Race As A Social Construct

Racialization, to differentiate or categorize according to race, is still prominent in today's society. Race, a social construct, was created by society. There is no gene in the human body that defines what "race" you are, therefore, it is only an idea that individuals came up with. Yet, people in today's society still categorize individuals by their race and stereotype individuals by what race they most resemble. People grow into this society with the idea embedded into their heads that the whiter you are, the better off you will be in life. People who are lighter skinned are more socially acceptable, will be treated differently, and will be respected more than those who appear more Indian or are darker skinned.

"The thought occurred to me, that here in the U.S. we operate under a caste system that is determined by the shade of your skin. We make immediate judgments about a person's place in the hierarchy based on the color of their skin. We

determine the amount of respect we will give a person based on the color of their skin. In fact, we make innumerable decisions on how we will behave towards a person, based on the color of their skin, their features, even their manner of speaking. If that is not a caste system, what is?" [Annec] Although America is the most diverse country, it is still very discriminatory and stereotypical. For example, simply because I am light skinned, some of my fellow classmates believed I was white. I cannot explain why but I was offended by their conclusion. I immediately explained that I was Mexican and was further offended by the fact that they asked me if I could speak good Spanish or Spanish at all for that matter. According to them, an individual who looked white was white and if they so happened to be Mexican, for example, their whiteness automatically implied that they had assimilated so much into the white culture that they had been completely deprived of their own culture and language or had simply shunned it from their lifestyle.

I come from South Central Los Angeles from an overcrowded high school and a tough neighborhood. I grew up with the idea that minorities stayed in these neighborhoods and grew up to be the individuals they were stereotyped to be: high school drop outs, stuck in a dead end job, single parents, and gang affiliated, in prison or with criminal records, dead at an early age. This is the way society has brought us up to believe and because of this some people give up on themselves and give in to these stereotypes. I was lucky enough to have been pushed towards higher education by my siblings and by my high school teachers and counselors. But not everyone is so lucky.

As minorities our struggle to become more acknowledge in our society continues. We still yearn to put more minorities in high positions like in our country's government, Congress, as representatives, maybe even president one day. These positions are still predominantly filled by Caucasians. Every single president has been a white male and will most likely continue to be. In the history of America, the white individual, whether actually Caucasian or just physically resembling a Caucasian individual, has been seen as the higher person. "The notion of race has played a role in the way Americans think about their historyÐ'...[Ð'...] Elsewhere, classes may have struggled over power and privilege, over oppression and exploitation, over competing senses of justice and right; but in the United States, these were secondary to the great, overarching theme of race. [Ð'...] The determination to keep the United States a white man's country, they would say, has been the central theme of AmericanÐ'... Racism has been America's tragic flaw." [Fields] While other countries are struggling from economic problems, America continues to suffer from racialization, both internal and external.

Internal Racialization is another huge problem in the Mexican-American community. The past history that America has had with racialization has instilled this idea that the lighter one is the better off they are in society. This has brought about internal racialization among Mexican-Americans. Lighter skinned Mexican-Americans look down upon the darker, more Indian looking Mexican-Americans. The more white looking Chicanos may make fun of darker skinned Chicanos and forget that we are all one people and skin color should not matter. Also, culture may be lost when these white Chicanos tend to try too hard to assimilate into today's white society. I have met Mexican-American individuals that cannot speak a single word of Spanish and do not seem to mind at all. I find that very depressing and discouraging. Our culture and language are slowly being assimilated out of our people's system. The continuous racialization of the Mexican-American people by the White people has caused this internal racialization that is still very prominent up to this day.

In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed and the Mexican-American War was ended. It declared that Mexicans who lived within the newly acquired southwest territory would be incorporated into the U.S. and would be given all the rights of its citizens. [Menchaca 3] But it was all a lie. After the treaty was signed, the new Mexican-Americans received no such rights. Instead racialization commenced and the Mexican people were concluded to be inferior to the white people. "Within a year, however, the United States violated the treaty's citizenship articles and refused to extend Mexicans full political rights because most of them were not White." [Menchaca 19] The Mexicans that agreed to be U.S. citizens did not get what they bargained for. They were stripped of their land, discriminated against, were given no rights, and were segregated in schools.

In California, only Whites were given full citizenship and only U.S. males and white Mexican males