Colorism, Assimilation Pressures and Country of Origin Bias in the Hispanic Community!

This is The ARCC of Change with Donzel Leggett, a podcast from the Anti-Racism Commitment Coalition, an organization dedicated to eradicating racism and hate and spreading anti-racism. Listen as Donzel discusses relevant topics that will inspire you and help build your capability to take action and change the world. Because none of us are doing enough as long as racism still exists. And now, here's your host, Donzel Leggett.

Donzel: Hello, and welcome to the eighth episode of Season 2 of The ARCC of Change with Donzel Leggett. In this episode, we commemorate National Hispanic Heritage Month with the first of a two-part series by welcoming ARCC member Leslie Rodriguez to the show. She will share her unique experiences growing up and coming of age as a first-generation Hispanic American and young woman of color.

We will also discuss why anti-racism is needed now more than ever, both outside and inside the Hispanic community. Now, let's get started with our show.

I am Donzel Leggett, host of The ARCC of Change podcast and founder of the Anti-Racism Commitment Coalition, or ARCC. Our vision at ARCC is to build a racism-free world, and our mission is to provide inspiration, education, and support for you to transform, practice, and spread anti-racism.

This begins with our three-part process of personally transforming to anti-racism. Part one is all about erasing your ignorance about racism and hate. Part two is educating yourself about anti-racism. And part three is building the character and confidence to stand up, speak out, and take action to spread anti-racism and anti-hate and make positive change happen.

This episode is part one of a two-part series honoring and commemorating National Hispanic Heritage Month in the United States, which began on September 15 and runs through October 15.

National Hispanic Heritage Month was created to celebrate the histories, cultures, and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. It started in 1968 as Hispanic Heritage Week under then-President Lyndon Johnson. It was subsequently expanded by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 to cover a 30-day period, starting on September 15 and ending on October 15.

September 15 is significant because it is the anniversary of independence for several Latin American countries, including Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. In addition, Mexico and Chile celebrate their independence days on September 16 and September 18, respectively.

This month-long celebration was also intended to help increase awareness and appreciation of Hispanic Americans and their contributions among the overall American population, as well as to drive a greater sense of community and pride within the Hispanic community, which is made up of people from many different countries. All of this was intended to increase understanding and help reduce and eliminate racism and discrimination against the community.

Unfortunately, 54 years after National Hispanic Heritage Month was established, many in the Hispanic and Latino communities still face significant racism, discrimination, bias, and hate in the United States. Sadly, studies have shown that Hispanics and Latinos face as much racism and discrimination from within their own community as they do from non-Hispanics.

Survey after survey reveals a difficult truth: Hispanics indicate that they face as much discrimination and racism from other Hispanics as they do from non-Hispanics across many different spectrums. The top three reasons are related to colorism, country of origin, and assimilation.

Colorism is discrimination against people based on their skin tone, particularly the darkness of their skin. Contrary to popular opinion, there are many dark-skinned Latinos across almost all Hispanic countries, with people of African descent making up the majority of inhabitants in several countries that we think of as Hispanic. But this fact is pushed aside because darker skin is discriminated against.

Why? It is a holdover from imperialism and colonial racial segmentation, which ranked races from white at the top to Black at the bottom. This hierarchy was designed both to divide subjugated people, who outnumbered their subjugators, and to incentivize them to discriminate against and fight one another. It encouraged them to aspire to somehow become more and more white, or at least get closer to the top—a goal very few would ever achieve.

But it implanted the idea that you want to get as far from Black as possible and as close to white as possible. It implanted the idea that white is best and Black is worst. This idea is still dominant in the minds of many people who have been impacted by colonialism, whether here in the United States or in the Hispanic and Latino world.

The second issue is country of origin. This means discriminating against or looking down on people based on their country of origin—in other words, where they are from or where they were born. Examples include the belief that Cubans are better than Mexicans, Colombians are better than Bolivians, Venezuelans are better than Dominicans, or immigrants from Spain or Argentina are better than immigrants from Central America.

The third issue is assimilation. This refers to the extent to which Hispanics assimilate into American culture, or, more specifically, white American culture.

Sometimes, this leads white Americans to judge Hispanics for not speaking English perfectly, for having an accent, or for not looking American or white enough. On the other hand, their Hispanic family and friends may judge them for trying to be too white or too American, for trying to be a gringo, or for no longer being part of Hispanic culture. They may be told they are not Hispanic or Latino enough. This can leave people stuck in limbo, not feeling as though they belong anywhere.

These are complex issues, but they are very important to understand so that we can stand up, speak out, and take action during and after Hispanic Heritage Month.

Over the next two episodes of The ARCC of Change, we will explore these issues as we speak with two very special guests who can provide strong insight from their own personal experiences. They will also share their perspectives on why it is so important to spread anti-racism in the Hispanic and Latino communities now more than ever, and what we must do to make that happen.

