In the Latino community that looks like light-skinned Hispanics, who may deal with different forms of anti-Latino racisms, receiving preferential treatment in school, the workplace and politics. We live in a culture that values whiteness, so the closer we meet this ideal, the more privileges many of us attain. According to a study , black Latinos live in more racially segregated neighborhoods with little exposure to non-Latino white people and lower property values. A study on light-skinned and dark-skinned Mexican Americans found that the former group is more likely to have more years of schooling even when both family backgrounds are similar. From state and local officials to Congress to the current presidential candidates, most Latino politicians representing our community are light-skinned or straight-up white-passing. The infant mortality rate throughout Latin America is higher for those of African descent. Share Tweet 5K Shares. Here are a few: 1.

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W hat exactly does being a light-skinned Latina mean for me? It means that all at once, I am just dark enough, too dark or not dark enough at all. In college, a white classmate once touched my arm and said that she loved my tan. In that moment, however, I stopped being me. I was just a nice tan. I may as well have been a chemically constructed liquid, something she could purchase in a bottle or spray on herself at the beach. Colorism favors people with lighter skin tones and violently dismisses those with darker ones.
By Ruben Navarrette Jr. Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what's happening in the world as it unfolds. Ruben Navarrette says life in Mexico comes with more challenges for darker-skinned people.
Dear Mexican: H ow did the patron saint of Mexico get a name derived from Arabic? El Moro Judio. But another school of thought favored by many Mexican and Chicano scholars argues that Guadalupe got Her name thanks to Spanish stupidity. The two terms are rough homonyms of Guadalupe, goes the tale, and so the Spaniards assumed Juan Diego meant their goddess and renamed his brown virgin Guadalupe. The problem with this revisionist theory, however, is that it has no basis in historical fact. I experience more racism from my own people than gabachos. Do I remind the pinches indios too much of their Spanish conquerors?