power, privilege, and everyday life.
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137 posts tagged nationality
“So every week, do the Guatemalans come and mow your lawns?”
My world history teacher, mocking students for living in a generally wealthy town.
“Oh, I don’t know how to pronounce those names.”
My supervisor at a new job, about my name. I had frequently repeated my name in order for coworkers & supervisors to learn it.
“All immigrants should go back to their own countries!”
My white American gay classmate to another fellow classmate, who was an immigrant from Poland. It made me, another immigrant, feel shocked because he himself was ridiculed all the time, and I did not expect him to stoop down to the level of his prejudiced, homophobic peers. It made me feel worried, marginalized, unwelcome, nauseous and rejected.
A substitute teacher to my class of English as a Second Language students- "So what? Are you all Mexicans?“ The kids came and told me the next day :(
I’m biracial, and visibly ‘foreign looking’. I’ve been living in Denmark for nearly 3 years now, and German is taught as a second foreign language, so I’ve been learning German from scratch for 3 years. Every teacher I’ve had (I’ve had 3) is either suprised I can do well at German, and two have both, at least once, singled me out in the class in accusations of plagiarism in regards to German assignments, because it was deemed unlikely that I was capable of writing the material myself.
In a class during junior year of high school, our teacher was showing us pictures of skylines from various countries. One of the pictures was incorrectly labeled Mumbai. When I corrected her and said it was actually a picture of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates , no one reacted. Thinking I might not have been loud enough I said it again. A classmate next to me accusatorially asked me why I knew that. Apparently even knowing basic geography about the Middle East is suspicious if you’re brown.
Welcome to this country
From a colleague who heard my accent and asked when I came here. My response - “I’ve lived here since before you were born, buddy.” At a smoke break at work.
White pharmacist asks white girl I’m training if she knows a particular old movie. Girl says yes and turns to me and asks if I have seen the movie. Supervisor jumps in before I respond and says “She doesn’t know that movie, she wasn’t born here!”(Referring to America). Apparently, knowledge of certain movies is limited by your place of birth.
I’m an Asian American woman who is a hairstylist. When I first started out I was in a high end salon. Countless times I received “compliments” for speaking English so well, sounding so “educated” for a young single mom, for dealing with creepy men who asked me out on dates, and for dealing with rich women (some were Asian immigrants) who talked down to me. I love what I do but it was so disheartening to have a crap shoot of walk-in clients. Those first couple of years were rough but I have a wonderful clientele now.
At a job interview::
Interviewer:: That's a different name. Where does it come from?
Me:: I'm from Puerto Rico.
Interviewer:: Oh, you look smart for a Puertorrican.
(I'm light-skinned.)
“You know, Trump is an idiot,” my colleague began, “but he seems to be the only one who is going to do something about the immigration problem.” I was surprised that one the best teachers at our 99% Latino school held this opinion.
I reminded him of the effect that U.S. policies have had on Mexico and other Nations since the 18th century, asserting that the U.S. has a responsibility to accept immigrants from a world it has ruined.
After a pause and a deep inhalation, my colleague ended our conversation saying, "I’ve never thought of it that way.”
A coworker of mine constantly comments about her aggravation over having to decipher what these “third world country” call center “people” are saying. While she tries her best to portray an Indian accent. I’ve complained numerous times but stopped when nothing was being done about it I’m Mexican and even I cry when she says things like this. But she doesn’t realize she’s doing or saying anything wrong. Made me feel disgusted, hurt, angry, vindictive.
I work in a Mexican restaurant. My white male coworker is serving a table when he turns around and asks me: “Hey, you’re Mexican, how do you pronounce this word in Spanish?”
I reply: “I’m not Mexican, I’m Paraguayan.”
He proceeds to say loudly: “No one cares, it’s the same damn thing.”
This was said right in front of our costumers.Not all Latinos are Mexican and Mexicans are not similar to Paraguayans. I felt belittled by the fact that my entire history, people and culture can be dismissed by one ignorant comment.