“Caribbean-origin individuals may distinguish themselves from African Americans in an attempt to ward off further disparagement (Waters 1999; Zéphir 1996). In conducting her research with second-generation Haitian youth, Zéphir (2001) found that those youth who had migrated at high school age and who thus retained their French accents bore these as a point of pride because they felt it distinguished them from African Americans.” – Doucet & Suarez-Orozco, “Ethnic Identity and Schooling”

The school I taught at before this year was the most racially diverse setting I’ve ever been in. Watching the students discuss racial distinctions and segregate themselves accordingly was astonishing. In one instance, I had one student (of Dominican origin) announce to the entire class that he “hated” his classmate in the desk beside him because that student was Puerto Rican. In another case, a young sixth grade girl (of Haitian origin) told another teacher, “I’m not black; I’m light-skinned.” 

Both of these events haunted me, and in the first instance, for several seconds all I could do was stare at the student in shock. Coming from an almost all-white small town in the Midwest, I was ignorant of this nuanced type of racial stratification; the “categories” of race that I knew until that point were far more simplified. In fact, when this article stated that Haitian immigrants in particular are stigmatized in the US, I thought, “Really? They are?” I felt that deep sting of self-loathing as I realized I had been participating in the dominant culture’s view of race as “skin deep.”

With my shallow concept of “blackness,” I didn’t understand these racial stratifications among immigrants of different countries. To see young students understand this stratification–or at least act it out, whether they “understood” it or not–felt discouraging to me. I have an idealistic dream of contributing somehow to the improvement of racial relationships in the United States, and these instances made me realize that the issues were more complicated than I ever realized. One aspect that saddened me was knowing that, ultimately, these students who were explicitly attempting to distance themselves from “blackness” would still likely face some form of discrimination from the dominant culture. It broke my heart to see students actively utilize coping methods (which oppresses another group in the process) to protect themselves from racism, especially because I knew these attempts likely would not stop the dominant culture as treating them as a member of the minority.