An Emerging Entry In America’s Multiracial Vocabulary: ‘Blaxican’

*This isn’t the first time I hear the word, but it’s the first time I read about it . . . and it’s about time. Giving something a name is the first step toward mainstreaming an idea. The idea here is that the Latino culture is a mixed bag of race, and while bigotry exists within the Latiuno community, there’s also an understading of tolerance and of pushing the boundaries of “normal” in America. VL


CodeSwitch-01By Adrian Florido, Code Switch (8 minute read)

When Melissa Adams and her sister were growing up in Lynwood, near Compton, Calif., their black father and Mexican mother taught them to be proud of all aspects of their identity: They were black, and they were Mexican.

At home, that came easy. Publicly, it was harder. Consider the time Melissa was named valedictorian of her middle school when she was 13. It was the first time anyone could remember a black student winning that honor at her school.

“Everyone was excited,” she said over breakfast at her family’s house recently. “It was the first black valedictorian!” School administrators planned a special ceremony for her, and the dean called Adams into her office to congratulate her.

But when Adams walked in, the dean’s smile melted away.

“She was notably disappointed by what she saw,” Adams said, her voice trembling at the memory. “She didn’t believe I was black.” Adams, who has light skin, long, straight brown hair, and speaks Spanish, is used to people assuming that she’s entirely Mexican or even white. She explained to the dean that her father was black, which was why she’d checked the box for that racial category on a school enrollment form. “She told me not to do that again,” Adams recalled.

Click HERE to read the full story.


[Photo courtesy of Code Switch]

Suggested reading

Helena Maria Viramontes
Helena Maria Viramontes
The Moths and Other Stories contains nine timeless masterpieces that explore the social, economic, and cultural impositions that shape women’s lives. Prejudice and the social and economic status of Chicanos often form the backdrop for these haunting stories, but their central, unifying theme deals with the social and cultural values which shape women’s lives and which they struggle against with varying degrees of success. The subject of a growing body of critical work, every year new readers have been introduced to the power of Viramontes’ words.
[cc_product sku=”978-1-55885-138-2″ display=”inline” quantity=”true” price=”true”]

Subscribe today!

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Must Read