In part two, which will be episode nine and is scheduled to be released in early October, our special guest will be ARCC board member Carlos Caballero, who came to the United States in the 1980s as a college student from Honduras. Carlos is an outspoken leader who has worked all over the world and can provide a unique global perspective, as well as powerful and insightful stories about his experiences standing up, speaking out, and taking action to spread anti-racism.

But for today's episode, part one of this two-part series honoring National Hispanic Heritage Month, our special guest is Leslie Rodriguez. Leslie is also an ARCC member and co-producer of The ARCC of Change Deep Dive talk show.

Leslie's parents immigrated to the United States from Bolivia 25 years ago, and she was born and raised in the United States. Leslie is here to share her experiences growing up and coming of age in the United States as a first-generation immigrant and young woman of color. She will also provide her views on what needs to change, both outside and inside the Hispanic and Latino communities, to start spreading anti-racism right now.

Leslie Rodriguez is next on The ARCC of Change.

Visit us at joinarcc.org. Follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and like us on Facebook.

Donzel: All right, welcome back to The ARCC of Change. We're here with our very special guest, Leslie Rodriguez.

Leslie is an ARCC volunteer and one of the co-producers of The ARCC of Change Deep Dive talk show. If you haven't checked it out, please visit us at joinarcc.org. Under “Take Action,” you'll find resources and videos, including past episodes of our Deep Dive talk show. You can also check our events page for the schedule of the next Deep Dive event.

I wanted to make sure I pointed that out because Leslie spends a tremendous amount of her time ensuring that we have great Deep Dive talk show events.

Leslie, welcome to our show. Thank you so much for being here.

Leslie: Thank you for having me.

Donzel: Absolutely. Leslie, I know you, and I'm so proud of all the great things you're doing from my own hometown of Key West, Florida. You give me tremendous pride. But a lot of the folks in our audience don't know you, so tell us a little bit about yourself.

Leslie: Yeah, of course. As Donzel mentioned, my name is Leslie. You can pronounce it either “Leslie” or “Leslie.” Funny enough, my family pronounces it “Leslie.” I guess that's how you pronounce it in Spanish, whereas in English, you pronounce it “Leslie.” I always like to mention that because I've had people ask me how to pronounce my name a few months after they've known me.

I was born and raised in Key West, Florida, just like Donzel. But my family actually moved to Key West from Bolivia about 25 years ago, right before I was born. My dad's family decided to move to Key West. My uncle loves the party scene, so he decided to move there and raise a family. My dad was very attached to his brother, and my grandma also moved down there, so they decided to stay together. Then my mom followed along.

That's kind of how we ended up there. There wasn't a particular reason other than that my family really loved Key West. They thought it was beautiful and a great place to raise a family.

From my mom's perspective, it was also a great opportunity for her daughter to be successful. Coming from Bolivia, it's really hard to make a lot of money there, even if you're an engineer, a doctor, or something similar. A lot of my cousins ask how they can move over here to try to make a little bit more money, however they can. You could be a really successful person in Bolivia, but, as I said, it's just harder to make money there. They find a lot more opportunities here in the United States, where you can start small and then have the American dream of making more. That's the main reason my family moved here.

I grew up in Key West because I think my family just loved it, especially because they had their immediate family there. I also went to Miami a lot, so I was very involved with the culture there because I had some family up there.

My mom had my sister five years later. She's my built-in best friend. Her name is Ashley, and she's 19 now and in college. She's also attending the University of Florida, which is where I went to college. I'm super proud of her. She's someone I even look up to because we grew up together, but we think very differently. She's very logical, whereas I'm very emotional. It's nice to have someone who can give a little more reason to my craziness. That's how we get along.

After growing up in Key West for 18 years, I went to the University of Florida to study materials science engineering. It was kind of cool moving up there. I didn't think there would be a lot of Hispanics, but I ended up joining an organization called the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. I met a lot of different Hispanics and Latinos from all over the world. That was where I started meeting a lot more people like me.

Now I live in Minnesota, which is a complete opposite from where I started. I got a job here at General Mills as a packaging engineer. It's been a really cool experience—experiencing snow for the first time, living up north, and meeting people from the Midwest.

Since I moved here, a lot of my hobbies have continued to relate to being from Key West. I love kayaking, and I still do that. I also love volleyball, specifically sand volleyball, which they still have in Minnesota. I get to play that here, too. During the winter, I play indoor volleyball.

I've also been exercising a lot more since I moved up here. Everyone is very outdoorsy. I've been running and going to the gym with some friends. I also love to travel, so I try to find an excuse to go to the airport and leave to go somewhere awesome.

That's a little bit about me.

