Tu Lucha Es Mi Lucha… An Open Letter to My Latinx Community

A Mi Querida Familia Latinx,

The death of George Floyd has not reignited but has added fuel to the fire that is the Black Lives Matter movement. From this sprung a series of protests, riots and civil disobediences which have sparked an outrage so great it is hard for me to ignore. I do not mean the outrage of those who are personally affected by the racist ideology that is so deeply embedded in the fabric of America’s being. I do not mean the outrage of those who believe that their response is nothing less than criminal and unjustified. I do mean the outrage within the Latinx community.

Do not mistake the outrage I speak of for that of mis hermanos y hermanas who have risen and stood beside our Black brothers and sisters at la frontera. I speak solely of the outrage of those who sit at home, watching Telemundo and Univision in pure disgust at what has unfolded before their blinded eyes.

It is no secret that the same deeply rooted racist ideology that plagues America also plagues our cultures. How many of us Latinx people have heard our family members warn us about marrying a Black man or woman (or people of queer gender for those whose families are progressive enough to even accept the gay community)? How many of us have heard their family members tell them that the way the speak or the music they listen to or how they dress makes them seem like they’re Black? How many of us have heard their family members use the racial slur cocolo to address Black people? The poet Elizabeth Acevedo has a piece titled “My mother tells me to fix my hair” in which she describes the Black history embodied by the texture of her hair and how the simple act of her mother telling her to “fix” it means to make it look less Black, attempting to rid it of any signs of our history.

To some of you, this is just the way things are. I’m addressing you all to tell you that it isn’t. These instances are not only that of prejudice, but they are exactly the reason why we as a people are unable to progress. I have scrolled through my social feeds and have seen a countless amount of Latinx people crying out for the remembrance of our struggles with ICE, the institutional oppression we face under the term of 45, and the racism we endure dealt by some of his followers. I am sure that what I am about to say will strike a chord with some of you, maybe even my own family members, but I will say it anyway. We have privilege.

I do not claim that this privilege is on the same level as those our White counterparts have. On the contrary, our privilege is so slight that we still share many of the same struggles as those of the Black community. Nonetheless, we have it. This privilege is born from the adaptation of racial prejudices by our ancestors which is still carried out to this day in the aforementioned methods. These “subtle” attempts to blind ourselves from our history have birthed a color consciousness which further developed into a colorism that praises the ability of passing, the ability to reap the benefits of being fair-skinned. Colorism within the Latinx community is prominent and the driving force of a wedge between us y nuestros hermanos y hermanas who literally fight for their lives against the oppressors we love to say we hate but glorify and justify in our own methods of thought.

Yes, we the Latinx community are fighting a battle against oppression and racism but it is not being overshadowed by the fight of Blacks. Tu Lucha Es Mi Lucha. Though some of us promote forgetting our own history and adapting to that of others, they have not forgotten. The racist Whites will not applaud your attempt to appease them and their system. Instead, they exploit our feeble attempts in the manner of “Latinos for Trump” and other organizations, movements and positions in which those who reap colorist benefits are solely there to try and get the rest of us to comply. Though some may in fact be there of their own will, I sit here and wonder how many of them have been congratulated on their ability to “be educated” or “be different” from their own people. Just some food for thought.

We need to wake up and realize that until our Black friends, family and community is granted justice on their historic fight for equality, we will never be equal. This is a fight to abolish race and the color of skin as indicators of being the “other.” Their history is OUR history. TU LUCHA ES MI LUCHA. It is their fight to be seen and treated as human. It is their fight to become more than a statistic. It is their fight to be given equal opportunity. It is their fight for a fair chance at the American dream. It is their fight to obtain a freedom that has been denied to them. It is their fight to be able to walk or run or sit or stand on the land they helped build without being harassed due to assumptions. LA LUCHA DE ELLOS ES LA MISMA DE NOSOTROS.

Mi Querida Familia Latinx, this fight is our fight. I call on you to stand and do something. Does this mean going out and protesting? Yes, it can. Does this mean voicing your support to the Black community? Yes, it can (and, being biased, it should). Does this mean correcting your Latinx family members and friends when they engage in colorist and prejudice behaviors? ABSOLUTELY. Educate them. Expose them to the world that exists beyond those archaic views. Read them this letter (and the countless others all over the internet). Start a revolution from your own home.

Los quiero a todos,

Ileana Leon

“I said what I said”