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How Immigration Changes The Concept Of Race By Wendy Roth

859 Words4 Pages

In the past, race was often seen as objectively concrete; a definable trait in the individual that correlates them to a specific heritage. History has greatly influenced certain representations of race. Today, the concept of race has moved away from one’s biological background towards a way of dividing individuals into a category. Literature in particular has had a tremendous impact on the way in which race is perceived. Authors deploy stereotypes strategically to their cultural objects in order to make a particular argument with regards to this representation of race. In “How Immigration Changes the Concept of Race”, Wendy Roth introduces the idea of racial schemas as the different ways people can understand and interpret race. She explores …show more content…

Roth references three cases of individuals and the similarities and differences in which they use to racially identify themselves. There are many different ways of classifying race. Mulato, Black, and Latino are three different ways that Agustín, Raquel, and Isandro respectively, think about the same racial mix. Agustín describes the racial categories that exist in the Dominican Republic: blancos (white skinned), negros (black skinned), and mulatos (mixed skin). Even though Agustín is a man with dark skin and African features, he places himself within the mulatos majority. “I understand that I’m a mix of blanco and negro, of Spanish and African origin…[I’m] mulatos… not totally negro but instead a mix” (Roth 12). Raquel has pale light skin, straight black hair, and appears to be mostly European. She also agrees with Agustín’s claim that there are only three races, but contends that the understanding of her racial identity extends to other factors beyond social standards of race based on skin color. “There would be your ancestry-you need to look at your grandparents, your great grandparents. You need to look at the shape of your mouth, the size of your ears, how your nose is, the texture of your hair…the color of your eyes, the color of your hair” (Roth 13). Being that Raquel didn’t fit exclusively into one of the socially accepted racial categories, she felt as though she had no other options than choosing Black because “I’m not White or Asian. So I must be whatever is left.” Isandro is a Puerto Rican man with medium-brown skin. He identifies his race –and that of practically everyone around him in Puerto Rico –as Latino. “A lot of people say that Latino doesn’t exist as a race” and because of this, Isandro struggles to racially identify as either White or Black. According to him, Latinos are not

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