Donzel: That's awesome, Leslie. Again, I'm very proud of you. It's like you've been following in my footsteps, from Key West, a beautiful, sunny island in the Caribbean, all the way up to Minnesota in the frozen tundra, but doing extremely well.

You obviously have a lot of courage to go that far from home and from your family, and you have a lot of drive to make all of that happen for yourself.

The thing I think would be really interesting to talk about now is that you clearly have had some positive experiences. Your positive energy comes through very clearly. To go to the University of Florida from Key West and then move up to Minnesota to work as an engineer at General Mills—as a packaging engineer—is fantastic.

But I'm sure there have also been some difficulties along the way. On this podcast, we're talking about why anti-racism is so needed in the Hispanic and Latino communities.

What I was wondering is whether you could tell us a little bit about your story. What has your experience been growing up as a first-generation immigrant, with parents who immigrated to the United States? Let's hear some of your views, perspectives, and experiences.

Leslie: I like to start from when I was a baby, basically. As I was growing up, I think until preschool, my parents only spoke Spanish to me. Right off the bat, I was exposed to my culture and was already speaking their language.

But when I went to preschool, I started learning English. Within six months of going to school, I already knew the whole English language. Even though I figured it out right away, it still caused some disadvantages in school.

Because I would write on my papers that my first language was Spanish, I would always get put into ESOL classes. Right off the bat, I didn't have the same advantage as the other American students whose first language was English and who were placed in higher-level English classes. I was always really behind.

For people who don't know, the FCAT is a standardized test. I would always have really low FCAT scores in reading, but really high FCAT scores in math. It's not that I didn't know the material or wasn't doing well in school. That language barrier—which wasn't really a language barrier—made it seem like I wasn't adequate at something as simple as reading or writing.

Back home, since I only spoke Spanish, it made sense that I wasn't practicing enough English at home because I only spoke Spanish. My dad spoke English and would help me with my homework as much as he could. But as I got older, it became more difficult for him, so I eventually had to figure things out myself.

Right off the bat in school, I tried really hard to excel in math and science because I knew those were my strengths. I would get really discouraged in reading because I was always placed in ESOL classes, all the way through middle school.

I started thinking, “Okay, my second language is becoming a disadvantage.” Speaking Spanish seemed like a disadvantage. Even in elementary school, I would get bullied for speaking Spanish. That was another reason I felt discouraged from speaking the language.

In middle school and high school, most of the students in Key West were white. I wasn't really surrounded by a lot of Hispanics growing up. I had maybe two friends who were Hispanic, thankfully from Bolivia as well, so we had that in common. But that was only two out of the 100 or 200 students in our class.

I always felt like I had to be just like the white students. I would actually try to prevent myself from tanning. I straightened my hair every day and wore makeup so that I would look whiter. It was something I hadn't realized until I moved to college, and actually even more so when I moved to Minnesota, that I started accepting myself more for having curly hair and tan skin.

But in elementary school, middle school, and high school, you're trying to fit in. That's what I thought fitting in in the United States looked like. It definitely took a toll on my mental health and my physical appearance.

Obviously, as I grew up, I learned how to accept myself. But it's taken a long, long time to figure that out. Finally stopping straightening my hair and worrying about my skin color has been something I've had to work through for maybe 10 years of my life.

It's obviously hard. It's not anybody's fault because no one is telling me to change. It's just that the environment I was in made me feel that way because I wanted to be like one of the cool kids. I wanted to be homecoming queen, but I thought I was never going to be voted for it, whether because of the color of my skin or because I was a nerdy girl in school. I'm not sure, but that's how I thought about it.

But there's another side to it. As I grew older and started accepting myself as both Latina and American, I sometimes experienced the same thing with my family, but for a different reason.

If I didn't speak Spanish well enough, for example, I would be called la gringa in my family. I was going to say familia—I was already starting to speak Spanish—but I mean my family. Sometimes it would hurt because I try really hard to speak Spanish, and when I'm turned down, I feel discouraged from speaking it. I'm shy.

Even with my Hispanic friends in college, who would start speaking to me in Spanish as part of a conversation, I would be so scared to speak Spanish because one student decided to make fun of my accent. From then on, I was like, “Nope, I'm done. I don't want to be criticized for the way I speak.”

This was a person from Venezuela who obviously spoke the language really well. I didn't want to embarrass myself. So, again, I would stop speaking Spanish. People would talk to me completely in Spanish, and I would always respond in English because I didn't want to embarrass myself.

Even within the Spanish community—the Hispanic community, I mean—speaking Spanish was difficult for me growing up. I'm proud to be Latina, but things like that make me not want to show that side of myself.

