by Ivy Farguheson
A rose is a rose is a rose. And a Latina is a Latina is a Latina. It doesn’t matter what her last name is.
But that doesn’t mean that people won’t question her loyalty.
Trust me, I know. I experience it every day.
With a name like Farguheson, my heritage is always called into question, as if Latinos can only have names like Martinez, or Rodriguez, or Lopez. There are some, many, Latinos with these appellidos, but we are so much more than a last name.
In fact, the diversity of our names, like that of astronaut Franklin Chang Diaz, a fellow Costa Rican who has participated in the most space missions of any astronaut anywhere, demonstrate the true colorful make-up of Latin America. We are not only descended from people from Europe, but from Africa, Asia and the indigenous populations that give us our beautiful and varied looks.
But unfortunately, the confusion, to say it nicely, comes from more than one source. The dominant culture likes to keep us in a box to easily identify us. The problem is that we are not easily identifiable. You cannot tell every Latino by our looks or our names. You can only know us by learning about us and listening to our unique stories.
Sometimes our own gente can fall for the box mentality, too, questioning how, where and when we got a name that may not sound like that of a conquistador. “Farguheson? That’s not a Spanish/Hispanic/Latin/Latino name. Where did that come from? Are you really Spanish/Hispanic/Latin/Latino? Speak Spanish for me and prove it.”
They question our heritage, our legitimacy. Our Latino-ness, as it were. And the problem continues if you don’t have an accent and don’t look like what people think “Latinos” should look like.
An understanding that there were people already walking the hills and valleys of Latin America before the conquistadors arrived is necessary to make the shift from exclusion to acceptance between Latinos. And, remember, many more people came to these lands from not only Spain, but from nations of Africa and Asia, and other parts of the world.As with most things, education can go a long way to solving the question: “How can we tell if you’re Latino if you don’t have a last name we acknowledge as Latino?”
But there are also needs to be an acceptance, a spiritual and physical understanding, amongst Latinos especially, that we are more than the Europeans who crossed the Atlantic, following Columbus’ lead. We are African and Asian and Indigenous and more.
We may speak Spanish. We may not. We may have been born in the United States. We may not have been. We may be from a long-line of Latin Americans. We many not be. We may have last names like Romero. And we may not.
We are Latino because we identify as such. That’s it. And there’s a not a box big enough to fit all of us in, not if we include everyone instead of excluding the many rosas by any other (last) name. According to William Shakespeare, they smell and are just as sweet, if we let them be who they want to be.
Ivy Farguheson is the social services reporter for the Muncie (Ind.) Star Press. Prior to a career in journalism, she worked in the education field, teaching high school in Albuquerque, NM and Washington, D.C. An Afro-latina of Costa Rican descent, she has a passion for discussing and researching issues of race in Latin America and the United States. She hopes to one day write a book about her complex experiences regarding racial issues in the United States.
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Ivy, I am also Black Latina. My mother is Cuban, and I grew up here. I don’t speak the language, and no I don’t look like one of the fairer skinned/straight haired Latina’s and when I tell people I am – they almost never believe me.
I don’t know how Americans ever got the idea that all Latin people look the same, but hopefully your article can change that.
Well, Maria, that is a confusion that has been placed solely towards the media. Media being such a strong influence in what America’s and other countries have perceived one another. In most cases, people rather turn on the TV or other forms of media which allows them to develop an opinion or view that is given to them, instead of them doing the research to develop thoughts of their own. Society has been this way for a while now, as stated in this article, education is the problem, but is America (White) schools don’t really cover how the slaves traveled from there countries to America. I make the difference between America (White) because White society are the majority and always will be because they’re in control, the people who are in power control what is represented to media and idea of beauty etc. This being so most people don’t know about The Middle passage America, and all the Africans who were dispersed in the North and South America’s, Central Americas and the Caribbean Islands. I am from South America, from a county called Guyana, so that information was given to be when I was like 5 now I’m 22 and it never amazes me how much people don’t know of their history. However its the fact that the conquers of this country don’t want to speak of their wrong doing to others because it paint a bad image of them and they don’t like that. So its a journey for our ethnic people to look for that information because it will not be given to us. when you do do that you will find some powerful information trust me our history is power and that is why it has been destroyed, man fears what they do not understand. We have, and always will be a very complex and advance people, we just need to learn our history and the ignorance will subside.