Youth Opinion : Love Me, Love My (Brown) Mother : It’s infuriating and hurtful to see other Latinos trying so hard to associate only with ‘whites.’

Our neighbor, let’s call her Debbie, looked at my mother with such disdain that it shocked me. She had never seen my mother before, but she had gone out of her way to be friendly to my father. I could not understand why she was so openly rude to my mom.

A firendlier neighbor later told my mother, “She tried to come into my house and tell me not to associate with you. She tried to say that I shouldn’t let a Mexican into my house.”

The worst part of it was that Debbie was also Mexican. Her given name had been Delores, but she changed it because Delores sounded “too Mexican.”

Debbie had thought my father was a white man, so she respected him. When Debbie saw me with my dad, she figured we were one of the many white families in the neighborhood. Debbie only associated with white-skinned people. Talking to my tawny brown mother was out of the question. She would allow her children to bring home friends only if they were white.

The situation with Debbie was one of the first incidents I remember where people who shared my family’s ethnicity openly despised their own culture. To this day, why someone chooses to deny their own culture still puzzles me. And angers me.

I have been plagued for years by the fact that I am the whitest member of my family, except for the few hueros (light-skinned people) who married in. In elementary school, I fought with a girl because she hated the fact that I was Mexican but had light skin and sort of blond hair.

“You think you’re all better because you’re a rubia (blond),” the girl said, “You think you’re so better.”

The truth was, I never thought I was any better because I did not think I was any different. I figured I was of the same culture, just a different blend. But as I got older, I noticed how differently some people would deal with my mother and me. Once when we went shopping, the salesman followed my mother through the store. She kept telling him that she was browsing, but he stayed on her tail. He ignored me when I rushed past him.

At the perfume counter, I heard him whisper to the saleswoman who was helping me that he “didn’t trust those Mexicans because they’ll pocket anythita turned and walked away without saying a word.

My mother was confused. I was furious. Later, I was told that Anita had said her relatives were white and was using me to prove it by telling people I was her cousin. She was embarrassed by my mother.

I was sick about her behavior then, and I am still disgusted by it. I cannot shrug off people like Debbie and Anita. I want to challenge them and ask, “Why?” But I do not expect to be satisfied with their answers.