For a long, long time, I also wouldn't listen to Spanish music because I didn't want people judging me for the kind of music I listened to. Most Americans listen to American music and know maybe one or two popular Spanish songs, like “Despacito.” But lately, since I moved to Minnesota, that's the only thing I play in my car. It's the only thing I listen to. I don't want to forget where I come from now.

I encourage my friends who don't listen to Spanish music to try it out, and a lot of them have come to accept it, which has been nice. But when I was in college, I never listened to it. In high school, I never listened to it. I would always try to make myself more American in that way and only listen to Spanish music with my family.

It was very much a back-and-forth of, “How can I make my family feel like I'm more accepted? And how can I make my American friends and coworkers feel like I'm more accepted?”

For me, the hardest part was having an identity crisis. Should I become more American and stop worrying about being more Hispanic or Latina? Or should I accept myself for who I am, forget American culture, spend more time with my family, and find more Hispanic friends?

At this point in my life, I don't care anymore. I love both aspects of it. But growing up and having to figure that out myself has taken a big toll on me.

I don't think anybody really realizes it because I never talk about it, and I never make it seem like it's a problem. But it's definitely something I deal with internally all the time. I'm not perfect, and I still struggle with it today.

What I try to do is surround myself with people who make me feel accepted on both ends—people who love me because I'm Latina and people who love me because we have something in common, because we both grew up in the United States.

Donzel: Yes. Well, Leslie, you covered so many things that I think are really important, specifically for this episode.

What I was really trying to do with this episode is honor National Hispanic Heritage Month in the United States, but also point out why anti-racism is so needed.

As I mentioned earlier in the podcast, some really good empirical survey work has been done with Hispanics to find out where racism comes from and how they experience it. It's really interesting that the vast majority of respondents said they experienced just as much racism and bias from within the Hispanic community as they do from people outside the community, or non-Hispanics.

The key areas they highlight are the three biggest areas where they feel it. One is colorism, which you talked about. The second is nativity, or where you're born—where you're from. Some Hispanics from different countries may look down on others from different countries. The last is this idea of assimilation. Are you trying to be too American? Are you not being American enough? You're stuck in the middle, with white Americans perhaps saying you're not American enough and your Latina family and friends saying you're trying to be too American.

You've covered all of those.

I want to ask you a couple of questions. I want to start with one that surprised me a little bit. This is about your experience in Key West, and it's a good wake-up call for me and others that things can change over time, sometimes not for the better.

When I grew up in Key West, 30 years before you did, there were a lot of Latina students there. When I was in middle school, there was a large influx of Cuban refugees during the Mariel boatlift. I grew up with a lot of Cuban kids, so I heard Spanish all the time. It was actually the opposite for me. I wanted to learn Spanish. I felt like I had to learn Spanish because all these kids had come, and several of them spoke no English whatsoever.

So I wanted to learn Spanish. You're saying there were only two other Latina kids growing up with you. That's hard to imagine, that kind of change could have taken place in Key West. Anyway, thank you for that wake-up call.

I also wanted to ask you: You talked about feeling like you had to make your skin lighter, straighten your hair, and fit in in Key West because of those demographic changes. Since you left Key West, you talked about how some of your family members and Latino friends would make fun of you because of the way you speak.

Have you ever felt or seen racism within the Hispanic community in terms of colorism as well? Is that something that exists, as we heard about in the surveys?

Leslie: Yeah. When I was a kid, I would play outside all day. Obviously, I'm tan, so I could get even tanner from being outside.

It's not really an insult, but sometimes, when I get that tan, my family would call me negrita, which means “black,” right? They would say, “Oh, you got black. You're my little negrita, my little black girl.”

It's not like a bad thing. We don't take it as an insult. That's not how a Spanish speaker would see it. But at the same time, I would think, “What does that mean? I feel like I'm still tan, so what does it mean to now be Black?”

I feel like in the Spanish community, there's still this idea of how white you are or how Black you are. Obviously, we have all different skin colors, but there's still racism that you see, even in the United States today. It's related to colorism.

For example, my sister is really pale white. She doesn't even seem like she's related to us. She's the whitest person in our family. A lot of times, she would have advantages in life. I'm not saying that's because she's not talented or smart—she is—but because she always looked American, she never dealt with the things I dealt with growing up.

She never experienced bullying. She didn't try speaking Spanish in school, so no one knew she really spoke Spanish until they met our family. My sister has white skin with dark hair, so people might have recognized some features that could be seen as Latina, but most of the time, they didn't.

Being tan and getting a little darker, I felt like I didn't really have any white friends. I don't think that was my fault or theirs. I just think that a lot of the white people at my school maybe didn't want to hang out with me because I was so much darker than them or because I spoke a different language. I don't know. As a kid, I didn't understand what was going on. I was just innocent to all of it.

