolo Guzmán (for “feeling brown” andfor the zesty eye), and Rebecca Tiger, Lauren E. McDonald, Rose Kim, VeronicaManlow, Ron Nerio and Carlton W. Parks for references, the asking of poignantquestions, and their right-on critiques on earlier versions. I am thankful as wellto several anonymous reviewers for their suggestions and their triggering furthergrowth in my thought, but mostly to the editorial team ofQualitative Sociology(Robert Zussman, Sarah O’Keefe and Karen Mason) for their considerations andbrilliancy in revising my latest drafts. Lastly, I must thank my friend Bill Blum (forthe first part of the title) and Ananya Mukherjea (for your sharpness and mentoring)and extend my gratitude “to the honesty of the boyfriend of that third moment”that also had an effect in my thinking this article through.

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Vidal-Ortiz - On being a white person of color: using autoethnography to understand Puerto Ricans' racialization