I Don’t Really Look that Hispanic Latino Boys Negotiating Racial and Ethnic Identity at School

• In Event: 519 - Section on Race, Class and Gender Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 02. Attitudes and Identities Among Youth and Young Adults

Abstract

The quote in the title provides a glimpse into the complex process of coming to some understanding about one’s racial and ethnic identity, and how that identity can be informed by social context. Utilizing eleven interviews with young Latino boys, this paper explores how they negotiate their racial identities in a predominantly white high school in New Mexico? I found that the multiracial White and Latino boys sought to leverage their multiracial status and “choose” their whiteness to access privilege and eschew the racial stigma associated with being Latino. I found that they positioned their identities in response racial stigma associated with being male and being Latino. One young man accentuated a whitened identity, while another reluctantly claimed Hispanic heritage. Still another identified as White, but described many social interactions where he was not accepted as white. Two others embraced their ethnic identity. One did so in response to negative experiences with school, while another was more ambivalent, but was moving toward a more assertive identity. Finally, the two dark skinned Latinos with a shared African American heritage were subject to the dominant paradigm that one-drop of African black ancestry defines one as black, the “one-drop” rule (Davis, 2006). Thus they were compelled to identify as “African American,” but also did so as a way to preserve their heritage of being “Hispanic” and “African American.”

Author

• Chalane E. Lechuga, Metropolitan State University of Denver