A lot of my friends were actually darker-skinned. Again, I'm not sure whether that was because of me or them. But as I got older and became lighter-skinned, a lot of my friends became more white. I don't know if that was correlated, but it was something I noticed.

When I have family members who are a little darker-skinned, I don't think anybody says anything bad about them, but they always give them that little nickname: la negrita, meaning a little Black girl. I'm never sure what that means to them or how they feel about it, but it's just the way things are.

I also feel like a lot of times, if my family saw me with someone who was much darker-skinned than me, they would ask more questions about who that person was. For example, if I invited boyfriends over, they might say, “Oh, no, we trust them more than that other friend you had.”

They don't always consciously try to do this psychological thing of being friends with whiter people. My mom once said, “I just thought you were going to marry an American man.” At one point, I did end up dating a Latino in college, but he was still white. So, in her head, it was like, “Oh, yes, he speaks Spanish and he's white. Perfect. No problems.”

Again, I'm not saying my family is racist. I just think it's been ingrained in their minds that being with lighter-skinned people is better, which obviously isn't true. It's just what they grew up with.

I would always get mad at them when they made those comments. But it's not going to change the way they think. It is what it is. So, yes, it's definitely something I've dealt with within my own family.

I'm sure people outside my family have made similar comments. My family isn't far off from people in other South American countries. I know we all think we're better than another South American country for one reason or another, but we also have very similar thinking when it comes to colorism.

If you're darker, we want to steer away from that. If you're lighter, we want to get closer to that.

I actually saw a TikTok once about that same idea. Back in the day, when there was a mix of Black and white people, you wanted to get closer to the white side. If you were Black and going to marry someone who was white, you were supposedly helping the race—you were improving the race. But if you were a white person going to be with a Black person, then you were supposedly going backward. You weren't improving the race.

Even ideas like that have been ingrained in people's minds through history. I feel like that's what we keep bringing back as our parents raise us. Obviously, I don't want to bring that onto my kids, but sometimes you can't help making those assumptions.

I'm in an interracial relationship. My boyfriend is from Minnesota. Even in an interracial relationship, there's still that fear of, “Okay, does this white family accept me for who I am?” I know my family is okay with it, but there are still some things I want to figure out for myself. Is this interracial relationship safe for me? Is it going to make me feel okay?

I know a lot of other people in interracial relationships deal with that, too: How will that white family feel about having a person of a different race added to the family?

So, yes, I deal with it a lot. I try to teach my family not to think that way and to get to know a person before making assumptions. I also try every single day to teach my sister and anybody younger than me to move away from those thoughts and be an advocate for those ideals.

Donzel: Yeah, so much of this starts with the colonialist and imperialist practices that began in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, particularly involving the English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch, who began imposing imperialism and colonialism on darker-skinned people around the world.

They had to deal with the fact that they were small in number, had superior weapons, and were surrounded by millions of people. So they had to figure out a way to control them. One way to do that was to establish a hierarchy. By creating a hierarchy of different races and colors, and ranking some as better than others, they created this mental model that somehow, if I can get closer to being white, I'll be better.

Instead of uniting as a group—Native people, darker-skinned people, and Africans—and saying, “Let's all fight against these imperialists,” people ended up fighting one another. They could never unite.

This mentality has carried through to today. It's the same thinking: “I don't want to be darker-skinned. How can I be lighter-skinned? How can I assimilate? How can I be different? I don't want to be associated with this group.”

We've got to find a way to get away from that.

But there's also the intersectionality of being a female. Throughout history, females have also been subjugated and discriminated against. Have you experienced anything that would suggest misogyny? You're a female, Latina, and darker-skinned. Are there experiences where you felt you weren't being taken as seriously, whether by non-Hispanics or within the Hispanic community? Is there anything you can talk to us about?

Leslie: Yeah, I didn't really notice it as much when I was younger. I noticed it more in the workforce.

When I went to my first plant trial, everything went great. I went with another engineer who was also a woman. They trusted her, and they knew I was learning how to use everything, so they didn't really question anything about me.

It was when I went by myself that I started realizing all eyes were on me for all the wrong reasons. I'm about 5'2", tan, with dark hair, Latina, and just out of college. It's like the perfect disaster for people not to trust your expertise right off the bat.

At the same time, I was also learning. I wasn't the kind of person who thought, “Oh, I know everything.” But I was in charge of a trial that was running at the plant, so I felt like I had some authority.

There was a group of maintenance guys working on fixing the equipment. One guy looked me up and down, and I didn't know what to do. I thought, “Maybe he doesn't talk to me. Whatever.” Then he asked, “So, who are you?”

I said, “I'm the R&D engineer working on this trial.”

He asked, “So, what do you do, though?”

I explained, “I was the one who set up this experiment, this trial, and I'm here keeping an eye on it and making sure everything goes well. Thank you so much for helping fix the equipment. I'm sorry about all the issues happening.”

He just gave me the most judgmental look, as if to say, “You don't belong here.”

This was also in the middle of nowhere in Ohio. I understood the environment I was in, but I wasn't expecting that to happen while I was alone. Maybe if I had been with my other coworker, it would have been fine. If someone had treated me that way, maybe someone would have stood up for me.

But no one was there to stand up for me. Everyone there was a six-foot-tall white man. They were all going to gather together against me. It's not that they were being hostile, but I could tell all eyes were on me. I could tell no one wanted to come up and talk to me.

Everyone was only talking to my systems engineer, who was a tall white man. I understand that he was there every day, but I really wanted to get to know everybody and get to know the operators.

It was probably one of the hardest things I've had to deal with, especially being completely alone. I would go back to a hotel room by myself and hope I wouldn't cry when I got there.

It was definitely a shock to realize that I really had to do everything I could to prove myself. I know that if it were a man, or even a white woman, they might still deal with some of the same issues, but I feel like it wouldn't take them as long to prove themselves.

They're all American, or they seem like they were born here. I don't always seem like I was born here, and I understand why people might have those suspicions. But it's still really frustrating. It's also really sad because I don't want to have to deal with that, and I don't want to have to complain about it either. I want to be strong enough to be okay with it and think, “I'm going to prove them wrong.” But it still hurts.

I'm trying really hard to come back to this plant and get all my ducks in a row so I can prove to them, “Hey, I've got this. I know what I'm doing.”

I know that if I were a guy, they would just trust me right off the bat. It sucks.

I would say that's the first time I've ever dealt with something like that. I feel like there may have been other times when it happened and I didn't notice what the guys were doing when they weren't taking my judgment seriously or accepting my decisions.

I've also had times when I was too scared to speak out because there were so many men in the room. I would think, “If I say something, they're going to question it, and then it's going to be five against one.” I didn't want to deal with that. So I also felt discouraged from speaking up during meetings, whether at school or at work.

Donzel: Yeah, and this is something I hear very often. For people who have never experienced it, you can see that everyone is watching you, but at the same time, you feel invisible. They're watching you, but they're not talking to you. They're giving you the cold shoulder to make you feel like you're not wanted there. They're suspicious. They're not sure who you are, or they just don't like you.

That's one of those things we talk about when we discuss white privilege. Most white people have never experienced that. If you're an immigrant in the United States, if you're darker-skinned in the United States, or if you're a woman—especially a woman who is also a minority or a person of color—I guarantee you've experienced this at some point in your life.

Sometimes it's an even worse feeling than someone calling you a name. At least then you know where they're coming from. With these other people, you don't know. It's very uncomfortable.

I'm sorry you have to deal with that. We, as a country, have to do something to change.

One of the things I think is important is something you said earlier about wanting to feel more American or look more American. That's the mindset we have to change. America is not a country of white, blond-haired people. It's a country made up of many different people, and it's becoming more brown as the years go by. Within the next 20 years, it will be a majority-brown country.

That's one of the reasons you're seeing such a pushback against nationalist beliefs, white supremacy, and things like that.

America has also exercised a lot of leadership across the American continents. For over a century, many countries in Central and South America have tried to whiten their populations, block Black immigration, recruit European immigrants, and change their censuses so that people couldn't claim African ancestry. You're either white Bolivian or you're not. You're either Honduran or you're not. It's that kind of thinking.

But we're slowly starting to see some changes. I was in Brazil last week, and we're starting to see more Brazilians self-identify as having African heritage. Just a few years ago, if you looked at the statistical breakdown, it would show that 30% or 36% of Brazilians were of African heritage. You go to Brazil and you know that can't be right.

Now, it looks like that figure is over 50%. More people are self-identifying because there's been a movement in Brazil for major companies and other organizations to come together and start trying to force change in the country.

One thing I'm curious about is your thoughts on what we can do to further anti-racism within the Hispanic community. How do we generate more of this perspective that America is supposed to be a melting pot of different cultures?

There is no single picture of an American that looks like a white man, a white wife, and white kids. The picture of America is a different kaleidoscope of colors. All of us—you are as American-looking as anybody.

How do we get the Hispanic community to think that way? I do see colorism, disagreements about assimilation, and this idea of where you're from and how you're from a particular country. What do you think we need to do within the community to start driving these changes?

Leslie: Yeah, that's such a good question. I might need a second to gather my thoughts.

For me, I think the assumptions about where people are from just need to stop. Right off the bat, sometimes I'll tell people, “Oh, I grew up in Key West, Florida,” and then I'll get the question, “Oh, but where are you really from?”

Normally, that's not an insult to most people. But at this point in my life, it feels like an insult because it's as if they don't believe I'm American.

Then I have to tell them, “Oh, yeah, my family moved here from Bolivia.” But I'm not completely Bolivian, either. I didn't grow up in Bolivia. I don't know all the culture there. I only know the culture my family taught me, and I grew up here, where I learned the culture here.

The assumptions we make about people based on how they look are where we need to start. Just assume everyone is from here until they tell you otherwise. Why do we need to overexplain ourselves?

I had a friend tell me that she's tired of telling people where she's from. People hear her accent and ask, “Oh, where are you from?” Then she has to give them a whole explanation about being from Brazil. They ask why she came to the United States, and then they make assumptions. They ask, “How did you even get here? Are you here legally?”

I don't understand why we have to make those assumptions every time. There are also Europeans here on visas, but we don't ask them, “Where are you from? Why are you here? How did you get here? Who are you married to?” All those questions are completely unnecessary until that person is ready to talk about it.

I think one of the reasons people believe it's okay to ask those questions is that we, as immigrants, have come to accept that they're going to be asked all the time. And okay, yes, it's fine every once in a while. But understand that we get asked those questions a lot, every time we meet someone new.

It gets exhausting to meet new people because it's tiring to have to explain: “Yes, I'm from here. I moved here because of this. Yes, I speak a different language.” It gets exhausting.

I've talked about this with people from all over the world. We don't want to meet new people. We want to stay within our own communities because we know people in our own communities won't do that.

But if people would just talk to us like they talk to any other human being, without expecting us to explain ourselves in a way they don't expect from people of other races, that would help us feel more human. It would help us feel like we belong.

I think that's my best advice. There are probably a million other things people can do, but the first step is to assume someone is from here until they're ready to tell you where they're actually from—until you've become close enough to have that conversation.

I feel like that's kind of personal and a little too deep to talk about right away. People could have come here as refugees, and that can be a really hard thing to talk about. Even though people have normalized those questions, I don't think they should be normalized.

Donzel: Yeah. One thing I wanted to mention, when we're talking about how you've been treated as a woman, is something I forgot to mention: As men, we need to stand up to that.

When we see in meetings that our female counterparts or colleagues are being ignored, when they're trying to make a point and no one listens, or when they make a point and five minutes later a man makes the same point and everyone reacts as if it's the most brilliant idea ever, we need to stand up and say something. People forget that the woman made the point first. We need to do something. We need to be advocates who are willing to drive change.

That's really what we're trying to do here at ARCC: make a point to call things out. First, we need to educate ourselves about what racism and hate are and what bias is, so that when we see it, it doesn't slip our minds. We need to recognize it.

There are macroaggressions and microaggressions, and microaggressions can hurt just as much. Think about what you experienced at that facility, where everyone was staring at you, no one would come talk to you, and they made you feel unwanted.

We need to say something. Your engineering contact—your systems engineer contact—could easily have taken you by the hand, walked you over to each person, introduced you, and made sure those people welcomed you and gave you credibility. We need to do that.

I also had a really unique perspective when I was in Saudi Arabia a couple of weeks ago. It's funny because, when you're African American in the United States, white people never ask you where you're from. They don't, because of the history of slavery.

But when I was in Saudi Arabia, I was talking to a guy from Egypt. He explained that in Saudi Arabia, people refer to older people with respect in Arabic as “auntie” or “uncle.” They might call someone that even if they're not related.

He was telling me about the owner of their business, whom he had introduced me to. He explained that the reason he called him by a particular name was to show respect, as you would to an uncle.

I told him, “Wow, that's very similar to my culture. We do the same thing. We call elders ‘uncle,’ even if they're not related to us.”

He asked, “What culture is that?” He was Egyptian, but lived in Saudi Arabia. I said, “Well, it's African American.”

He said, “Yeah, but what country in Africa is that from? Aren't you originally from Africa?”

I had to explain that, well, yes, but...

It was really interesting because he wasn't asking, “Where are you from? How did you get there?” He was coming from a perspective of trying to link it back to his own experience. He was from Egypt and was trying to connect with what he knew about the different cultures in Africa.

It was also really interesting walking around Saudi Arabia. Racism and colorism do exist there, but no one was looking at me with suspicion. No one was looking at me as though I were anything other than another brown or dark-skinned guy there—just bigger.

It really wakes you up. It was the same thing in Brazil last week. I don't stand out there the way I do here in Minnesota, or even in some places in Florida.

We have a lot of work to do.

So, Leslie, I'd like to give you one last opportunity to tell us: Is there one message you want to leave the audience with about how we can spread anti-racism, whether within the Latina and Hispanic communities, across the entire country, or around the world, as we're trying to do at ARCC? What's the one thing you would want to leave the audience with?

Leslie: Well, first, within the Latina and Hispanic communities, I would say that within our families, it's okay if your son or daughter can't speak Spanish perfectly. You should be proud that they even tried to speak Spanish and learn it.

There are so many kids out there who have one American parent and one Hispanic, Spanish-speaking parent, and they don't bother to learn the language. Then the parents regret it and wish their kids were what we call no sabo kids—kids who speak more like a gringa or gringo.

But at the end of the day, I'm proud to know the little bit that I know. I speak to so many people who are excited that I speak Spanish, even though they're not Spanish speakers themselves. They want to practice with me because they know I won't judge them. They know my Spanish is probably about as good as theirs, and it's helpful for them that I speak more slowly or that I sound more gringa.

Leslie: I can change it up and bring out the Spanish accent. I just need a little practice, you know?

But within our families, when it comes to speaking Spanish, you should be proud that your children are even trying and wanting to learn. Never criticize them. They're trying their best, just like you're trying your best to speak English in another country where you weren't born.

I think parents need to understand what it's like to put an American child in a Spanish-speaking country. That's another experience they might be able to understand. It's not easy. Be loving to your kids. Do everything you can to support them in whatever they want to do.

Show them lots of love, even if they're not perfect. A lot of times in Latino culture, we try to make sure our kids are the best. We want them to be perfect and become doctors and engineers. It's very similar to many Asian and African cultures, too. We're always trying to make our kids the best.

But we also need to show them that we love them with their imperfections. Whether they're Spanish-speaking or don't feel Latina or Hispanic enough, be proud that they're making an effort to keep that part of themselves.

Then, within the United States, we need to help people feel like they belong, even if they don't look like you.

Instead of ignoring someone because you don't find anything in common with them and talking to other people about football—sorry, Minnesota, sometimes I get ignored because I don't talk about football all the time—find something else to talk about. Find something that isn't just your own interest.

Ask questions you might not normally ask people. A lot of times in the United States, we have a self-reliant, dominant culture that's very individualistic. It's totally fine to think that way, but it doesn't help people feel like they belong to a group because you're only thinking about yourself.

You're not thinking, “Okay, how does this person feel? What does this person want to talk about?” Instead, you're thinking about what you want to talk about. And if that person doesn't want to talk about it, you might just ignore them.

I'm not saying you should love everybody, talk to everybody, or be friends with everybody. I'm just saying: If you were in a room full of people you didn't know, how would you want them to treat you?

I'm usually in rooms full of people who don't look like me. The only time I've really felt accepted is when someone takes the time to ask me questions—not about where I'm from or why I'm here, but about things like what I do for fun or what my job is. They're trying to find something to talk about that isn't related to how I look.

I think that's what I'm going to finish with.

Actually, I have one more thing to say. The last thing I would say is to treat people like they're human. I know it sounds weird because we obviously do that, but treat people you don't know the way you would treat your best friend—with respect and love.

I'm not saying you have to love them or be their best friend. But everybody wants to be treated as though they're loved. I know the people listening to this want to feel loved, cared for, and heard.

That's the main thing: You always want to feel heard by your friends. Make other people feel that way, especially people you know don't feel heard.

The Latino community, and people in minority groups generally, are among the people who are least heard. Please be the person who listens to us. It makes us feel more human.

Donzel: Thank you so much. That was said so perfectly, Leslie.

Just as I mentioned what men need to do when they see women being disrespected or ignored, all of us need to do the same thing when it comes to eradicating racism and bias.

When we see it, we need to stand up and say something. When we see people being ignored, we need to bring them into the conversation. When we hear off-color jokes, we need to call them out right then and there.

In short, we need to stand up, speak out, and take action to drive change.

And to bring people into your point, you don't have to love everyone. But if I don't like someone, it's because they're a jerk—not because of the way they look, because they're short, because they may not be super athletic, or because they don't like football. It's because they're not a good person. That's the only thing I'm looking at.

I want to make sure you know, Leslie, that estoy muy orgulloso de ti. I am very proud of you. I want you to know that.

Leslie: Muchas gracias.

Donzel: Oh my God, I mean it. It feels so good. Thank you. Thank you so much, Leslie. Enjoy the rest of your day. I'm sure the audience is taking a tremendous amount of knowledge and perspective from this conversation.

Leslie: Thank you. Awesome. Thank you.

To find The ARCC of Change podcast with Donzel Leggett and learn more about the Anti-Racism Commitment Coalition, or ARCC, please visit joinarcc.org. You can also subscribe to The ARCC of Change with Donzel Leggett on your favorite podcast hosting sites.

Donzel: I greatly look forward to our next episode and another opportunity to inspire you to become part of the movement that will change the world by eradicating racism once and for all.

Until next time, stay safe and continue to ask yourself: Am I doing enough? And remember that none of us are doing enough as long as racism and hate still exist.

Thanks for listening, and goodbye.

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